Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Services) Share this | Hansard source

It's an absolute honour to rise on the call. I said in my first speech that this place was a daunting place. It's still a daunting place and rightly so. The customs and traditions that surround this chamber remind us of the history and the very reason that we sit here in this parliament. The fact that you, Speaker, sit from an elevated position and control both sides of the argument and both sides of the debate mean that you are the fulcrum of the scales of justice when it comes to that great Australian principle of a fair go. That's what I'm about—a fair go. The fact that we all sit on an even level means that we are selected by the majority of our constituents to come from the four corners of this nation to represent them without fear or favour in this place, this fair-go place. It's important. The mace is your instrument of appointment, Speaker, with its crown pointing towards the government. Long live the Crown only once we are in government!

The Australian national flag, to me, symbolises the four corners of the nation. That flag means everything to me. I will explain as I go through summing up what was important for my service not only here but in serving the nation in the Defence Force. That flag means everything to me and I look at it for daily inspiration and it gives me strength.

I would like to acknowledge my colleagues today and all the help, support and friendship you have given me over the six years that I have been here. That isn't limited to only this side of the chamber. There are some decent people all over the chamber, and I want to acknowledge and recognise that. Mind you, I've seen some deadset shockers come through here! I want to recognise our leader, and I'll say more about that later.

I have my family here, and that was a surprise visit. My family are up from the great state of Tasmania. Megan, thank you for bringing the kids up. Megan, you have been an incredible strength to me over the last two terms, the last six years. I'm the bloke that's been sneaking into your house late at night when the kids are asleep, sleeping on the couch and then leaving before they wake up!

I want to acknowledge all spouses, or partners, because they are part of our team—the work they do, the rubbish they have to put up with time to time, the support they give us. Sometimes they live a lonely life because we live a life in pursuit of this place and our country. So, Megan, you're a deadset champion. I thank you for that. I couldn't have done it without you, Megan.

Next to Megan is my son, Hamish, with the Matthew McConaughey haircut. Hamish, I'm so proud of the young man that you've become. You were just eight years old when we lost Mum, my beautiful Amanda-Jane. I stood with you at her funeral; I held you, and I've stood with you ever since. I'm proud of the young man that you've become. You know what it's like to be knocked down, but, in the great Australian spirit, Mate, you know what it's like to get back up again. Sometimes you need mates to do that, and that's important.

I remember at Mum's funeral I gave you a little dove to release, mainly because you're a farm kid and you needed something to do to keep you out of mischief. As that dove flew away, I made a promise, under my breath, to the universe. I promised myself that I would never let earning money, paying the farm off and my job come between me and my family. Here I am, many years later, doing exactly that, so I'm sure everyone in this place will understand. Hamish, thank you. I'm proud of you, and I love you.

Then there is little Isla. When you were born, you represented a new chapter in our lives. You're a beautiful kid. You've got a beautiful soul, and I want to acknowledge that you've had to do a lot of things and a lot of achievements at school without Dad being there. Hopefully we'll fix that from now on. I love you, Isla, and you've got a great future in front of you.

Then there is little Elsie. Elsie's had a big trip. Elsie's a little determined and grumpy. She's very focused. It's marvellous what genetics do, and I'm glad she's thrown to her mother.

To my family, I want to say thank you for all that you've done not only for me but for the electorate. You'd had to endure long hours.

I also want to recognise my staff. I haven't had a big turnover of staff; I've had the same staff, more or less, the whole way through. Whilst it would be remiss of me to break communications security and release their call signs on an unsecure network, they know who they are, and I know who they are. More importantly, the electorate knows who they are.

When we speak of staff, I want you to look at your own staff, as we go into Christmas. I want you to recognise the fact that they're on the end of those phone calls, dealing with those hurt people. We all know that hurt people can hurt. If we don't think that has some impact on our staff, then we need to think again. So I recognise all staff, and I mean that sincerely. We couldn't do it without you. You live a very necessary role in doing our job.

As I said before, the customs and traditions around this place remind me of my job and my role and what is important. As I look to that flag, I look to the fly quadrant of the flag, to the Southern Cross. The Southern Cross is important. It's been our navigation tool for many tens of thousands of years. The small star in the Southern Cross is called Epsilon. It is the smallest star, but it's somewhat brighter than the others. It's actually two stars combined. It reminds me of my state of Tasmania, the smallest state. In fact Tasmania is less than two per cent of Australia's landmass. But we receive more than 13 per cent of Australia's rainfall. It's captured in 54 hydro dams, and we have 30 power stations churning away. They've been like that for more than 100 years, generating clean, efficient, reliable baseload energy. In fact, at the moment, we are exporting from the great state of Tasmania via Basslink 278 megawatts of energy. That's going into Victoria. I hope they don't waste it.

The greatest determinant of any civilisation is the production of reliable and cheap energy. It attracts industry and it moves a nation forward. Our nation is at a critical juncture when it comes to the production of cheap, reliable, environmentally friendly energy in this country. Tasmania is somewhat different. Our energy needs are different to those of the rest of the country. Out of the 10,400 gigawatt hours of energy that we consume each year, about 86½ per cent comes from our hydro power stations. The remainder comes from wind and solar. We've also got a line as a backup because we're practical people down there in the great state of Tasmania. It's a line into the mainland of Australia which can import energy if we require it. We've also got a 47-petajoule gas line that comes from the mainland to Tasmania into Bell Bay. That powers our backup generator because we know that we need options. We know that we need reliability but that we also need survivability so that, when one technology doesn't work or is running low on water, we've got others to fall back on.

That diversity, that technology-agnostic approach, is what I believe strongly in. We can't simply go down the ideological road of excluding one technology over another, and that technology mix will be different all over the country. We need to be smart about it, and, as the member for McPherson rightly pointed out, we need to apply some science to that. We shouldn't be frightened of new technology. We shouldn't be frightened of nuclear energy. After all, the beams of sunlight that come through that skylight up there come from a thermonuclear ball of gas in the middle of our galaxy. Have a look at how much radiation surrounds the earth, then have a look at the CSIRO report on radiation levels across the globe.

The CSIRO are indeed a fantastic organisation, and the CSIRO deemed that, in my electorate of Braddon, at a place called Cape Grim, is the cleanest air on the planet. We also have the purest water, but, as I'll explain in a minute, we are also a powerhouse when it comes to the production of industry, agriculture, forestry, defence manufacturing—all these things. We are the engine room of Tasmania's economy. Yet here we are, at the same time, simultaneously, contemporaneously, having the cleanest air and the cleanest water. What does that tell me? It tells me that we can achieve that balance. Just like you, Speaker, achieve that balance of fairness across the chamber, we can achieve that with an energy mix. Balance is important. Nature believes in balance, and so do I.

The electorate of Braddon is like no other. One of the reasons that I put my hand up to serve the electorate of Braddon was that I was basically fed up with previous members from all different parties right across the board talking down our region. 'We've got the highest rates of welfare. We've got comorbidity rates through the roof. This is bad. That's bad. Give us some more federal money.' As I look at my kids up there, I point out to them how bright their future can be if only they take hold of it and take that first step. It's no different with the electorate. Those young people were leaving in droves. They were moving away from our great electorate, away from our great state, to the mainland and sometimes never returning. So I started, with my great team of staff and my family, talking that region up and working hard every day to ensure that they had the enablers that they needed to make their lives and their futures better. And we did that. In my first term, Braddon received the highest amount of federal investment in its history. That didn't just go to wasted pork-barrelling; that went to roads and freight installations. It went to coolrooms. We built a university.

Now I'm a bloke that left school before he turned 15. I did an apprenticeship, and then at 18 I joined the Army. They put me back through school. But I didn't just go back and finish my education. I went back and found education, and I found how transformative that was and how many doors that unlocked. I know how important education is. The University of Tasmania Cradle Coast campus was funded and built, and now it specialises in training health professionals and allied health professionals in Burnie on the north-west coast of Tasmania. It's fully subscribed. We're training RNs. We're training psychologists. We're training physiotherapists. We're training GPs through the royal college, and they work in a ward environment. I'm extremely proud of what we've been able to achieve there.

We've also unlocked our great agricultural industry and our advanced manufacturing sector. On the north-west coast of Tasmania, we also have defence manufacturing down there, with Elphinstone producing the hulls for Land 400, Land 8116 and our mobile 155-millimetre Howitzer. Every day those people in my electorate are working hard. Every day those people in my electorate are taking risks, spending money and investing in themselves.

Robert Gordon Menzies mentioned the forgotten people. Later on Howard called them the battlers. Morrison called them the quiet Australians. I call these people that are working hard every day the real people, and I've always called them the real people. They're the ones that I take the most notice of. They're often the ones that say the least. They rarely whinge. They rarely write a letter to the editor. They rarely stage a lobby on the lawns of Parliament House or glue themselves to some bridge somewhere. But these real people are the ones that are driving this country forward. These real people are the ones that simply roll their eyes. These real people are the ones that are getting up at three or four o'clock in the morning and producing 11 per cent of Australia's fresh milk on the north-west coast. These real people are already awake, so they don't need to be woken up by anybody from here.

I mentioned at the start that we are elected here by the majority of our constituents. It frustrates me sometimes that we come to this place and we waste copious amounts of energy and time—and money for that matter because money is time—on a noisy minority. All the while, these real people are screaming for help. So my message today is: we need to start taking notice of the real people in this world, the real Australians, and applying some real solutions for them.

I had the huge honour of spending two decades of my life in the Defence Force, in the Royal Australian Corps of Signals. I had the honour of serving with literally thousands of this country's best young men and women. That has indelibly shaped the way I am as a person, and I make no apologies for that. I've worked with some damn fine leaders also. So those veterans, those of us that have served, are important to me, and I'm very proud to be able to say to you today that the north-west coast now has its own wellness centre.

Andrew Clarke and I served in the Army together. He was a bomb technician, an explosives expert—or he worked with explosives anyway! On exiting Defence, they said to him, 'Major Clarke, what would you like to do?' He said, 'I want to continue to help fellow human beings,' so now he's a GP. He's one of our greatest GPs. He heads up the Veteran and Family Centre in Burnie. He does a fantastic job. There we reconnect veterans to a new family, because that is absolutely important and critical when it comes to them making the transformation from the military family to their new employment. We find them a job, but you don't do that with kid gloves either. Andrew has a no-nonsense policy where veterans are required to take the first step themselves. The pity parties have ended. We say to our veterans: 'Get off the couch. Someone is always there to help you, someone will always be there to help you, but you need to take that first step.' It's working fantastically.

I've always said, and I want to raise this point very strongly, that I believe the key to our veterans making a transformation from the military to their new life is through their families, because those kids are affected by that trauma that sometimes we go through in the military. Those kids need to understand why mum or dad feels the way that they do. Those kids might actually help veterans through. Andrew is working on a plan, a plan where that family moves through that treatment process and then, at the end of it, when dad or mum gets off the rails a little bit, there's nothing like a gentle reminder from a child—out of the mouths of babes—to bring you back on track pretty quickly. I learned that in that story I told you of Hamish earlier.

I've had the absolute honour and privilege of also serving with many fine leaders. In my first speech here, my maiden speech, I told the story about Major General Cosgrove. We were on the border between Indonesia and East Timor in 1999 in an orders group, during INTERFET, and he got fed up with some of the staff officers. He banged the table and he said: 'I am sick to death of some of you people telling me why I can't do things. You need to start telling me how I can.' Isn't there something in that for all of us here? Those real people that I talked about, that's what they're looking for so desperately. They're not looking for excuses or laws or anything else; they just want the problem fixed.

I was asked by a journalist, following the last election, whether I was Right or Left. To me, that's not how my mind works. I told the story of a lady that I know who works at Simplot, at a vegetable factory. She stands there all night sorting carrots. It was the middle of winter and she'd pulled an extra shift because they couldn't get enough people for the next shift. She did two eight-hour shifts on her feet sorting carrots. She thought about how it's going into winter and those kids needed a new winter uniform. The little girl needed a new tunic, the little boy needed a new jumper. They both needed new shoes. She got in the car after those two back-to-back shifts and drove home in the rain. The car needed new tyres. That's right, the insurance and the registration is due. That was confirmed to her when she got home to make those kids their lunches before they went to school. The magnet on the fridge wasn't strong enough to hold the bills. They all fell off and she said to me that as she's picking them up: 'I just bawled. I bawled my eyes out. Everything I touch has gone through the roof. Everything I touch makes me give up. The only thing that drives me forward is my family.'

She was a real person. She had real problems. She had real issues. She had real kids. And she couldn't care less whether I, as her representative, was Right or Left. She just wanted her stuff fixed. Isn't that right? The real people of this world, I sometimes agree with Robert Menzies, they are forgotten. On this side, we know that they ought to be put front and centre once again because we really do need to start listening to them.

I mentioned leaders. When I mention leadership, I describe it in three words, and they all start with the letter F—are you nervous, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas? The three Fs that I use to describe leadership are 'firm', 'fair' and 'friendly', and you need to be all of those things in equal measure. If you are—it doesn't matter what severity you are, as long as they are equal—you'll get on in life when it comes to military leadership. It's not exclusive to military leadership. Leadership is important. I've seen many different leaders approach leadership in many different ways.

One of the blokes that I want to mention and acknowledge here today is the bloke that's touched my life not only in the military but also in this place, Major General Jim Molan, or Senator Molan. I miss him every day. Jim used to talk about defending the country and he used to say that it takes more than a defence force to defend a country; it takes a country to defend a country. And ain't that coming true now! Look at the rising issue of the geopolitical situation across the Indo-Pacific, cyber grey-zone operations and state-based actors. I know from my work on the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade that we often focus on the shiny things in life—things like AUKUS, the LAND 400 and the Precision Strike Missile—but, again, I go back to the real people, because at the edge and behind and around each part of those shiny things there is a person, a highly trained individual.

I've always said that you can have the very best and finest rifle in the world, but it's not until you put a well-trained, highly motivated digger on the blunt end of the thing that it turns into a lethal capability. Ain't that right, Phil Thompson?

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