Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I apologise, Madam Acting Deputy President. As I was saying, Robert Ray was an inspiration to the Labor Party and he held it together through some pretty difficult times. When I came here, Robert Ray was a member of a government that had some pretty strong people in it—Senator Button, who we will honour this afternoon, Peter Walsh and a number of other people. He sat there for a number of years—a very small number of years—on the backbench but eventually he was made Minister for Defence, a portfolio that he very strongly enjoyed and took a great deal of interest in. He was a man of humour and he was a man of honesty. He was a very hard player. We got involved in his accusations that I had eight telephones. It was quite untrue; I had one telephone. I went wrong by not mentioning that the Leader of the Opposition at that time had 55 telephones. I tried to quieten it down, and he went on the attack. That was a mistake on my part.

He is going to cast a big shadow over those who come after him. You do not get players like Robert Ray coming into this place now. He must have held the Labor Party together in Victoria, just as he played a very significant role in the Senate for the Labor Party.

Could I take the opportunity to welcome back Jacinta Collins. Jacinta, we missed you very badly in some of the debates on more social conservative issues that we had over the last three years when you were missing. We look forward to your contribution again on some of those issues, which will no doubt come forward.

I would like to wish Robert Ray a great retirement. He has retired on top of his game. He is probably the last hard man of the Hawke-Keating years left. He leaves us, and we pay our respects to him. In closing, if I were to describe him I would say: Robert, it was a fair bump, but play on.