Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to use this constituency statement to recognise the extraordinary career of one of my constituents and friends, Stephen Conroy. Stephen has been one of the biggest figures on the Australian political stage over the past 20 years. It is a very small group of people indeed who could say they have done more to shape Australian politics since he entered the Senate in 1996. He made an extraordinary contribution, both to the direction of the Australian Labor Party and to our nation.

Stephen was a prodigious political talent. It has been lost to the shadows of Stephen's parliamentary career, but he came to the Senate by the most retail of Australian politics—Footscray local government. I can say from firsthand experience that he never lost those retail political skills honed on the doorsteps of West Footscray, and I was proud to be able to campaign with him by my side in my community in Melbourne's west during my first election campaign in 2013. As a result of this retail touch, there is nobody that I know who gets the nub of the politics of an issue more quickly than Stephen. I will greatly miss his political judgement in this place.

Stephen was famously labelled 'a factional dalek' by a former colleague some years ago, a pejorative that Stephen, a massive Dr Who fan, embraced and appropriated. But this label did an enormous injustice to Stephen's work in this building. Stephen's biggest fights in politics were not about preselections, they were about policy—fights on PPPs, on nuclear power, on the NBN, on internet governance and, more recently, over China and electoral reform. They were fights with colleagues in the Labor Party, fights with the opposite side of politics, fights with powerful interests in Australian life outside of the parliament, but always substantive policy fights about the direction of our country. I am proud to say that I stood behind Stephen during some of these fights and there is no-one in the world that I would rather be in the trenches with. I had the misfortune of being on the opposite side to Stephen in a small number of these instances and those occasions were far less enjoyable or successful!

Stephen knew his trade in this place well. He was a master of the Senate, constantly and gleefully setting and pulling procedural snares for his opponents. He had a habit of making something from nothing for his cause by knowing the business of the Senate far better than anyone around him. One of his greatest contributions came through the unseen work of this place: the crucial accountability mechanisms of the Senate committees and the Senate estimates process. Public servants with something to hide will be relieved to see the back of him. Stephen was known for his ferocious loyalty to his staff, a diverse crew who all share a reciprocal loyalty for the man that they served to this day.

I cannot let this occasion pass without noting that Stephen had the most appalling judgement of sports teams as any member of parliament who has ever served in either of the houses of this parliament. Surely he is the only member who supported Collingwood, Chelsea and the English cricket team!—though I do note that the parliamentary soccer team was well served by him and they have lost their latest game in his absence this week.

I have seen firsthand how dedicated Stephen is to his family. All of us make sacrifices to do the work we do here, but for Stephen these sacrifices were all the greater given the challenges he had to overcome to build the beautiful family that he has today. While we are all very sad to lose Stephen from this place, I know that Bella and Paula's happiness will be ever the greater.