George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I hope that they have the television on at home or I will be in trouble. I wish to commence my remarks by acknowledging the kind and not so kind comments directed at me by opposition senators last evening. I want to take the opportunity to wish retiring Senators Watson, Patterson, Kemp, Chapman, Macdonald and Lightfoot the best of luck for the future, and I commend them for their contribution to this chamber. I hope Chappie’s golf will improve now that he has finally bought himself a new set of golf clubs. It must have been painful getting the money out of his pocket to pay for them! I also must say that, if I had any doubts about whether or not it was the right time to go, it was when Kemp said that even he thought I was a good bloke. When I start to get praise from a conservative like Rod Kemp, then it is time for me to go!

I would also like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of Senators Murray, Stott Despoja, Allison and Bartlett and Senator Nettle to the work of the Senate and to also wish them all the best for the future. I have spent a lot of time travelling around the country with Senator Murray, particularly on industrial relations type inquiries, and we got to know each other pretty well. We spent three or four weeks together in Europe at the European institutions back in 2004 and he was lovely company. His wife was better company, but he was lovely company too! I will miss him, because I did enjoy some of the debates we had over industrial relations and I think that I did help to turn him around a bit from where he was in 1996 when the Howard government was elected—I would not claim that it was total, but I did help to turn him around a bit on those issues. I have also travelled the country with Natasha, and I just want to acknowledge her patient advocacy on behalf of the students of this country. They are going to miss her; they are going to miss Natasha’s advocacy on their behalf.

I arrived in this country on 1 March 1965 as a young migrant—a ten-pound tourist, as we were known in those days.