Kristy McBain (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to offer my sincere condolences to the family of Senator Jim Molan AO DSC, retired major general, along with many other people in this House today and many who have expressed their sincere condolences since his passing in January. While Jim's politics and mine didn't align all the time, we had a shared love of southern New South Wales and we had a deep desire to represent the views of those communities within southern New South Wales, and that was something that we always had in common.

He lived a life of service during a 40-year military career that included deployments to Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, East Timor, Malaysia, Germany, the United States and Iraq. Senator Molan received many awards and much recognition for his distinguished service to the Australian Army. Senator Molan was always forthright when talking about the capacity of our Australian defence forces, and I acknowledge his many books and articles in the years following his retirement from the armed services. But when he resigned from the Defence Force he continued to serve Australians by becoming not only a New South Wales senator but a volunteer firefighter.

Jim and I first met following the 2018 Tathra fires in my part of the world when I was the Mayor of the Bega Valley Shire Council. He was always open to receiving a phone call, a text message, always up for a chat. On many occasions, I utilised his open-door policy to make sure that he knew about some of the big issues impacting our community following on from that first big natural disaster after he became a New South Wales senator. On every occasion, Jim would speak to our community, relay their messages, their concerns, their queries, back to the government of the day, and always made sure that he followed up.

There were a couple of announcements that Jim came down to make post the 2018 Tathra bushfires in my part of the world. One was a mental health announcement. I remember Jim and I standing in the Bega Valley Commemorative Civic Centre having a discussion about how the press conference would unravel. It was an interesting experience standing with Jim. I got to stand next to him on a number of occasions when I was the local mayor and he was our duty senator. One such occasion was when Deputy Prime Minister at the time, Michael McCormack, came down to do an airport announcement in Merimbula, and Jim came along. What we thought would be quite a simple announcement, well received by people, ended up turning into a major protest, where we had protesters coming at us from all angles, trying to rush the cameras. Given that the member for Riverina was the acting Prime Minister at the time, it got quite interesting because there were a number of AFP officers around on detail. Jim took that all in his stride because I think he had seen all of that many, many times before. But as the local mayor, I was quite taken aback. Afterwards Jim said, 'Oh, it's just another day.'

Jim was always up for a laugh. Even when I became the Labor candidate in the Eden-Monaro July 2020 by-election—and in our part of the world it's pretty cold around then—Jim and his beautiful wife, Anne, went to one of the local takeaway shops and got about 40 potato cakes—yes, they are potato cakes not potato scallops—and made sure everyone on prepoll got a bit of warmth. They are the type of people who want to give a bit of warmth to people.

Most importantly, we know that Jim was a loving husband, a proud father and an even prouder grandfather. The love that he had for his family was something that always shone through. I want to express my sincere condolences again to Anne, to their four children—Sarah, Erin, Felicity, Michael—and their five grandchildren. I know he'll be sorely missed, has a big place in your heart and will forever be in your memories. On behalf of my constituents in Eden-Monaro and southern New South Wales, thank you for your service to us too, Jim.

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