Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

on indulgence—It's an honour to be able to make the final contribution in this condolence discussion about Duncan Pegg here in the federal parliament today. I begin by acknowledging that you have to make a fairly worthy contribution in a state parliament for the federal parliament to recognise your untimely death. It gives me great pleasure to build on some of the remarks from the member for Oxley because I too came across Duncan Pegg through the Griffith University political scene. He was, in fact, the person who signed me up to the Labor Party. He was the one who produced the form at the right moment and signed me up. So you could say I am here in part due to Duncan.

He was someone who was extremely gregarious. As the member for Oxley has said, some of his particular qualities are things that were treasured by his community and that our community constantly asks to see in their parliamentarians. He always had time to talk to people. He always had time for a chat. In particular, he was someone who would always seek out the person sitting on their own who didn't have someone else to talk to, and he would be that person for them. I think there is a generosity of spirit in that which made him a very good parliamentarian. I know our communities would like to see more of that in this place.

He also learnt Mandarin to better understand and communicate with his community. I've been trying to learn Punjabi to do the same, inspired by Duncan's work. Again, that is the sort of quality our community seek in their parliamentarians, and we could all learn from that and do more to apply it in this place. I'll finish with another bit of Duncan Pegg wisdom. Whilst he had all of these earnest qualities that made him a great parliamentarian, he also was a very colourful character—

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