Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I take the opportunity to associate myself with the words of the previous speaker, the member for Flinders, in an accurate assessment that it is truly a privilege to stand in this place. I am humbled to be re-elected by my electorate to return to this place for a second term. What motivates me is the fact that if this was not my address-in-reply speech and it was a speech I was giving because I had lost my seat and I was coming back for a valedictory, would I be able to sleep at night knowing that I had given my all during my term? Would I be able to sleep at night knowing that I had helped as many people as I could during my term? I know that the effort that one goes through during the election cycle is a journey one does not take on one's own. You take the journey with your staff, with your family, with the mountain of volunteers who assist you to get back here so that you can stand in this chamber, debate issues that are relevant to your electorate and hopefully, just hopefully, influence the direction of the nation.

The electorate of Wright was named after a poet, Judith Wright. My electorate is approximately 7,500-8,000 square kilometres and borders at the top the Toowoomba range. It encompasses some of the most picturesque, beautiful landscape, ranging from horticulture to the Gold Coast hinterlands. It borders up to the New South Wales border, with reference to geography. We border up to Blair in the north and Forde, MacPherson and Moncrieff in the east. It is really a picturesque electorate and I am truly blessed to be able to be the electorate of Wright's representative. It is an extremely diverse electorate: vegetable growing, dairy, beef, tourism and new areas under housing, a developing area such as Yarrabilba, where there is expected to be no less than 50,000 people residing in that community over the coming years. That is an entire state electorate in its own right. In addition to Yarrabilba there are Flagstone and the Bromelton industrial park—all positive influences that are changing the dynamics daily within our electorate.

The return trip to the parliament for a second term is not made on your own. Yes, you may be the face on the billboard, but behind that campaign there is an enormous amount of work that gets done by extremely generous volunteers. I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge some of those in my FDC, my federal executive. The chairman, Rod Venz, is a dairy farmer, a man who is grounded in the electorate, a man who spent most of his professional career as a high school teacher and principal working in regional and remote parts of Queensland. The advice, the mentorship, the steady comments when he would pick the phone up and advise you helped to make me the man that I am, so I acknowledge Rod for his contribution. He and all volunteers give their time freely. Deputy chair Alan Fry is located strategically in the Lockyer Valley, so we have our executive come from different sectors of the FDC, so we get true representation. Alan's discipline and sense of community are outstanding. He is an Englishman, and before coming to Australia he was a high-ranking officer in Scotland Yard, where he sat below the Commissioner of Police and above ranked officers; I think he was either the second or third in charge of Scotland Yard. Those skills also were of enormous advantage—the discipline, the structure and the regimented way in which he assisted with the campaign.

Our secretary, Lynne Bell, from up on Tamborine Mountain—what a wonderful asset she was. You need a diligent set of hands on the books. To you, Lynne, and your husband: I appreciate your contribution as well. My trusty treasurer, Alice Warby, who is on my staff and is also the zone president of the women's association for our party in Queensland, has been a stalwart of the party for so many years. Thanklessly she goes about offering an enormous number of hours for the betterment of the party, and recently she was acknowledged for her contribution by the party when she was the recipient of a life membership. This is the calibre of personnel that I have working collectively with me. I am so blessed and I am humbled.

Once we get past our executive, we have a number of branches throughout our electorate, and I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the Beaudesert SEC executive chairman, Glenn Abbott, and his commitment. Glenn is one of the area's predominant horticultural farmers, growing a range of products including beetroots, carrots and onions, but always found time in the middle of planting to get to our meetings and to lead his community. The hardworking branches in Wright include the Fassifern branch, the Lockyer branch, the Tamborine branch, the Christmas Creek-Rathdowney branch, the Beaudesert branch, the Jimboomba-Woodhill branch and, of course, the Beaudesert women's. I acknowledge all of their support.

In addition, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the regional chairs. My area is so diverse that it falls over two regions. I thank James Kennett from the Gold Coast for his contribution and the way that he went about diligently working through the campaign. To the west is a wonderful man by the name of Pat Weir. Pat, I take this opportunity to acknowledge your recent preselection for the state seat of Condamine, which you will contest at the next Queensland state election. I acknowledge what you do and the area that you represent, and I know that there are many people in my electorate that join with me in congratulating you on the fantastic result that you achieved recently at that preselection.

I would like to thank my campaign team, led by none other than Greg Birkbeck, a personal friend of mine. It is as if you cannot work on my staff unless we all share the same birthday. Greg and I share the same birthday, 27 March. I am sure that I would not be here without his support and leadership. I acknowledge the many hundreds of booth workers that come to help out on the day, particularly those who come before the euphoria of the election, when people are able to get enthused—those true diehards who come out and stand at pre-polling centres for the weeks beforehand and those who scrutineer late on polling day. I acknowledge their commitment and all of those who assisted me to be here.

I would like to thank my staff, who like to refer to themselves as Team Buchholz. I am truly blessed. We sometimes see the staff of members in this House acting like a carousel, as staff rotation can be quite high. I wear as a badge of honour the fact that I have taken the same team as when I first entered this place through to today. Those people are Greg Birkbeck, Alice Warby, Ruth Doyle, Hannah Robinson and Jo Dempsey. It is a team effort. As I said earlier, my face is on the billboard but it is the team effort, along with the efforts of those aforementioned, that really owns the right to be able to say that we have an LNP member representing the seat of Wright.

The families of all members in this place make an enormous sacrifice, because it is our families that sacrifice the time that they would normally spend with us so that we can spend it with our communities. I take this opportunity to acknowledge my beautiful wife, Lynn, and my daughter, Grace, who only this week started her first year of university, where she will be studying environmental science in Toowoomba. She will go great guns, because she has her mum's looks and her dad's—well, not much! She is all mum! Mum is a cracker of a—she is all mum! Any skills that my daughter picks up are as a result of my beautiful wife.

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