Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

on indulgence—Chris Hayes—a hard working MP, a fearless advocate and a dear friend. Today at a very personal level, I will say, after many conversations going back and forth over a couple of years, Bernadette, you won the argument. I was on the other side of it the whole way through—congratulations. I want to talk, first of all, about Chris's advocacy and, secondly, his role as whip. Let me just deal with one issue. He's spoken a lot today about the love of his community, but I want to talk about one other thing. Chris and I share a lot of principles, a lot of values. One of them, which is shared by most people in this room, is a passionate opposition to capital punishment. Many of us have given speeches about it. Many of us have pleaded for clemency to different embassies but it takes a particular strength of character to see the extrajudicial killings from the Duterte government and to make the speech against it in Manila. That's what Chris did. Each time there has been an Australian on death row, Chris has been involved in the advocacy for clemency. It's rarely been media work but it's always been heartfelt, it has always been passionate and it has been about defending Australians.

I also, though, want to talk about his role as whip. The whip is often explained to the public and to the media as the person who maintains party discipline. Certainly, there is a long untold story of one very happy night when we took control of the House in the second term of this government, where there was an operation run by Chris Hayes. If it is to be told, it won't be yet. It really was a job well done. But the thing that is not often told about whips is what they do for the pastoral care of every member. There is not a member on either side of this place who hasn't personally benefited from Chris Hayes. What always needs to be appreciated, particularly, is that it's the opposition whip who provides leave for their own side and agrees to the leave when it's requested from the other side. While these speeches have been going on, my phone has been inundated with text messages from women members of the caucus who have used phrases like these: 'I could not have been a mum in the parliament were it not for Chris Hayes.' We have had words about the willingness to give leave, about the flexibility, about every logistic being taken care of. There are always opportunities that we all have and most of us are guilty at different times of, whenever there is an edge, trying to take them. Well, whenever there was a moment for compassion and decency, Chris Hayes has taken it.

Different members of parliament inspire different emotions. There are not many of us who inspire universal love from the chamber. Chris Hayes does. We are better for Chris Hayes having been here; we are poorer for him leaving. Chris, for everything you have done, thank you so much. Your electorate is better, the party is better and the parliament is better because you have been one of us.

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