Alan Ferguson (President) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Murray, I was able to express some words at a function we had for retiring senators only last week but I have had time to reflect on many of the things that have been said tonight and I cannot help but think what an amazing life’s journey you have had to this stage: a childhood as a Fairbridge boy, at four years of age going to Rhodesia; becoming a Rhodes scholar; being successful in business; running a pub in Bournemouth so you could get to Australia; and then after five or six years becoming a senator in this place.

I first met Andrew Murray in about July 1996 at a Senate committee hearing into a package of industrial relations laws. I thought: ‘Well, here’s this bloke who hasn’t even been sworn in yet. What’s he going to know about this new piece of legislation that is going to be difficult enough for us to handle at committee stage anyway?’ How mistaken was I? Andrew knew the legislation backwards—better than I did—and he had not even been sworn into the parliament. That was typical of the man.

If I can say one thing in particular, Andrew Murray is a most admired legislator in this place. People come here for different reasons. Some like to make their mark in a variety of ways; some like to do good committee reports; some relish the other positions that are available in the parliament. But Andrew, like a couple of his colleagues in the Democrats, has excelled as a legislator. When you come in to take a bill through the committee stage in this place, it requires an understanding of the legislation that is before you. It is all very well for somebody on either side to go backwards and forwards to an adviser wondering what questions should be asked and then, when they get the answer, to go back and find out what the next question should be. But Andrew and some of the other colleagues I have mentioned were able to do that standing in their seat because they knew the legislation backwards, they knew what they wanted to do and they knew what they wanted to achieve. Those of us who have never been in a minor party will never understand how much work it took to cross so many portfolios and to understand every piece of legislation that came in. So Andrew impressed me right from the first minute.

Before long, we became firm friends, as we were on the same committee for so many years. I have to say that, in the time since, Andrew has become one of two or three of the best mates that I have ever had in this place. I had written down some notes about the qualities of Andrew Murray, the qualities that we all admire. I looked down and I saw ‘integrity’, ‘loyalty to his beliefs’ and ‘fundamentally honest with himself and to all those things he believed in’, and Andrew has stuck by that through his entire career in this place. Andrew and I also shared a love—which is not one not many people know about, of course—and that is the love of a good single malt, treated in moderation of course. Our paths have meant that we have had the odd chance to share a single malt—usually in his office, sometimes in mine—with Pam there keeping an eye on us to make sure that we only had one.

Andrew’s journey through this place has left a mark that he can be extremely proud of and that Pam can be extremely proud of because, as he said right at the start of his speech, he did not need to come to the Senate; he came here because he wanted to and because he wanted to contribute. That was evident in everything that he has ever done in this place. I think the best tribute that can probably be paid to Andrew is to say: you will long be remembered by those that you have served with in this place.