Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—It is not often that I get up in this place but, Andrew, I could not let this night go by without some recognition of living proof that it does not matter where you come from or what the circumstance are that you have come from; every individual can make a difference to their community and, in your case, to the great nation of Australia.

I am unaware of what everybody else has said but I just want to put on the record part of your journey, and you can tell me which bits are wrong. Andrew was born in the UK in 1947 and at the age of four—this is my information—was sent from England to Zimbabwe and then southern Rhodesia as a child migrant. I would have thought that was a statement in itself. He then attended numerous schools in South Africa before going to university. His academic talents were recognised when he was awarded the prestigious Rhodes scholarship, going on to earn a BA from Oxford University. I am a wool classer and a welder, mate, so there is a bit of a mixture in this place!

In 1968 Andrew was deported from South Africa for opposing the apartheid policies of the National Party of South Africa. The deportation order was removed some nine years ago. Andrew served in the Rhodesian Air Force from 1969 to 1977. He went on to become a businessman, managing and owning his own businesses across a number of industries. He is also a published author.

This is a little kid that was sent from England as a four-year-old into no-man’s-land. You certainly have been tireless, Andrew. There has been a lot said about the trust that everyone has in you as a parliamentary person and as a committee member in parliament. We could trust Andrew. I have to say that any political party would have been proud to have had you as a member. I can certainly say that for the Liberal Party. I am damned if I know how the Democrats got you, but we would have loved to have got you.

So after 12 years it has come to this. As I said to Kay Patterson, don’t think you’ve peaked, mate; you haven’t peaked yet. I am looking forward to your after-parliamentary life and your contribution to keeping Australia the great country that it is. In his first speech Andrew quoted—and this is very unlike me but very like him—William Butler Yeats, in The Second Coming, saying, ‘Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.’ To me, that was Andrew’s way of saying that, if the lives of enough individuals begin to fall apart, the great society to which they belong will fall apart too. Mate, you have been a great protector of our society, particularly in your commitment to those kids—which, as you know, is a passion I share with you. Every child should have an unconditional safe passage through their years of innocence—and I am quite happy to get myself into a lot of trouble in that cause.

Mate, it is not often that you can say, ‘I can trust you with everything I’ve got,’ but with you I would. I am just bloody sorry that the Liberals did not get you and that the Democrats did. But good luck to the Democrats. Everyone in this chamber and in this parliament who has got to know you and the integrity that you absolutely exude and the responsibility to tasks that you took on is mightily privileged to have known you and to have worked with you. And you have not peaked, mate, because we want to work with you in the future. My best wishes to your family, and your children and grandchildren. You have got a good one.