Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in parliament today to speak on the Primary Industries Levies and Charges Collection Amendment Bill 2016, a bill which I have a strong affinity for. It covers areas such as the Grains Research and Development Corporation, which I was intimately involved in establishing many, many years ago now. It should be noted that farmers generate a $12 return for every dollar that is invested in R&D over 10 years.

I would also like to speak briefly to thank those people who have helped me on my 17½ year journey as the federal member for Groom. That journey will end when this parliament concludes and I leave this place to pursue the next chapter in my life. I came here with a burning passion to represent not only my electorate but all of regional Australia and to improve opportunities for all Australians. Being a minister, cabinet minister and shadow cabinet minister for the vast majority of my time here has given me an enormous opportunity to do just that.

There has never been a good time to leave parliament and my decision has been an agonising one for me personally. Time waits for no man, though, particularly someone who had laryngeal cancer at 47 and is now 60. If I want to most effectively use the vast experience I have gained from my 15 years on the front bench for the coalition in the areas of innovation, industry and resources and do something more for Australia, particularly regional Australia, now is the time to grasp the next opportunity.

I would like to thank the people of Toowoomba and the Darling Downs, who for nearly two decades have supported me to be their representative in this parliament. I want to thank the Queensland Liberal Party and the LNP for choosing me to be their candidate for the last six elections. I also owe a debt to John Moore, who served in this parliament for 26 years, including as a cabinet minister. I am very grateful for his endless encouragement and advice, which continues to this day. He has stood by me during my whole time in parliament.

As a cabinet minister under the Howard and Abbott governments, I was privileged to be supported and advised by the best group of professional public servants in Canberra if not all of Australia. With Mark Paterson, Secretary of the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources between 2001 and 2007, and his department, we changed the direction of industry support in Australia while putting in place policies which allowed the resources industry to position itself for the biggest resources and energy boom this country has ever seen.

Again between 2013 and 2015, I joined forces with Glenys Beauchamp, secretary of industry and then industry and science departments. Together we forged a trusting and extremely effective working relationship between my ministerial office and her department during one of the more challenging periods of industry, innovation and science policy. Bringing industry and science together to work towards an internationally competitive industry sector and putting the 'I' for 'industry' back into CSIRO will succeed in bringing the collaboration between industry and science that Australia needs so much. As well, we were confronted with the challenges from the resources sector as the boom burst and commodity prices plummeted. The depth of knowledge and experience in both my ministerial office team and the department was priceless during this confronting and challenging time.

On that note, I would particularly like to thank John Ryan, who was deputy secretary of the department during my time there. John's intellect, experience and knowledge of the resources and energy sector at an international level saw him make an enormous contribution to public policy in Australia. I was indeed very fortunate to have his guidance and advice during the entire eight years I was a cabinet minister in this portfolio.

My greatest asset during my time in this place, though, has been my staff. I was never afraid to hire advisers who were smarter than me or who had a greater interest in ensuring good public policy rather than politics for politics' sake. Together they formed a dedicated and accomplished group, never afraid to tell their minister when he was wrong, providing me with near flawless advice.

In the pressure cooker environment of politics, I was proud of the cohesiveness of my ministerial teams, an example of which was that between 2001 and 2004, in that first term of my ministry, not one staff member left my ministerial team, and that was with the added pressure of having me away on sick leave with laryngeal cancer for most of 2003. I think that must almost be a record for a ministerial team. More recently 'Team M', as they chose to call themselves, formed themselves into a fantastic group of people using every bit of their talent and intelligence to get results, which did not go unnoticed by the rest of the offices on the blue carpet. They were an extraordinary group of people who worked together to ensure that the outcomes that we produced in that portfolio were the best ones we could possibly get.

In my electorate office I was fortunate to have a group of women and men who made me look good in Groom, even when I was not there. This was in fact for more time than I care to think of and often more than 200 days a year. While it is always difficult to single out one person, my special thanks go to Colleen Robertson. Colleen Robertson has kept me organised and where I should be when I should be there not only for my time in politics but in fact almost continuously since 1991. Yes, that is a quarter of a century.

In the end though, no-one survives 32 years in public life and all the scrutiny and pressure that that brings without a strong family around them. It was there that I hit the jackpot. My father, Jim, kept telling me I would be a good politician and constantly encouraged and supported me to do a job I did not ever aspire to do, while my mother, Isobel, continually reminded me to stick to the facts and to speak in words that everybody understood. My sister, Louise, sets the standards in our family and ensured that I kept mine high, while my brother Rob's positive attitude to his unlucky life showed me how to never complain about the cards that life deals you. My brother Neil, born with cerebral palsy, proved to me that fierce determination will get you where you want to go. I will always be grateful for their support no matter what came along and the enormous strength that gave me when I most needed it.

Finally to my daughters, Kate and Laura, and to my wife, Karen: we have walked this road together every step of the way. Kate was born the week before I was elected to the Queensland Graingrowers Association State Council, along with another fellow called Warren Truss, who you might know. And so I entered public life. For all of Kate's 31½ years and Laura's 28 years, they have watched me walk in and out of their lives on a weekly basis while their mother, Karen, performed miracles and was the bedrock, cornerstone and glue that kept us all together while we dealt with everything that was thrown at us.

My life in politics has been an enjoyable and fulfilling time, but it has not been without its sacrifices and ups and downs. It has given me and my family experiences and opportunities we would never have had as a farming family in the Boondooma district. For that, we will always be grateful. While, as they say, I was a volunteer and Karen, Kate and Laura were conscripts, we end our political life content with what we have done. I have never wanted to die wondering what could be done to make Australia a better place and I have to say that I have given it all I have got.

As to my legacy, that is for others to judge. Although, that said, I would be remiss not to mention the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing. Being a cabinet minister with a close relationship with both Prime Ministers Howard and Abbott, I was able to continually demand that this project be built. Without my authority and persistence and position, the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing simply would not have become a reality.

Can I conclude by expressing my concern about where politics in Australia is heading, particularly in the last five years. This is a very different place now to the one I came into in 1998. In 17½ years in this place, I have never been warned once, let alone ejected by the Speaker from this chamber. I was hoping a few members would be here to reflect on that. That is not to say that I have not done my share of injections, but I have always seen it as important to behave with discipline and respect for others. In my maiden speech in 1998, I said I came to this place with a history of bipartisanship and I intended to continue that approach. I leave having achieved that as best I could with particular success in the resources policy arena and, in particular, in my partnership with my co-ministers, Martin Ferguson and Gary Gray. It is fitting that the shadow minister for resources, the member for Brand, is at the table at the moment. Being bipartisan is not easy in modern politics. It often attracts criticism from your own side, but it did bring good policy outcomes regardless of which side was in government at the time and, more importantly, it gave the resources industry and its stakeholders greater confidence in the government of the day.

Science is another area of policy which I am familiar with, which is crying out for a similar bipartisan approach and one which would reap rich rewards for Australia if that were the case. Bipartisanship is not the norm in 2015. The fierceness of personal politics and the lack of respect for other people's views, combined with a win-at-all-costs, winner-take-all political attitude, may provide a spectacle for the media but is destroying public confidence in this institution. Is it any wonder that when politicians regularly denigrate their political opponents—and the media are only too happy to join in—we now find ourselves being referred to in the general populous as 'clowns' and this place as a 'circus'. Political commentator Chris Kenny nailed it when he said in The Australian newspaper last week:

… the combination of shallow journalism and shallow politics is ruining our governance.

The word 'politics' is from the Greek language and is supposed to be the practice and theory of influencing other people. I doubt the ancient Greeks aspired to do that by obliterating the reputation of their opponents in order to convince others of the value of their own argument. Remember, it is the Greeks who are seen by many as the founders of civilised society—worth thinking about.

Finally, I wish you, Prime Minister, and the Turnbull government every success to go on and win the election this year and get on with delivering the good job of good government in Australia. We all depend on it. Thank you.

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