Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I might just, as a short preamble, say that I only left my apartment late this afternoon to speak here this evening. I have not been feeling well. If I do not match the standard of the previous speakers, I would ask you to please give me that indulgence and listen to what I have to say, albeit not with the same fire or verve with which my colleagues have delivered their valedictory speeches here this evening. I came into this parliament at the untimely death of Senator John Panizza. That was in early 1997. I had spent some years in the state parliament, where I had served in the lower and upper houses. I first entered that state parliament on 5 February, 1986. My time in the state parliament was in some ways retrogressive for my entry here. Apart from perhaps the first week I was here, I have never held any fear of being in this place, nor, I hope, have I ever been seen to lack any courage.

I did have two views that I held passionately when I was in the state parliament that I carried with me into this august chamber. I was a fervent supporter of the monarchical system, partly because when I was 16 I put my age up to 19 and I joined the Army. In 1953 I became part of a guard of honour for Her Majesty the Queen. Whilst I did not touch her, as Sir Robert Menzies said and intentionally plagiarised, I did but see her passing by and yet I love her till I die. That was true of me. I was told to leave the Army some time later in the early fifties, because I had been called up for national service, where I had spent some years, both full time and part time. After my obligatory obligation in national service, I joined the Mounted Police in South Australia. I think it was the only mounted cadre in the world that had all grey horses. It was a magnificent experience for a young man like me—to leave national service and then, feeling a little lonely after a short period of civilian life, rejoin the Mounted Police and have the most exhilarating time. One of the most memorable events was when the Queen again visited South Australia. I think it was in 1961 and I was chosen as part of her personal escort. There was no-one who would have protected Her Majesty better than me at that stage. I would gladly have given my life for her. I think those two experiences have given me a lifelong appreciation, not just of perhaps the most wonderful woman mentor in the world and of that exemplary life she has led as a mother, wife and leader, but also of a monarch whose respect and power stretches around the globe.

The other aspect of that which I brought to this chamber was that I stilled burned, albeit not with the same fierce passion that I once held, for the secession of Western Australia. It seemed to me to be something that was not quite fair, not quite reasonable and not quite equitable to have a big state like Western Australia, a third of this nation, producing a great deal of the national export income and to have that income mainly flow to Canberra and seem not to flow back to Western Australia all that much. But, whilst I maintained my devotion to the monarchical system in Australia, and always will until someone produces something that is manifestly better than that under which we live at the moment, I have since softened my view with respect to the secession of Western Australia. This chamber has changed me completely.

I suppose it is because I was a country boy. I never left the Eyre Peninsula until I was 16. I had a firm and narrow view of what life was about, but that view did not seem to superimpose on those areas that I was supposed to support in this chamber, and I changed my direction about secession. Australia is not just governed under the best system that the world has ever seen—it is not perfect, but it is better than anything else—it is also the most fortunate country in the world. My 11-odd years here has been one of the greatest experiences that I have ever undertaken and am ever likely to undertake. I have had many experiences that a country bloke like me is very fortunate to have had. When I look at Australia with its six states, its two territories, its lack of terrestrial frontiers with any other nation on earth, its 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone right around the nation, which we share with Timor and Papua New Guinea, and with the area we have in the Antarctic and the other islands that we have in that exclusive economic zone, it makes us the biggest area of the globe next to Russia against any other assessment that you could have. If one was to secede in Western Australia then that God-given gift would be broken, and I think that is most important for any of my colleagues in Western Australia that burn with the juvenile passion of wanting to secede from this magnificent Commonwealth. I would ask them to perhaps reflect on what I have just said.

I was also a little miffed when I was in state parliament and Robert J Hawke ceased appeals to the London Privy Council. I was not outraged—I am not a person to get outraged—but I was certainly miffed. As a member of parliament in Western Australia, I took it as an insult that someone who was so isolated and far away in Canberra should take it upon themselves to introduce legislation and then instruct the High Court through that legislation that it, the High Court, would be the last appellate court, without any change to the numerical strength of the High Court. So I packed my portmanteau and I made arrangements to go to the London Privy Council, meet the registrar there and put my case to him.

I had on my RM Williams boots, of course, and, in deference to the registrar, I had even put on a tie to go and see him. And he informed me, with a smile on his face—and I am sure that smile was to try and placate me—that it was not his opinion, and it was not his move, and it did not even attract his support, that the High Court of Australia should be the last appellate court in the Commonwealth. But he did tell me that the machinery still existed under the Western Australian Constitution for Western Australia to appeal. Of course, I was immediately and perceptibly elated at this information. However, he had only paused for breath. He said that, notwithstanding the Constitution of Western Australia, the High Court, in its omnipotence, was not to give its permission or leave to appeal by the Western Australian Supreme Court—which was rather off-putting. So the last appeal from the Western Australian Supreme Court to the London Privy Council was taken by the affable David Malcolm, an eminent barrister, who then became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and, more recently, has become the foundation Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame in Fremantle, Western Australia.

So to this wonderful country of Australia, and the Commonwealth which presides over this land—this land that is the great exporter and which has the greatest deposits of coal in the world; which has the biggest diamond mine in the world; which is the biggest exporter of iron ore in the world, sometimes swapping with Carajas in Brazil; this land which has the second biggest deposit of nickel and the second biggest deposit of gold in the world, and which has the biggest molybdenum deposit and the biggest vanadium deposit in the world, and which has other minerals, lesser-known: should it be a non-renewable resource from which we are drawing this enviable standard of living that we have today?

Mr Rudd said, prior to the last election, that he has a plan for post-boom, to work out something that would allow us to maintain this momentum that we have, from all these minerals which we are digging from holes in the ground and exporting overseas. I hope that is the case. I will not be here to oversee any of that, but I am sure that my colleagues who remain, most of whom are younger—let me correct that: all of whom are younger—than me, would oversee this and make sure that that plan is implemented in the not too distant future. I have seen this country go from strength to strength—not for all of my 72 years; I was not aware of Canberra for a great deal of that time. I have watched it expand, and I have seen the evolution of the mining industry. I have studied geology in Kalgoorlie. I even studied geology at the Adelaide school of mines as well, for a year. And there has to be something more than the export of our minerals to sustain us in the future. We seem to be concentrating too much on that area. We are very good at it; we are exceptionally good at it. But not all of our mining companies are owned by Australians. BHP Billiton is perhaps less than 50 per cent; Rio Tinto is perhaps less than 50 per cent; Xstrata is not even owned by any Australians, unless they have shares in it from the London Stock Exchange. That is a big worry of mine, and I will continue to watch and perhaps support the diversification of Australia. And, if the diversification had happened yesterday, it would not have been too soon.

I have been privileged to serve the state of Western Australia since 1986, as I said. I thought I would serve the people of Western Australia here exclusively. I soon learnt that that was not the case—that you cannot serve your people in the state exclusively, even though constitutionally the Senate was set up exclusively as a states’ house originally. I am not displeased now with the way the Senate has evolved. I think that the position of the Senate where it overlaps with the House of Representatives, where it sometimes opposes its states, where I am called upon sometimes to oppose the government of Western Australia, is not necessarily bad, and I am very happy with the evolution of it at this stage.

I was also chuffed, as a member of this place, to go overseas on so many occasions, to visit every continent on earth. That obviously includes Antarctica, where I spent five weeks. Some of those weeks were spent mostly in my cabin travelling down to the Antarctic. We had force 11 gales, which, the captain told me, he had never ever experienced in his 10 years on that route. And we had 47 degree lists. Now, 47 degrees is a bit over half-way. And I wondered who was going to come down and rescue me, because I was halfway across the Southern Ocean, if we actually tipped over. The name Bullimore came to mind, and I was buoyed—to use a good seagoing term—to think that, if it did turn over, maybe I could find some refuge in an air pocket in the upturned hull and that someone could come down and dive under the ship and rescue me. However, no matter how grateful I was for that envisioned act, I was not going to kiss my rescuer. I have learnt and have broadened my mind on these trips. I like to think that I am not just a marginally better but a considerably better person for travelling and that I have lost the parochialism and insularity that I had, growing up on the Eyre Peninsula.

I speak, perhaps a little flippantly, of when I was in Cambodia with Mal Brough, who led a delegation there; I think it was in 1999. We had dinner at the Hilton Hotel in Phnom Penh and our host was the King, King Norodom Sihanouk. He was a most pleasant, diminutive man, completely unaffected by his position. He spoke in a high-pitched voice, which was a little off-putting. He had a couple of good-looking daughters—I remember that very well; though my colleagues should not read too much into that.

When I walked out with the King, we passed a souvenir shop. It was an upmarket souvenir shop, as one would expect in the Hilton Hotel. I looked briefly at the shop as we went past it, and he said to me—I will not emulate his voice; it is a few semitones above mine—‘You see something you like in there, Senator?’ I said, ‘Yes, I do.’ And he said, ‘You should buy it. You should buy it,’ and we kept on walking to his car. But when I came back to the hotel I walked into the shop and, out of duty to His Highness, the King, I thought I had better buy something there. I said to the chap in the shop, ‘Gee, this is a nice shop,’ and I bought a life-size silver scampi. It is a wonderful objet d’art, and I have kept it to this day. As this chap was wrapping the scampi up, I said, ‘You know, the King recommended that I come here.’ He replied: ‘Oh, yes, so he should. It is his shop.’ So the free enterprise system works very well in Phnom Penh, even at that elevated level.

In the couple of minutes left to me, I want to say how much I appreciated being the inaugural chairman of the Australian-Iraqi Parliamentary Friendship Group and how much I have appreciated the great assistance given to me by people in the Iraqi parliament, from President Jalal Talabani to the Iraqi Ambassador to Australia, His Excellency Ghanim Al-Shibli. Ghanim Al-Shibli is a wonderful man and he has a wonderful family. My opinion of people from the Middle East has changed dramatically as a result of my close association with both President Talabani and His Excellency, Ghanim Al-Shibli. I will always hold much affection for these people. I have also met many people in the Kurdistan regional government. Kurdistan, a state in northern Iraq that has limited self-government, has some wonderful people. They are Kurdish people, not Arabic—but the ethnic groups work together. They want to solve the problems between the Kurds and the other different races in their country. They do not want to separate from Iraq. I believe that Iraq has a magnificent future ahead of it. As a man who formerly worked in the industry and studied geology, I agree with others who say that Iraq has the biggest oil reserves in the world; its reserves are even bigger than those in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

After having expressed those few words of my affection for Iraq, I will close by saying that my first job in my life was in an abattoir and that, at least until 1 July, my last job will be as a senator. That is widely removed from my first job in the abattoir in Port Lincoln, South Australia. It is testimony not so much to the tenacity that I showed in climbing up that sometimes steep cliff to get to this heady and elevated plateau but more to the system in Australia that allows people like me, from an extremely modest background, to end up in an august and wonderful chamber such as this, amongst wonderful people and great Australians. I have been fortunate enough to do that.

I would like to thank the chamber staff and Mr Harry Evans. I would also like to thank Hansard and all those people—the public servants—who make this place operate. I would like to thank—and this is a bit hard—the journalists who sometimes occupy the seats above us: please say some nice things about me tomorrow, won’t you, if you report it at all! To all of my colleagues here, I think I can say that the IQ of the Senate will probably depreciate as a result of all those who are leaving it, and the private sector will probably be enhanced as a result. I also want to thank the former President of the Senate, Paul Calvert, who took me under his wing when I was wounded and limping around the corridors in this place. The affection that I hold for Paul Calvert is second to none. It is a very healthy affection, Mr President! Paul Calvert is a great man. He was a great mentor to me, and he was a great President. He is a wonderful man for Tasmania and a wonderful Tasmanian, and he is also probably one of the greatest and nicest Australians I have ever met in my life. So, with that, I thank the Senate for its indulgence, and I look forward to talking with many of my colleagues in the few days that I remain in the Senate.