Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Given the length of the list of speakers, I will be mercifully brief. Tonight we celebrate six wonderful servants of the Liberal and National parties whose terms expire on 30 June. Together they represent no less than 15 per cent of our current complement of coalition senators. They comprise a mighty 115 years of experience in the Senate. And, for the statistically minded—which I am as a former finance minister, of course—they comprise 1.2 per cent of all the Australians who have ever served in the Senate since Federation. It is equal to the biggest loss of coalition senators at one time that we have ever had. With respect to what Senator Evans said, the coalition does have four very talented and capable new senators coming in on 1 July, but our loss of these six highly valued colleagues really is immense.

In John Watson, we are losing our longest serving coalition senator and the father of the Senate. John has served a remarkable 30 years in this place. He has earnt the respect and admiration of all whose privilege it has been to serve with him. Amazingly, 31 per cent of all the Australians who have ever served in the Senate have been sworn in since John first arrived here. John carved a niche for himself as the in-house expert in the Senate on superannuation and was fastidious in his attention to the detail of legislation of a financial nature. His enormous experience and knowledge will be greatly missed not only within coalition ranks but within the Senate as a whole.

My good friend and South Australian colleague Grant Chapman is the next longest serving of our retiring coalition senators. As he mentioned in his own speech, he has the added distinction of being one of only 44 Australians ever in our history to have served in both the House of Representatives and the Senate—a very exclusive club. All up, as Grant said, he has served 28 years in this parliament—a magnificent contribution. When I was still a student at the ANU across the lake in 1975, I clearly remember seeing a front page picture in the Australian of Grant Chapman and James Porter standing together in South Australia. That article heralded the fact that these two young 25-year-olds had both won seats in the House of Representatives in that great 1975 election. As a young student, I was mightily impressed with that fantastic achievement. Here we are, nearly 33 years later, and Grant is finally bowing out. Grant is the only one of our six retiring senators to have actually been defeated at the last election. As our No. 3 on the ticket in South Australia, he had the great misfortune to run into what I call the ‘Xenophon phenomenon’. I think, without that, he certainly would have retained his seat.

Grant may be best remembered by some for taking the Australian Senate to the world. Grant has a remarkable tolerance for the rigours of overseas travel, and we want to thank him for flying our flag in so many parts of this great planet of ours. As a South Australian, I want to acknowledge Grant’s enormous contribution to the South Australian Liberal Party, especially, as he quite rightly said, as someone who understands marginal seat campaigning better than any of us. He made a huge contribution in that area.

Kay Patterson is the next longest serving of our retiring senators, the only female and the only former cabinet minister. I think, without doubt and without fear of contradiction, she is the most empathetic and compassionate of us all. Her genuine concern for the mental and physical wellbeing of our colleagues is legendary and, regrettably, all too rare. From my perspective, I regard her as the most wonderful mentor to our new senators.

It was a privilege to serve with Kay in the Howard cabinet. I am pleased to have played a small part in Kay’s promotion from parliamentary secretary straight into cabinet after the 2001 election. John Howard had shocked me by asking me to move from the industry portfolio to the health portfolio following our re-election that year, despite the fact that I had displayed absolutely no prior interest in the health portfolio. I did my absolute best to dissuade him from this disastrous course but said that, if he really wanted me to, I would do it. But I did very specifically ask him to appoint Kay Patterson as my junior minister in the health portfolio should he be so foolish as to make me health minister. The next day, after reflection, John called me to give me my preferred option of finance—and I breathed a great sigh of relief—and he went on to tell me that he had made the decision to give health to none other than Kay Patterson. Kay and I were both winners from that discussion, and I was very happy to have played that small part in her well-deserved elevation. I will certainly miss Kay very much. She has been a great friend and colleague for the 15 years that we have been together here.

Closely following Kay in Senate longevity is her Victorian colleague Rod Kemp. Rod is one of my genuine soul mates in this place, with the same world view and all the same right-wing prejudices. One of my great regrets about the 11½ years that we were privileged to govern is that Rod never had the opportunity to serve in cabinet. I really am very sorry that John Howard did not recognise Rod’s more than ample capacity to have been a very successful cabinet minister. It is my view that there was no better junior minister in our government. We all remain in awe of Rod’s handling of questions on the GST in the Senate during his time as Assistant Treasurer. Rod, I must say that I had no idea that you answered some 700 questions—that must be a world record. Rod has been a tremendous contributor to the coalition Senate team for 18 years, a great source of political wisdom and common sense and has a delightful sense of humour.

Sandy Macdonald is next in line to Rod as a retiring coalition senator, and is, of course, the only National Party senator to be retiring on 30 June. Sandy is one of my colleagues from that great class of 1993, along with Senator Evans and Senator Ellison. He did take a 10-month holiday from the Senate in 1999-2000, but we were all delighted he was able to come back. Like Grant Chapman and, indeed, John Watson, Sandy is not actually leaving the Senate voluntarily, having been unsuccessful in his party’s Senate preselection for the last election. Sandy is a true coalitionist, someone who genuinely believes our two parties working closely together provides Australia with the best prospects for successful government. While I am pleased Sandy did have the opportunity to serve as a parliamentary secretary in both the trade and defence portfolios, I am genuinely sorry he did not have the opportunity to serve as a minister, in which capacity I am sure he would have been a great success. I certainly regard him as someone with as much talent as many other Nationals who served as ministers in our government. I mean no reflection on them; I mean that as praise of Sandy’s great virtues.

I recently had the privilege to spend a very intimate 10 days with Sandy in the Arabian Gulf, visiting our Air Force and Navy personnel who serve their country with such great distinction. We got to know each other even better after four nights together in a very small ship’s cabin. Sandy has a deep and abiding interest in the Defence portfolio and in the men and women who serve in our ADF, an interest which was on full display during our 10-day gulf visit. Sandy, all Liberal senators will miss your presence in our coalition.

Ross Lightfoot, with 11 years service to this Senate, is the most recent of our retiring senators—also the oldest, but no doubt the best preserved. No-one can actually believe that he is all of 72. Ross has the distinction of having served as a Liberal in three parliamentary chambers—a feat that to my knowledge is matched only by our South Australian friend and colleague Steele Hall, who also served in three parliamentary chambers. So Ross actually has 18 years service as a Liberal MP, to his great credit.

Although born and raised, as he mentioned, in the great state of South Australia, Ross is a great champion, as we all know well, of his adopted state of Western Australia. He as much as anybody in this place takes very seriously his responsibility as a representative of his state. He is a reminder to all of us that constitutionally this is the states house, where all states, large and small, are represented equally. And I am pleased to hear tonight that he no longer has the passion that he once had for secession!

Ross is also a self-confessed slayer of political correctness in all its forms, a man never afraid to say exactly what he thinks. His refreshing honesty has not been conducive to political advancement and has made him something of a figure of controversy. Nevertheless, he has represented here the views of thousands of his constituents, who deserve to have their voice heard. As a fellow conservative, I am certainly glad that Ross has been here to give voice to the views of those many Australians somewhat derogatorily dismissed by some in the Canberra press gallery as ‘right-wing’.

On 30 June the coalition loses six outstanding senators from its ranks. As coalition Senate leader for the last 2½ years, I want to thank all six for their loyalty, their support and their great contribution to our team. I wish our six retiring colleagues all the very best for a happy and fulfilling life after politics.