Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker; I genuinely mean that. As you have stated, this is not a requiem but a return to the seat of Casey, and that in itself is a statement of your character—that you would spend the remainder of your political career going back to serve the people who gave you the incredible honour of representing them here.

Some of the advice I always give to people when they come here is that you play rugby in the chamber and you play rugby on 7.30, but you don't play rugby in the corridor. Everybody, once they leave here, should work in a collegiate way; otherwise, this place really would be a nasty place to live and work. Nonetheless, you have to manage the rugby in the chamber, and it is an adversarial chamber by its very nature. We have to walk that fine line between being boorish and boring. One you do not want to listen to and the other one you can't be bothered listening to. No doubt on 94(a) you've worn out the manual there, but there are other interesting standing orders which we have tested you with, 14(a) being one of them. Your capacity, your acute mind and your adroit and insightful process of looking over the standing orders, understanding them, being across them and giving articulate reference to them have given you the capacity to be held in great stead throughout this building because people respected your decisions.

Alongside understanding the standing orders also came a discerning capacity to hear the calls of the wild and to understand who was making an interjection without necessarily having to see them do it. We have all had occasions when you have managed to call us out even when we've had masks on, which gave us some form of protection. But, nonetheless, you can still find us! You returned the place from being a crazy jungle back to a more genteel wood, and I think people by reason of their respect for you have respected your rulings and your orders. That has held our parliament up in a better light. You set a standard that you are now offering as a legacy for who you are and also an adornment, hopefully, for what comes after you. No doubt people will be referring back to and using your time as a juxtaposition to their efforts. No doubt that will be a very high bar to jump.

This parliament is watched by so many. One evening I once made the fatal mistake here of saying, 'If anybody's watching this, please ring my office,' and they did. In fact, the phone just about rang off the hook. What that means, of course, is that our actions in here are relayed far and wide. Our nation is defined by many things, and it is defined by the actions within this parliament. Therefore, it's vitally important that the actions of this parliament reflect Australia: its colour and the capacity for the great debaters and the great people who are powerful in the art of rhetoric—from Keating to Costello. That is part of the colour of parliament, and a speaker has to find that line between it so that people find the process something more palatable and something they can get through. Mr Speaker, you have presided over how we have been seen here, and, I believe, in your time in the seat, you have shown Australia a better side of all of our nation.

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