Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, it would be fair to say that I have had an interesting and stimulating adult life. Very few things have been denied me by a loving God, who has given me just about everything I have ever asked for, though, as I said in my first speech, it was generally in his time frame not mine.

I have had three careers: one in theatre, one in regional development and one in representative politics. In the early sixties, I joined the Arts Council of Australia in Brisbane as its first full-time CEO. At that time, it was separating from the New South Wales division. My role was to tour theatrical, musical, visual and educational shows and exhibitions to 57 centres in Queensland. I toured the Australian Ballet; the Elizabethan Theatre Trust Opera Company, now Opera Australia; JC Williamson's stage shows; plays; jazz; and art exhibitions. It was incredibly satisfying work, sharing the culture art of Australia with regional and rural Australians; so many talented singers, dancers, actors and artists engaging with country people.

If I could make an observation in passing, more in sorrow than in anger: despite the advances in transport and the electronic age, there is less touring of country centres today than there was 45 years ago. But it is not surprising that some of the sense of the dramatic, the timing and the storytelling rubbed off on me and has served me well in this place. Madam Speaker, if you would allow me the indulgence of another theatrical analogy: this speech today marks the end of the season and like the actor on stage for the last time the curtain is coming down, and I am filled with a mixture of elation and sadness.

From live theatre, I moved on to cinema and to Bundaberg with Birch Carroll and Coyle, where my longstanding friend and mentor was Terry Jackman, who has gone on to play significant roles in the promotion of Australian movies, cinema and tourism. Also, for a short time, I was a partner in a drive-in theatre, but the stories thereupon will be kept for another day. They were great days in cinema, when the theatres were grappling with television. I played a part in the funding of Michael Pate's The Mango Tree, which was shot in Bundaberg, Gayndah and Wallaville. Our local theatre hosted the world premiere a day ahead of its Australian release. So it is pleasant for me to see the current revival in Australian filmmaking and the role our talented actors and filmmakers play on the international stage. We should not be shy in promoting and funding them.

Anyone who thinks they come to this place solely on his own merits deludes himself. For most of us, we come here because of family, supporters and party, and the goodwill those three components generate in our electorates. We should ever be conscious of the great gift our electors have extended to us. It is a remarkable statistic that in the 112 years since Federation only 1,093 people have sat on the floor of the House of Representatives and only 866 at the time when I first joined the team in 1993. Of my seven elections, three were perilously close—under 450 votes, in fact, and one of them was 69 votes, and thanks to a 5½-week recount, Simon, 64 votes.

As the goodwill of the people of Hinkler grew, the seat moved to a 10.4 per cent margin with the LNP eventually taking every booth, even traditional Labor ones. That was in 2010 and, although I was not subjected to any pressure, it was obvious that these were the circumstances where one could move on confidently. In that spirit, I wish my endorsed successor, Keith Pitt, every success.

I will miss this place, its all-consuming atmosphere and, of course, all of you on both sides. Yes, the hours are long, the travel is extensive, the complexity of constituent work daunting and the righting of injustices that come across our desks challenging if not stressful. Yet, its very demanding complexity has its own reward. That is not to say that the life is not rewarding; it is. The friendships on both sides have a character, warmth and respect of their own.

Strangely, I have never been thrown out of this place, though there was one time I was perilously close. At one particular question time, the Labor opposition was in a very restless mood and I took three attempts to ask my question. On the third attempt, the Second Deputy Speaker Harry Jenkins said, 'Ah, tell 'em the frog joke!' This was a reference to a particularly dull night in Seoul, South Korea, where the Australian and Canadian delegations decided to liven up a reception. Yours truly was grappling with suitable clean jokes that would not offend the local South Korean sensibilities. They loved the frog joke.

An opposition member: Put it in Hansard.

I will. As Harry spoke, I got the giggles. I could not stop laughing. The tears ran down my face. I could not read the question, much less ask it. The Speaker, David Hawker, was not impressed and gave me one last chance before I blurted out the question.

And so the frog joke: Nanna was visiting for the first time in four years and little Johnny had never met Nana, and it was a great event. So it was decided after a very happy weekend that on Monday, when the parents had gone to work and the other kids had gone to school, that Johnny would bond with Nanna. They had a marvellous day. They brought in the paper, watered the plants and made pikelets, and at that point Johnny said to Nanna, 'Nanna, when are you going to turn into a frog and we are going to live in a new house?' She said, 'Darling, no you're not. Mummy told me last night you loved this house.' 'No, Nanna,' he said. 'You're going to turn into a frog and we're going to live in a new street.' And she said, 'No, Johnny.' He tried three or four times and she was getting a bit twitchy with him, and she said, 'Johnny, what makes you say that?' And he said, 'Well, last night as I was going to the bathroom I walked past Mummy's and Daddy's room and I heard Daddy say to Mummy, "You know, when the old girl croaks we'll be on easy street." ' That nearly got me thrown out of the parliament!

My wife Margaret, who is in the gallery, worked beside me from the night I was offered the endorsement in 1992—door-to-door, backs of trucks, stalls and markets and endless public meetings. But it was her from-the-heart undoctored handwritten letters to the electorate that won me more votes than you can possibly imagine. You would go to a function after one of her letters went out and no-one would want to talk to me but, 'Is your wife here? How are the two sets of twins?' et cetera, et cetera. She also had a very good nose for trends in political life. As a result of door-knocking in Biloela one Sunday morning, she correctly predicted the start of the Hanson phenomenon.

But one incident sticks in my mind following that first election. I was bemused why five of the 75 booths in the electorate had swung against me in 1993. One of these was Ambrose, which sits between Gladstone and Rockhampton. It is a small community built on either side of the Bruce Highway. En route to a wedding at Rockhampton we resolved to call in to Ambrose to see why. It was mid-Saturday morning; there was no-one in the pub; there was no-one in the shops; there was no-one in the streets on the eastern side of the town. So we went over to the western side of the town where the atmosphere was similar, but as we came around the state school and down a hill, up loomed the CWA hall with 50 or 60 cars around it. Here was our big chance. We could engage with the whole town in one hit. Margaret felt that the locals might be getting ready for a wedding or a dance that night, so bold as brass and full of confidence, I bounced in and said to women who were running feverishly hither and yon, 'Well, girls, what's on here today?' Do you know where I was? I, a lone male, had just gatecrashed a country pap-smear clinic. Margaret says I never learn, but let it be said that Paul Neville went literally everywhere for a vote.

I have been blessed with a loving and supportive family. My twin sons Peter and Paul, were with me on my first speech—and Paul is here in the gallery today with his wife Cait and three of my six grandchildren, Georgie, Angus and Hugh. I know my other children, Gavin, Gaye, Peter and Sally, who is in China, are with me in spirit. I also acknowledge my landlord Mac Howell who, with his wife Marilyn, made my last 13 years in Canberra a happy, relaxed and welcoming experience overlaid by generous hospitality and far too much red wine. With me too is long-term friend and political warrior Michael Evans, who is the architect of so many of the stunning Joh campaigns. Here for this—and for other serious state-federal horticultural matters later today—is one of my three immediate state colleagues, Steve Bennett, the member for Burnett, and in the gallery is my friend of 40 years, Everald Compton.

Coming to this place owes everything to a band of friends and campaign workers but pre-eminent amongst them was Rod Wilson of Calliope who was my campaign director for seven—note, seven—campaigns. He had a superb nose for local political sentiment, a rare and authoritative organising ability, a sense of advertising effectiveness and his own system of statistical analysis, to say nothing of his ability to fundraise. I will forever be in his debt.

Our organisational 'light on the hill', to use a Labor analogy, has always been Dick Bitcon, who has given 50 years to the National Party in Queensland and Victoria. I rate him as a close friend and a confidant over many years. In the 14 years that I represented Gladstone, I had a marvellous team of Graham Wilson, Greg McCann, Graham Fenton, Tony Goodwin, Ken O'Dowd, who is now the member for Flynn, and deputy campaign director Don Holt, whom I can say with great confidence can mount a corflute sign anywhere—even the top of a 50 foot tree or places where he should not put them.

In Childers, Fred Henke, the ever-reliable Alf Bonanno and my current FDC Chair, Bill Trevor, who has the rare art of being able to take the community pulse, have all served me well. In Hervey Bay, Steve Dixon, Norma Hannant, Brendon Falk and Len Fehlhaber have also served me well. I reserve a special place for Lin and Jan Powell. When an unexpected redistribution gave me Hervey Bay six years ago, Lin, a former MLA, Speaker and Queensland education minister, literally came out of retirement, assumed the role of deputy campaign director for Hervey Bay and eased me into Hervey Bay. This reciprocated the role I played for him two decades earlier in the eighties.

I have also valued the corporate and business advice from Bill Moorheadin Bundaberg, Glenn Winney and Graham Cockerill in Hervey Bay and Graham McVean in Gladstone. Graham, Kevin Campbell from Perth and I spend every Easter on Witt Island in Gladstone Harbour, where I refocus and renew myself for the coming year, albeit with copious quantities of mud crab and a certain red cordial.

Cooperative state colleagues are a vital ingredient of this job. Over the years, I have worked with Doug Slack, Jeff Seeney, Liz Cunningham, Anne Maddern, Chris Foley, Ted Sorensen, Jack Dempsey and Steve Bennett, who, as I have said, is in the gallery today. Two of these were conservative independents and the others National LNP. There were good Labor friends as well: Trevor Strong, Nita Cunningham, Andrew McNamara, and the former member for Hinkler, Brian Courtice, once my nemesis but now a friend and, would you believe, a supporter.

One could not have had a better leader, mentor, close friend and electoral neighbour than Warren Truss, whom I have known for some 40 years. In all that time, across a wide range of roles, I have never known a person more across his brief than Warren nor a hostess as charming and welcoming as Lyn.

That brings me to the team, or should I say my other family with whom I sit in this place, the Nationals. It is 56 years since, as a 17-year-old, I joined the predecessor organisation of the Country Party. Earlier, at 12 years of age and pre TV, I would sit up on election nights with a pad and pencil, writing down the figures as they came over the radio, trying to assess who would win what seat. I got very good at it and thought I would not mind doing that some time. From the YCP I went on to be its state president and to contest Wide Bay in 1969, then to win the endorsement for Hinkler in 1992. That brought me to this place and the fulfilment of my long-held dreams.

I will miss this family, its trust and its camaraderie. We Nationals are a diverse lot with a common love of rural and provincial Australia. I hope I have played my part to make this a better place to live and to achieve the Australian dream. I have been fortunate to campaign with giants like McEwen, Anthony, Sinclair and Nixon in 1969 and to serve under the leadership of Tim Fischer, John Anderson, Mark Vaile and Warren Truss, all men of high integrity and purpose.

It would be fair to say that the high point of my career was the 11½ years of the Howard government. It was exhilarating and one had a sense that as the debt was paid off the country was moving to a new beginning to be led by John Howard, Peter Costello and the previously mentioned Nationals leaders. I think history will treat that 11½ years very well. It will show that the focus on policy and positioning Australia for the long term, bolstered by Howard's strong commitment, not only gave the country a cohesive feel about it but also brought the Liberal and National Parties closer together.

Within this framework I developed a taste for communications, broadcasting, transport and health. I served on various iterations of the transport and infrastructure committee where my mentor was Peter Morris, the then ALP member for Shortland. Pre politics he had helped me and the Hinkler House Committee in Bundaberg develop aspects of Hinkler's house, its history and the botanical precinct including the building of a full-size replica of Bert Hinkler's amphibian, the Ibis. Later, as chair of that committee, I led several inquiries resulting in Planning not Patching, Tracking Australia, Beyond the Midnight Oil and The Great Freight Task. These were challenging reports and they took us to highways, roads, ports and airports across Australia from cities to the most remote locations.

I remember one day very well during the Beyond the Midnight Oilinquiry. We were having a public hearing here in Canberra and we had the RAAF before us explaining how they handled fatigue and the treatment of airmen. I asked one officer to explain the sleep apnoea machine. He described the facial mask, tubing akin to a vacuum cleaner pipe and a blowing machine, all of which delivered a constant stream of filtered air to the apnoea subject's face. And I said, 'How many hours a night do they wear this device?' 'Oh', he said, 'All night.' At which point a member of the committee, Colin Hollis, in one of his fractious moods that day, chipped in, 'I bet it does wonders for their sex life.' That was deleted from Hansard.

Honourable members interjecting—

Not surprisingly, but it is back in. It is obvious we can construct roads and highways better in Australia and some of the newer Western Australian roads are testament to that. We waste a fortune on merely patching, overlaying asphalt over poor asphalt. Rail is also sorely neglected. Suburban rail in most states is not keeping up with the urban sprawl. Worse still, we have talked for nearly two decades about an inland rail from Melbourne to Brisbane. We have spent at least $30 million on studies and reports to no avail. It could be done for $1½ billion—$300 or $400 million over four years—or even less as a PPP with the government carrying out corridor and native title facilitation. Let me put it another way: if we spent about an eighth of what we spent on school halls and pink batts—and that is not said with any vindictive spirit—just an eighth of what we spend on those, this project would now be half complete: our freight would be moving faster and cheaper, our roads would be safer, road maintenance would be less and a corridor would exist through the most productive part of Australian. This is the type of vision that Australians crave, not the spin that suggests that we will have a super east coast railway in 2050. But if it does happen, my kids have promised me a trip for my 110th birthday present—literally, it would be my 110th birthday. We have to get better than that, colleagues.

Most of you know I have loved media and communications. I have taken some pride in sandbagging the two-out-of-three rule in media ownership. We do not need corporate or regional barons controlling all three forms of media, and the days of that happening in Launceston should still be vivid in our minds. We should also see radio broadcasting licences as a privilege and responsibility. I am appalled by excessive networking of regional radio and I am pleased there is an obligation to present locally devised and presented local programs and news. That is the very least country people deserve.

I have been singularly blessed with a marvellous staff who have been in all respects a third family. In 20 years. I cannot remember a serious fight or disagreement in my office. I have a happy workplace supported by a voracious appetite for constituent work and the pursuit of electorate infrastructure projects. Though never solicited, it is not uncommon to find flowers or boxes of chocolates on the front counter from some constituent who never expected to see his or her seemingly insurmountable problem solved. This sense of family, and satisfaction of work, has led to a very low turnover of staff. My chief of staff, who is in the gallery today, Heather, has been with me for 20 years; Lesley Smith, my former whip's clerk, 16 years; Leanne Ruge, now with Senator Bridget McKenzie, 12 years; Janelle Geddes, with a great sense of legal writing, an invaluable resource, six years; Darlene Dobson, with wide experience in printing, four years. All of them have made coming to work a pleasure not a chore.

I have been singularly blessed with exceptionally talented media advisers: Brendan Eagan, Scott Whitby, Tim Langmead, Kate Barwick and presently Cathy Heidrich. Brendan, Scott, Tim and Kate all went on to work in the offices of deputy prime ministers or premiers. Two of them have successfully moved to the corporate world. I was fortunate to be surrounded by so much loyal and accomplished talent.

This parliament is well served by its officers and staff. I have the utmost respect for Bernard Wright, David Elber, Robert McClelland, my entitlements manager Debbie whose patience I try, the serjeants, Hansard, library, security staff, dining staff, especially Kate in earlier days and Tim at present, to say nothing of Greg and the transport office staff and Comcar. They weave the strands of a cohesive web that wraps itself around this place and makes it function so beautifully. One person who is often forgotten is Peter Rose, our Chaplain, who quietly and unobtrusively goes about the role of counselling, comforting and leading. He assists in the national prayer breakfast and ceremonies for the opening of parliament and the start of each parliamentary year. Some of us in the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship gain strength from Peter's Tuesday morning prayers in the meditation room.

I am an unapologetic admirer of Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, a saint and a patron of politicians. More, as portrayed by Robert Bolt, said: 'When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties they lead their country by a short route to chaos.' Colleagues, how true is that today? We have seen it, as politicians, in the collapses through the GFC, in the horrors in the Balkans and in the aftermath of the Arab spring. We have seen the truth of these words in our own state and federal politics, especially over the last decade. I will not spell it out; you all know it. Little wonder so many say that they do not trust politicians.

As I leave this parliament I pray that in subsequent governments we will see a return to civility in this place. Surely it is not beyond our capacity to make question time what it should be: quite simply, an eliciting of information rather than a forum for meaningless spin and invective. Like it or not, it is the vehicle by which the public judge us, because it is the forum of the parliament they get to see most often. Surely we can do as good a job as New Zealand, Canada, the UK and France. Despite the expectations of the new paradigms, it has been getting progressively worse from parliament to parliament.

And so I look back over this 20 years feeling the exhilaration of success, the stings of failure, the warmth of colleagues on both sides and the common humanity of the people I have been privileged to serve. But I know it is now time to move on. Being, as I am, of National Party roots, I seek the comfort of a country setting. Like the observer in Thomas Gray's beautiful elegy, I symbolically look out through the fading sunset to the cattle returning home and the end of a day's work. As Thomas Gray put it:

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Thank you. God bless. Remember me in your prayers.

See this speech in context