Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak on the passing of Sir Llew Edwards. Sir Llew was an inspiration to so many young kids who grew up in Ipswich in the 1980s—kids like me. A Liberal MP holding the usually strong Labor seat of Ipswich did not at all seem out of place due to the extremes of his competence and his humility. He graduated from the Ipswich Grammar School in 1951 and was the absolute model of public service to which so many of us 'Ippy' boys aspired. Thanks to his influence, the school today has provided the LNP no fewer than four sitting parliamentarians—two in this place and two in the Queensland Parliament, including his great nephew Sam O'Connor. His legacy lives on in our public service.

I'm also proud to be one of the nearly 90,000 UQ graduates who upon our graduation from UQ shook his hand as chancellor. It was a duty he fondly remembered as one of the great thrills of his life, and it's indeed a moment that I fondly recall as one of the great thrills of mine. He was a giant upon whose shoulders so many people now stand. He was a Liberal Party leader for Queensland, a deputy premier, a Treasurer of Queensland, a chairman of World Expo 88 and, in 2010, named a Queensland Great. He made the world very much a better place.