Zoe McKenzie (Flinders, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak of the great loss to Australia of the former member for Flinders, the Hon Peter Reith. Peter was a beloved grandfather, father, husband, brother, and, as we've heard, friend and respected colleague to those who had the good fortune to serve with him in this place.

As the current member for Flinders, I have the unique privilege of acknowledging his legacy as my predecessor and remembering his passionate service to the people of our wonderful electorate. I also personally have a lot to thank him for. As a young industrial relations lawyer practising at Corrs Chambers Westgarth in my twenties, I was sent to Canberra as a secondee to work on the Howard government's workplace relations legislation, more jobs, better pay bill in 1999. Peter was then my minister and later my Liberal Party friend and colleague. He has always been someone I have held in the highest esteem.

The more jobs, better pay bill built on the reforms of the landmark Workplace Relations Act 1996. In his second reading speech for that 1999 bill, as minister for workplace relations, Peter said:

This next phase of workplace relations reforms build on the objects of the 1996 system that we now know has worked well. They propose important amendments that are necessary in light of experience to improve the operation of the system, entrench its gains and extend its benefits more widely throughout the work force.

They were reforms I was proud to contribute to. It is perhaps fitting that we speak to Peter's legacy in workplace relations in this place, in this week. Were he here today, he would decry the great leap back into the industrial era of the 1970s, to which those opposite would condemn Australian businesses.

Peter was a fine lawyer, a graduate of economics and law at Monash University, and he fine-tuned his skills as a solicitor in Melbourne before opening his own practice in Cowes, a then quiet village on Phillip Island, which was, at the time, still part of the great electorate of Flinders.

One of my constituents, William Vickers, was a law student with Peter at Monash University and remembered him fondly as the warrior he was then from the very beginning. Recently, Bill wrote to me:

Peter and I were fellow students at Monash Law School during the tumultuous years of the Vietnam War.

He was a lone voice in Tax lectures supporting the High Court under Chief Justice Barwick in its interpretation and application of s260 on tax avoidance schemes.

Naive, ideologically-driven students like me argued constantly with him about tax avoidance, Vietnam, conscription, and student protests at attempts to introduce parking fees on campus among many other issues.

What I respected even then—

about Peter—

before I matured and became a tax paying Liberal Party supporter—was his endless capacity to engage in debate with respect, logic and a willingness to listen: capacities not seen today in so much of the public "debate" and social media sewer.

Bill goes on:

Years later, we would meet at different forums in my professional capacity and share a few laughs about our student days.

He signed his book for me with a typically pithy and good-humoured comment on those early interactions—

at Monash.

He was a rare combination of intellect, old fashioned personal values and belief in public service that stands in stark contrast to many inhabitants of our current political class, whether Federal or State.

Peter's political career began in the Young Liberal Movement. He launched into elected office shortly after his move to Phillip Island. Elected to the island's shire council, he became shire president in 1981. On Phillip Island, Peter helped establish the local school of Newhaven College and a penguin research facility. This helped save the local penguin population and gave the community a thriving tourism attraction which so many of us know and love. Who didn't find solace during lockdown in the live feed of the penguin run from Phillip Island? We have Peter to thank for that.

Peter won the Flinders by-election in December 1982, following the retirement of Sir Phillip Lynch, whose roles as Minister for Army, Leader of the House and Deputy Liberal Leader, Peter would later go on to emulate. Peter held the seat, against the odds, but lost it shortly thereafter in Bob Hawke's early 1983 election. He hadn't even been sworn in yet. But Peter returned to the seat of Flinders in 1984. When he finally got to make his maiden speech before the House, he described Flinders as one of the great places in Australia to live and enjoy. I may well be biased, but of course, I could not agree more. He took his role in Flinders more seriously than many of the other roles that he held in this place. In fact, I just had the fortune to run into Ross Hampton in the corridor, and he told me that, no matter who he was with, unless it was the Prime Minister, Peter would take every call from a constituent in Flinders, whatever else he was doing. More importantly, he promised to represent the people of Flinders, at that time, to the best of his ability—a promise he kept firmly for the next 17 years in parliament.

Peter left an immense political legacy. His astute mind for policy was reflected in the offices he held, as shadow minister, from IR to education, foreign affairs and defence, education and sport, and more. Peter was an effective and dynamic Manager of Opposition Business. Nevertheless his most memorable achievements occurred under the Howard government, where he held ministerial responsibilities for industrial relations, small business and defence. He was a consultative cabinet minister and a trusted confidant of Prime Minister John Howard.

By colleagues and opponents alike, he has been remembered as a rare politician who combined conviction, courage and charm, a stalwart of the Liberal Party, a magnificent and untiring soldier and a minister of true quality.

See this speech in context