Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Vale, dear Don Randall. I was on my way home from Alby Schultz's funeral when I received a very sombre and tearful phone call from my daughter Emily to inform me that Don had passed away. I do not actually believe I grasped what I had been told at the time. He had been sitting right here—where Mal, the member for Fisher, is sitting at the moment—only a week before in this parliament, in the House of Representatives. My thoughts went immediately to his daughter, Tess, whom I had met, and to his three mates: Andrew Southcott, he called him 'Southie'; Ken Wyatt, who sits over here, he called 'Kenny'; and Steve Irons, who he referred to as simply 'Irons'.

The worst part of it, Don, was I was just getting to know you. During all these years as we sat together, I heard of your hopes, your dreams, your wife, your plans for the future, your little shack on the beach and watching the sun go down; you told me all about it. One more term in parliament you were doing, one more term and all of your dreams would have come true. He always came in late—every day he came in late on purpose, just to let the whip know that he was in control of his own life and that he did exactly what he wanted to do. He did this just to give the whip a tickle up. Then he would say, 'I've been at lunch with an ambassador, or drinks with the friendship group, or meetings with the high commissioner.' He was always busy, busy, busy: politics, family, electorate, electorate staff, and he loved to pump up Julie Bishop, he loved to pump up Julie Bishop's side. He would sit there beside me and tell me how good she was. Every time she spoke at the podium, he would say, 'Look at that, isn't that'—and he would pump her up again.

Don was Western Australian first, Western Australian second and Western Australian third. He would come into the room with an outrageously politically incorrect remark, aimed at Andrew Southcott or Angus Taylor, just to get a rise. He had a cheeky grin, one like this photograph I have grabbed that a friend of mine pulled off the net. This photograph is of Don taken from the gallery here just after I told him, 'Mate, you have fallen asleep and the press are going to kill you.' Here he is, screaming back with a big grin on his face, and he said, Thanks, mate; thanks!'

Don was a big man. He was noticed in a room. He commanded a room. He was noticeable. And Don went out of his way to make sure he was noticed. For a long time Don Randall and I were at odds. Everybody knew why—he had a view on women and children in detention and I had a different view. He used to stand up in the party room and he would openly attack those 'chardonnay-sipping lefty Liberals from safe seats,' and then he would say, 'all except for Russell Broadbent.' We had a bond, something that made us close, that only a few in this place can share. You can, Mal. We have a bond between people who had been thrown out by their constituents and then had come back into the House to fight the fight on behalf of the constituents we then represented. There is you, Mal, there is me, there was Don Randall, and very few others. We were rejected by our own electorates—we wear the scars of defeat, we wear the scars of rejection, we wear the scars of our expectations. We both returned to this place, and until you have done that you do not understand what it is like.

Apparently in this House we do not take photos of committees—which I think is a great shame—because they are too expensive to frame. I said to Don's committee, which was the Procedure Committee, 'I will pay for the frame—I want a photo.' When I walk around the House and go to committee rooms I remember a lot of the people in those photographs—the House does not remember them, but I do. I remember the clerks in the photographs—I remember those days and they are important. I said I wanted a photograph taken, and I have here the last photograph taken of Don before he left the House and before he passed away. He was a great chair of the Procedure Committee and a great member of the Privileges Committee as well. In this beautiful photograph, would you believe, Danby, the deputy chair and member for Melbourne Ports, has his hand on Don's shoulder. That was the last time we saw him. Vale Don Randall. I loved him.