Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I join with others in offering my sincere condolences at the passing of Don Randall—a real character and a guy whom I have known for the best part of 20 years in this place. Like many, with someone on the other side you can often spend years where you nod at the them in the corridor but you do not really talk much with them. Unless you are on a committee or you have some sort of personal involvement with them, they are someone you know of but not necessarily know so well. But I came to have a view of Don over the years and, yes, he was a man of strong beliefs. He was a man who said what he thought. Sometimes he probably should have thought about it a bit more before he said it—but then we have all done that. He was also a very committed parliamentarian. Where I did come to know him—and I just want to outline two or three little events in my time with Don, just to highlight what I think encapsulated him as a man—was in relation to that issue of his strong beliefs. It was when I was a minister and Don was giving an adjournment speech. He was a guy who basically believed that adjournment speeches were a very important part of what local members do and a very important opportunity for them to get on the record the issues they care about. In this particular speech, he was dropping a bucket—that is the truth of it—on some ALP political figures from Western Australian—not that there are many to choose from. But the thing was that he was dropping a bucket, and I was the minister at the table. In those circumstances, your job is to put them off their game. So, of course, I got up and I did a point of order, I did another point of order and then I did another point of order. I used up a fair chunk of his time—and jeez he was pissed! But I left it at that, and I thought that that was pretty much it.

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