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

Jim was right. Jim was also a philosopher when it came to his love not only of the country but of combining that love with the defence of this nation and the national security strategy that we so desperately need. I spoke of Jim's funeral and I spoke of the flag that covered his coffin that day. Again, that flag is enmeshed and interwoven into everything that I think about. For blokes like Jim Molan, every day of their life is spent in the preservation and the strength of that flag. I think that's why I have such a solemn focus on the power and the strength of that flag.

Jim was a leader in every true sense of the word. When it comes to leaders, Peter Dutton, I see that strength in you. You have the moral compass, you have the moral strength, and you have the moral support on those benches behind you. I know you will stick up for that little girl who's too frightened to go to school just because she's Jewish, or that little Indigenous kid in Alice Springs who's too frightened to go home because dad has been on the drink and she doesn't want to be bashed or raped. It's not very nice, is it? But it's real, and it's going to take real leadership and it's going to take a real plan to fix that—and no welcome to country in this place is going to fix that. Peter, I have a lot of faith in you, and so do the people on the benches behind you.

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