Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

When we lost Alby Shultz we lost one of the most colourful, engaging and sometimes irascible members of this House. He was, of course, the longest-serving member for the federation seat of Hume. He was born in Melbourne on 29 May 1939. Alby, who died recently at the age of 76, had been ill for a long time and had retired from parliament at the 2013 election, following a diagnosis of liver cancer.

He was a very passionate liberal, and as many of us have noted the Liberal Party room, which is, as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker—rather, as a member of the National Party the Deputy Speaker does not attend Liberal Party meetings!—the Liberal Party meets at the beginning of each two-week sitting of parliament for half an hour at nine o'clock on a Tuesday. The Liberal Party meetings, of course, deal with matters of great interest to the Liberal Party as distinct from the coalition. Since Alby has left us, there is not nearly so much to talk about. He was quite able to fill up the whole half hour with his observations on matters inter se—let us put it that way!—between the members of the coalition.

Indeed, when he was getting ready to retire from parliament he looked out for a successor and, of course, he was delighted to find Angus Taylor, who is now the member for Hume. As everyone knows, Alby had only two conditions—two critical, absolutely essential conditions—one was that his successor had to be somebody that had the capacity to be Prime Minister of Australia but, most importantly, they could not be a member of the National Party under any circumstances whatsoever!

Alby was a very forthright member of the parliament and of the party room. Of course, he was a member of the party room for many years. He came to this parliament in 1998, having served in the New South Wales parliament for 10 years prior to that. I have many exhilarating memories of dealing with Alby from when I was Leader of the Opposition—some of them more character-forming than others. He had the great characteristic of being always thoroughly himself. Of course, we have made the same observation about another much-loved member of our party, Don Randall, who died recently too. Indeed, in a rather sombre coincidence, Don died on the day of Alby's funeral.

Alby leaves his wife, Gloria, and his sons, Grant and Dean. Grant gave a really powerful and moving eulogy for his father at Alby's funeral. Being a man, I will just speak about men: it is always a very momentous time in a man's life when his father dies. Obviously, we all hope that our fathers live until they are very old—very old indeed. Some of us are fortunate enough for that to happen; others are not. Alby lived well past threescore years and 10, but 76 is not a very old age—at least in the modern world. Grant spoke so movingly of his father. Every person in that huge church in Cootamundra understood the grief of that family and the significance of that watershed event that occurs to most people. Of course, the vast majority of us, fortunately, have our fathers predecease us. Every father wants to die long before their children; no-one wants to outlive their children. Nonetheless, it was a very moving eulogy.

Alby was a real worker. I remember, when I was young journalist working at the Parliament of New South Wales, there were many members of that parliament on both sides who were what the poet might have called 'horny-handed sons of toil', and Alby definitely fell into that category. He started off working in abattoirs, moved on to a management position with a meat-packing company and then found his way into politics. He came from a working-class background, very much so. Indeed, he said in his maiden speech that his grandmother on his mother's side was a personal friend of John Curtin, and reflected that one of his uncles had said that his grandfather would turn in his grave if he knew Alby was a Liberal member of parliament. Alby seemed to think this was quite appropriate and confirmed that he expected that his grandfather would be doing that!

It is my submission to you, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, that he embodied some of the finest values of the Liberal party. He had a very, very big heart. I do not want to suggest that other parties do not have big hearts. But he had a very strong view that people should work hard and get on with their lives with as little interference from government as possible, and rise by their own efforts. He had a very sturdy, self-reliant philosophy and he lived those values.

Alby had many interests. One of them of course, being the representative of a rural electorate, was telecommunications, and he complained about inadequate telecommunications in his maiden speech. So it is good that in 2015, with the Mobile Black Spot Program, we were able to announce 18 new or upgraded base stations in that electorate, and 74 of the 139 black spots identified in Hume were addressed in whole or in part. Alby would be very, very pleased by that result.

On my behalf and on behalf of Lucy, we extend our sympathies to Alby's wife, Gloria; their sons, Dean and Grant, and their spouses; and their grandchildren, whom Alby loved so much.

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