Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House record its deep regret at the death, on 29 August 2021, of Senator Alexander (Alex) McEachian Gallacher, Senator for South Australia, place on record its appreciation of his service to Australia, and offer its heartfelt sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

It is with great sadness that I rise today to pay tribute to a colleague gone too soon. On Sunday Senator Gallacher lost his battle with lung cancer, but he fought bravely. He was 67. Today we gather to remember a straight talker, a man who knew the values he stood for and the working people he fought for, and a servant of Australia who loved his adopted country and the party he so honourably and faithfully served. Senator Gallagher was born in 1954 in New Cumnock, Scotland, a remote town that has weathered the seasons and struggles of life for centuries and is known for its vast open vistas and rolling green hills, and a town that, like many, has wrestled with its place in the 20th and the 21st century economies. Sixty years ago New Cumnock was a vibrant coalmining town. Working in the pits was of course difficult and strenuous and, indeed, dangerous work, but with that hardship comes camaraderie and community and a determination to watch out for each other because your life is always in each other's hands. On the town's worst day, in 1950, 129 miners were trapped underground, and it was a race against the clock. Thirteen lives were lost that day. In that world safety was everything; looking after your mates mattered. That was the world of New Cumnock.

During the 1960s, as the pits started to close and jobs disappeared and houses were boarded up and opportunity faded, in 1966 Alex's father brought his family to Australia. He moved from the cold and remote and windswept places of southern Scotland to a place just as vast but nowhere near as cold: the Northern Territory. In so many ways Alex's story is typical of immigrant stories going back centuries. In Alex's words, his father came to Australia seeking a better chance for him and his family. But he and his family knew that a better chance is never handed to you. You work for it and you take the opportunities where you find them and you're rewarded for them. Indeed, some of Alex's criticisms of the casualisation of the workforce related to the way you can get stuck in roles that have neither security nor opportunity. Alex's early career as a labourer and a truck driver in the 1970s ignited what became for him a lifelong mission—giving a voice to workers in the transport industry. After working at TAA as a ramp operator, Alex had established himself in the union movement. He worked for the Transport Workers Union representing members in South Australia and the Northern Territory. He represented transport workers for 22 years—faithful, dedicated service. As we know, he rose up the ranks of the TWU, becoming president in 2007. It was a lifelong passion he brought to this place.

His approach, as those who knew him well, was no nonsense. No doubt, he was influenced by Aunty Doris and Aunty Mattie, who, on hearing he had been elected to the Australian Senate, gave him some stern Scottish advice: 'Don't get a big head,' they said. In the Senate Alex brought with him the beliefs, values and humility so conferred to him by Aunty Doris and Aunty Mattie, and these guided him, his decisions and his conduct, in this place.

When he entered the parliament, he spoke of his love of the transport industry and said:

In my humble opinion, there is no better place to work. There is no smoke and mirrors, just plain-talking, hardworking employees and employers alike in a tough, competitive industry which works harder than most people imagine and continues to work while most people are asleep.

It was a point he reminded us of during this pandemic. Alex had an understanding and appreciation of what Australian wage and salary earners give to this country, and it was not something he left at his first speech. It was integral to his last as well, where he spoke of the workers who carry this country.

Alex had a rich and nuanced understanding of the place of work in our lives and of the dignity of work and what we sacrifice in our labours. He saw it wherever he went. When he returned to Australia after a nine-day placement in Afghanistan as part of the ADF Parliamentary Program he said this:

Probably the biggest thing that I learned in my short time in Afghanistan was the absolute commitment of our people, the courage of our people, their wanting to do their job well, to serve their country well, to look after each other each and every day and to get home at the end of each day in one piece, with all their crew intact.

I can hear echoes of the lessons of a mining town that suffered such tragedy, in those remarks, and I hear a former advocate for transport workers who wanted his drivers to return home, at the end of a long stretch, each day in one piece.

It's a passion he brought to this place, in the parliament. In 2014 he formed, along with the member for Gippsland, the Parliamentary Friends of Road Safety group. It was something he felt in his very being. He once said:

I don't ever go down the Hume Highway without calling into the truckies memorial at Tarcutta. If I have 10 minutes to spare, I pull off and look at the names on that list.

That was the sort of bloke he was.

We know Alex Gallacher loved his family, he loved his work and he loved his country, but he had another love, I'm told, and that was golf. He once said one of the most peculiar statements ever recorded by Hansard—and that's saying something! He said:

There is no more beautiful place in the whole of Australia than a new golf course.

It's a nod, perhaps, to the undulating green Scottish fields of his childhood.

But I think we saw a deeper insight when he was sick. I'm advised he said after receiving chemotherapy, 'Golf makes me feel good, exercise makes me feel good and work completes it.' He continued to work to the very end because he found and saw meaning and purpose in his work. He said, 'I'm trying to change my use-by date to 'best before'. I just keep going as long as I can.' And he did, bravely. He did, and those who love him can be just so proud of his service to our country—those of his family, those of his friends outside of this place and those here in this place who join us today. He did, right until the very end.

Alex's birthplace, New Cumnock, has in its town centre a statue of one of the most famous Scottish compatriots, the 18th century poet Rabbie Burns. Burns's face adorns the roadside that welcomes people to that town—Scotland's national bard. We mostly remember Burns for what have become his most famed words, about old times and old friends and memories of what was, in the words of 'Auld Lang Syne'. In a lovely coincidence, the son of New Cumnock who we mourn today was actually born on New Year's Day. Alex's birthdays were ushered in with 'Auld Lang Syne'. Allow me to read—certainly not sing—a few of the verses in memory of a colleague and a friend:

Should old acquaintance be forgot,

and never brought to mind?

Should old acquaintance be forgot,

and auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,

for auld lang syne,

we'll take a cup of kindness yet,

for auld lang syne

…   …   …

And there's a hand my trusty friend!

And give me a hand o' thine!

And we'll take a right good-will draught,

for auld lang syne.

In farewelling our colleague leaving this place too soon, we honour his service to this place and to our country. To Alex's wife, Paola, and his children and grandchildren, I offer my and Jenny's gratitude and condolences and those of the government and also of the people of Australia. May God bless you, and may Alex rest in peace.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Prime Minister for his fine words and his genuine sentiment with regard to farewelling our dear friend and colleague Senator Alex Gallacher. It's more than a year and a half since Alex was diagnosed with lung cancer, and we're deeply saddened that this was a battle that could be fought but, in the end, not won. Alex carried on fighting for his fellow Australians as he dealt with the realities of this illness. That's the sort of man that he was. Senator Don Farrell told me when he spoke to me last week that the end was near, that Alex wanted to stay as a senator till his final days.

Indeed, Australia won something of a lottery in 1966 when the young Alex and his parents left their native Scotland and headed for our shores. It must be said that the Labor Party and the trade union movement have enjoyed a pretty good track record when it comes to Scottish imports, and Alex was a prime example. By the time he arrived in parliament he'd spent many years as a labourer, a truck driver and a ramp services operator at Trans Australia Airlines. He joined Labor in Darwin in 1988, when he also began to work for his beloved Transport Workers Union. He eventually became secretary of the South Australian/Northern Territory branch and ascended to vice-president and then president of the national Transport Workers Union.

Alex stood up consistently and passionately for the rights of his fellow Australians at work and for their right to come home safely from work. There was no stronger advocate of safe rates than Alex Gallacher. It was his driving energy as a trade unionist, and he carried it burning brightly with him when he became one of Labor's senators for South Australia in 2010. As South Australia's Labor leader, Peter Malinauskas, so rightly put it yesterday, 'transport workers could hardly have had a better friend, ally and advocate in the Australian parliament'.

If there was even a flimsy chance that Alex would get carried away by his transition to high office it was nipped in the bud by his aunts Doris and Mattie. Their advice, which could have been given that extra bit of gravity by their Scottish accents, was: 'Don't get too big for your boots!' As Alex said in his first speech to the Senate, it was advice that he intended to heed. And he did. In that same speech he charted a clear course for his parliamentary career as he outlined his priority interests—the transport industry, road safety and superannuation. What he then said gave a perfect insight into the character of the man. He said this:

I have been involved in the transport industry all my life. In my humble opinion, there is no better place to work. There is no smoke and mirrors, just plain-talking, hardworking employees and employers alike in a tough, competitive industry which works harder than most people imagine and continues to work while most people are asleep.

In this time of the pandemic, those words echo never more truly than today.

Alex was an exemplar of the enduring bond between the Australian Labor Party, the mighty trade union movement and the shop floor. His life was an act of dedication to the interests of working people, and as you'd expect from a man who knew so well the rumble of the road beneath him, his particular love for the transport sector and those who worked in it never, ever wavered. It was a love that sometimes manifested itself in surprising ways, such as that time he had a crucial cameo on the SBS reality show Marry Me Marry My Family. It was a wedding in Nairobi negotiating the dowry on behalf of a young truck driver, who was the son of an old friend. After what was described as a pretty hectic two hours of talks, an agreement was reached and the wedding was a great success. As a microcosm of the Alex Gallacher approach to life, it was perfect—tenacity, determination, loyalty, love. Look back over Alex's long and considerable record and you will see all those qualities and energies working together. You see them in the way he defended workers' rights and conditions. He fought against WorkChoices and, understanding that a decent working life must include dignity in retirement, he was tireless in his efforts to protect and bolster universal superannuation. Again, if we turn back to his first speech we find he moved almost to poetry on the power of superannuation. He said:

In order to take advantage of what Einstein referred to as the eighth wonder of the world, compound interest, young people need to be educated, preferably at school.

During his time with cancer he was a champion of the workers who are getting us through the pandemic. The thought that Alex won't be here with us when we emerge is a poignant one. The Labor family appreciates the kindness from across the aisle, from the Prime Minister and from others who have reached out to offer their condolences, among them, finance minister Birmingham's touching farewell to his fellow senator in which he said:

A straight shooter, you always knew what Alex believed and where he stood.

On that note, I would like to turn to the words of Alex's good mate, his Canberra flatmate and fellow truckie, Senator Glenn Sterle, who for so long served alongside him on the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee. As Sterlie put it:

I would like to blame Albo, the leadership team and all the shadow ministers for not taking Alex's advice on each and every issue that mattered to him. This would leave me copping an Alex sermon every night in our Canberra unit over a wine or three as to how he saw the world and how it should be and what I needed to do to get people thinking his way.

He described the annual duty at the Senate Christmas barbecue, which I had the privilege of attending for a number of years. He said: 'We were clearly instructed each and every year not to cook the vegan patties amongst the sausages and steaks. Now Alex couldn't quite grasp our instructions that the vegan burgers had to be kept separate. He said they needed to be cooked with the good stuff or they had no flavour. Sorry, comrades; I tried, but you could not argue with Alex when he had a set of extra-large tongs in his right hand. Alex reckoned if he hadn't had meat at least twice a day he was feeling like a vegetarian. Old school was Senator Alex Gallacher.

Senator Sterle also reminds us of another side that is an insight into the gentleness beneath that gruff exterior of his character. When Alex was tasked to be on the NDIS committee his first response was, 'What do I know about people living with disabilities?' but, as was consistent with Alex, he wanted to know more. This led to him employing a lady in Adelaide who was confined to a wheelchair so he could hear firsthand her experiences and challenges living with a disability and how the NDIS assisted her. What a great story.

Alex's colleague in the Senate and fellow TW giant, Tony Sheldon, told me a story that epitomises Alex's twin traits of humility and great pride in the men and women he represented. When approached in recent months by the South Australian branch of the TWU for his blessing to have them name a refurbished and expanded training room after him, Alex gave a typically laconic and self-facing response: 'You've got to be kidding me. Don't waste your time'—and, yes, that quote is missing a couple of unparliamentary words!

However, branch secretary Ian Smith was determined to prevail, and the move was endorsed at the next rank-and-file branch committee management meeting. Once Alex knew it had the overwhelming endorsement of the membership, he quietly let it be known that he was inordinately proud of the honour. Thus was born the Alex Gallacher training centre at the TWU South Australian branch office in Adelaide.

Alex may be gone, but we're surrounded by all the good that flowed from his principles, his passion and, crucially, his actions. In the words of his good friend Senator Marielle Smith, 'Over the years I knew him, I came across countless people for whom he had a life-changing impact.' As we share our memories of him, we are reminded of why we are here: to make a difference, and that is what Alex did.

Alex came to Australia with his family in search of a better life, but ultimately he helped make our country, Australia, better. In what proved to be his last speech to the Senate, in March, Alex was, unsurprisingly, fighting for workers, firing shots against the:

… national shame—that workers who carry this country, such as cleaners, garbagemen and all of the people who do all of those jobs we take for granted, are not getting a fair share of the national income.

Had things turned out differently, that's what he would have been doing today—fighting for workers, fighting particularly for the most vulnerable—because that's who he was. He told us so at the beginning. Indeed, Alex wrapped up that first speech with a Theodore Roosevelt quote:

Far and away the best prize life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

Alex seized that prize with both hands, and we were all winners because of it. Our hearts go out to his wife, Paola, and to his family and his friends. May Alex rest in the peace of a job well done and a life so very well lived.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a great honour to speak at the condolence of a person that I worked with, Alex Gallacher. For Paola, for Caroline, for Terry, for Ian, for Frank and for the grandchildren, I offer the sympathies of this parliament and so many of our colleagues.

Alex was a fair dinkum guy. You know people in this game, you know the people who play on the other football side, and, although your job in here is to compete, you know the people who are fair dinkum and play by the rules, and Alex was one of those. He was also passionate about rural and regional affairs. I remember him wanting to decentralise sections to, I think, Port Augusta, which I think he was on a unity ticket of one on. But the thing about Alex that I found is he was a person who never deserted his Labor loyalties—they were red hot in his blood—but you could negotiate with him. He didn't carry on with trivialities and rubbish. If he thought a deal needed to be done, he would go outside into the courtyard and—unfortunately, a bad habit for so many of us—have a cigarette and have a yarn about how you could try and see your way through something. That, I think, is a very admirable trait, to be able to think that we are here for our nation, not just some form of puerile parochial game.

In his industry, living out in the country, as so many of us are aware of, one of his former good mates from our side Senator 'Wacka' Williams shared a common bond—both being truck drivers, they both understood how that worked, and they both had some very similar habits. It's an industry, of course, that takes you away from your family and takes you on the road and in which you sleep in your cabin, stop for fast food and pull over at service stations. I've never been a long-distance truck driver, but obviously I'm very aware of it, being on the same roads as them, eating the wrong food and trying to break down the monotony of those miles and miles and miles, what they call white-line fever, by whatever you could do—any break, anything that broke the monotony, anything that could keep you looking forward to what was 40 kilometres ahead. Of course, that attracts you to things such as smoking.

Today I think what was so powerful about Alex is that he had a life before he was a politician, and he brought that with him. So few these days, to be frank, come into this parliament with the life that Alex had lived. Living a life outside of politics—very similar to Wacka Williams—means that he had the capacity to cut through the BS and just get to the issue and understand, with the sort of empathy that comes from being a person of wider life experience. He was, and had been, a person who had laboured, and it's a great loss—it is a great loss.

What was also admirable about Alex was that he didn't aspire to higher office. He aspired to do his job. He wasn't the Prime Minister. He wasn't a minister. He wasn't the Leader of the Opposition. I don't think he was ever a shadow minister. And you could see that in him. He wanted to do the hard work that the Labor Party required of him, and he did the job that was given to him, and he did it with a smile on his face. Sterlo and I started at the same time. I've been communicating with Sterlo and I said, 'Tell me three things about him.' He said, 'He loved his family; No. 1.' He loved his family, he loved golf, and it sounds like he also loved the capacity to be part of trying to direct this nation.

In closing, I don't know whether Alex was a man of faith, but I thought of something in thinking about him. It's from Corinthians. It's 15:10 and it goes like this:

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

I believe that Alex, whether he had a faith or not, is with Him who looks over all of us.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] I start by acknowledging the heartfelt words of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Prime Minister. It's fair to say that Alex could be a little cantankerous. If you were looking to get a warm hug on first meeting Alex Gallacher, you had definitely come to the wrong place. David Feeney would say of Alex that he was his favourite grump. His manner of speaking was the precise opposite of attention seeking. His quiet, low, mumbly drawl actually required you to listen just a bit harder, but when you did Alex always had something to say; he never left you wondering. He didn't like flowery verbiage. He always had a very clear opinion.

The truth is that Alex was slow to give his trust to people, but when he did he stuck, because Alex's view of human relations was not about winning a popularity context on any particular given day. Instead, he was focused on the quality and the longevity of the relationships which really mattered, and that's why there are a number of people who are serving or who have recently served in this parliament who are completely devoted to Alex Gallacher—Tony Sheldon, Don Farrell, David Feeney and, most particularly, Glenn Sterle—and my thoughts are very much with each of them today.

Alex knew who he was and where he came from. His first speech was a down-to-earth fanfare for the truck driver. He loved the transport industry and the people within it, including the employers but, most particularly, the transport workers that he represented throughout his life.

I first met Alex in 1994, when I started as the national legal officer at the TWU. At that point Alex was an organiser in the South Australian branch, albeit one who stood out from the rest. Within a couple of years, Alex was elected as the South Australian state secretary of the TWU. In the ensuing years, Alex and I both served on the federal committee of management of the TWU. If I'm being honest, having grown up and having been educated at Geelong Grammar School and then Melbourne Law School, coming to the TWU was something of a profound culture shock. People spoke their own language—literally. In any given sentence, the ratio of expletive to non-expletive words was at least one in three, which meant that for a long time I had no idea what anyone was actually saying. This might seem like an unlikely place to get an education in political philosophy, but for me that's exactly what happened.

Practical, pragmatic solutions for working people—that's what Alex was about; that's what they were all about. In the midst of that was an uncompromisingly clear goal: Did any given proposition advance the lives of transport workers? That's what drove Alex Gallacher. He hated identity politics. He couldn't give a stuff about what was popular or what was trendy. He didn't care about what people thought he should say. He was never looking for a cheer in any meeting that he spoke at in the union or later in politics. Because his goal, his sense of purpose, was so crystal clear, his life was deeply impactful in the union movement and then later here in parliament on the transport sector and on improving road safety in Australia.

Alex loved his family—his wife, Paola, his children and his grandchildren. He left this world sounded by a family and, indeed, a political family who completely loved him and were totally devoted to him. Really, that actually says more about Alex than anything else.

When we look to the great Labor figures of the past, we are reminded of Ben Chifley, who rose from being a train driver to the Prime Minister of our country. There are many who feel that Chifley's journey is a story confined to the past, but that is completely belied by the life of Alex Gallacher, who rose from being a truck driver to an Australian senator, participating in the governance of our country at the highest level in 2021. It would be true that our party room today is more diverse—there are more women and there are more graduates than there were back then—but I am enormously proud that Alex Gallacher's life is one that occurred in our movement, in the Labor movement. Alex's is a great story. He was a great man. He was a great friend and he will be sorely missed.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's an honour to follow the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Opposition. Alex is not a person I knew personally, so I have obviously been in search of who he was, and I've certainly developed a much greater understanding of that.

I first went to his Twitter account. I don't have a Twitter account. For obvious reasons, I don't engage much on Twitter. Alex's last tweet was in November of 2018, only a few years ago; he obviously wasn't a great fan of the medium either! The last tweet that he made, in November of that year, had a photo that he had taken on a plane he was flying on of the TV screen at the front of the plane. The tweet said: 'Peter Dutton paused due to inflight message. Not a great look!' He tweeted this photo of me somehow being frozen on the screen in front of him. I thought maybe, from what I have come to know of his personality since then, he might have a wry smile on his face now and appreciate the irony that I've got the last word here today in response to his tweet.

Having looked carefully at his career, at the person that he was, and having spoken to his colleagues and heard the fine words of, in particular, the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, I will say this: Senator Gallacher was a no-nonsense, plain-talking and committed union man. He was, in short, a blue-collar Labor man of old. He was a thoroughly decent Australian. He sought election not for self-aggrandisement but to better the lives of those he represented. From the outset, in his maiden speech, he emphasised humility, respect and the importance of remaining humble.

Senator Gallacher was a man who came to Canberra for the right reasons. He came here because he believed in something. We each serve in this place for different reasons. We represent different communities. We hold divergent beliefs and seek our own goals and aspirations. Alex was a proud and lifelong truckie. He revered the transport industry and he rightly saw it as a central pillar in our society. He praised the spirit and the drive of the industry, shared by employees and employers alike. He described this as a capacity for hard work and a selfless dedication to the task at hand. These were attributes he himself embodied. As we know, for 23 years in the TWU, and for 10 years in the parliament, Alex was an indefatigable advocate for road safety. The Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee will indeed not be the same without him.

It is true the parliament has lost a colleague, a friend and a fine public servant, and the Labor Party has lost a true believer. In the parliament Senator Gallacher was a formidable sparring partner and dogged interrogator both in the chamber and in the committee room. His passing should give members pause to stop and reflect. Parliament is by nature, as we know, an adversarial place, and Alex was no shrinking violet. But there is another side to this place. Beyond our verbal jousting and the pitch clash of ideas, the parliament is a community. This marble-clad boiler room of democracy is a workplace like no other—the highs, the lows, the early mornings, the late nights, the vagaries of convention procedure and precedence, the incessant ringing of bells and the habitual glancing at clocks. We grieve together today for a man who came to this place to fight unyieldingly for something he truly believed in and to make our country a better place. Today all members of this place grieve together and we feel acutely the loss of one of our own.

To Senator Gallacher's family, to his wife and pillar of strength, Paola, and to his children and grandchildren: we send our deepest and most sincere condolences. I know you are proud, and you should be proud, of him, and we know that he was equally proud of you. To Alex's colleagues across the parliament, both in this chamber and the other, I want to say: we stand with you as you grieve the loss of an old friend. We thank Alex for his many years of service to our nation. The parliament is a poorer place for his loss.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the House for those generous words. We have lost one of our own and lost someone who has been described, quite rightly, as a true entity of the Labor Party through and through.

We often get debates about people with a union background, and it's often not understood how people come to the union movement. I think Alex Gallacher was a classic example but not a unique example. Yes, Alex had a career as a labourer, a truck driver and an airline ramp operator, but take the TWU team in the Senate: Tony Sheldon worked as a garbage collector; Glenn Sterle delivered, as a truck driver, a whole lot of green leather—and that's what everyone is sitting on here now. Those chairs were delivered here by a truck driver who is now a senator. The solidarity of that TWU group is something really special in the parliament, and they have lost more than a colleague.

There have been a few opportunities now to quote Alex's first speech. It's rare in this place that you get members of parliament for whom their first speech and last speech marry up so neatly. But for Alex, Alex was not changed by being a member of parliament. But he did change what happened here by virtue of being a member of parliament. In his first speech he referred to workers in the transport sector; there's no smoke and mirrors, just plain talking—hardworking employees and employers alike in a tough, competitive industry that works harder than most people imagine and continues to work while most people are asleep. He wasn't showy, but worked hard and all the way through, right to the end, still chairing meetings of the wage theft inquiry, trying to fight for people who were having their pay stolen.

He was tough in all his negotiations. I think there's a risk, when we lose someone like Alex, that we describe them in terms that become so genteel that we're not really describing the person we've lost. Glenn Sterle was very keen for me to relate the anecdote from the Wagga ACTU meeting. He said, 'It won't be true to the delegates unless you say it out loud. They want to know.' This was at the ACTU meeting in Wagga where, as an organiser, Alex was unhappy with his union secretary and got into a fight with the union secretary—not an argument, got into a proper fight—and decked the union secretary. Now, you would normally think, 'Okay, that means you won't last much longer as an organiser.' That's true: shortly after, he became the secretary. Tony Sheldon last night was receiving text messages from employers remembering Alex very fondly. But as part of their fond memories, it was how uncompromising he was. He was not uncompromising if you put an argument to him that was logical or that he then accepted. But if he knew he was right, he was not going to cave, which resulted in one Qantas executive sending a message to Tony Sheldon that concluded with the line, 'He was the only union official to ever throw a chair at me.'

He loved his family, was loyal to his friends and, unlike some of the people you get in this place who just try to be friends with as many people as possible, Alex worked out whom he trusted and he stuck with and was loyal to them. He believed in secure jobs, safe jobs and a secure retirement and fought for the superannuation as part of that secure retirement, a retirement that he himself would never enjoy. But he dedicated his last speech in part to young workers, pointing to the challenges, where he said:

There are many young people at the moment who have never had the luxury of a permanent job. They have never had it. They can get 16, 17, 22 or 25 hours but they can't get a permanent job. In other areas of quite reasonable economic activity, you have an inordinate number of casuals or labour hire people. Once again, those people don't see a permanent opportunity coming forward.

He continued the whole way through to fight for people who needed a champion. He continued the whole way through to never take a backward step. He loved life and loved his friends. He would have cancer treatment in the morning and play golf in the afternoon. He was not going to let cancer beat him, and indeed it hasn't. There are so many who will take up the mantle and continue to fight for what Alex believed in, and there are so many people at work to this day who have more dignity, who have safer jobs, who have better conditions and who will enjoy a better retirement because of Alex Gallacher. To his family and his friends, our deepest condolences.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand it's the wish of honourable members to signify at this stage their respect and sympathy by rising in their places and I ask all present to do so.

Honourable members having stood in their places—

I thank the House.

Debate adjourned.