Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I understand that, but what I need to say is going to take longer than eight minutes and 47 seconds. I feel passionate about the issue of people who advocate the decriminalisation of drugs. We have seen an instance of that very publicly in New South Wales in the last few weeks where again the Greens have immediately jumped on the bandwagon and said they should be decriminalised.

In the few minutes I have left I want to talk about two things. The first is that I want to compliment the retiring chief executive of the Australian Rail Track Corporation, David Marchant. I am not sure how many years David has been the chief executive of the Australian Rail Track Corporation but in that time thousands of kilometres of rail lines have been changed from having timber sleepers to having concrete sleepers. That does not get a tick in terms of how sexy things are in the national economy, but it has meant that trains have been able to travel the 50 or 60 kilometres and not worry about the heat as they previously had to. That has contributed magnificently to the economy of this country. This program was started under the Howard government and has been continued by Labor. David has now retired from that position. I am not sure what he is going to do, and I forget the name of the chap who is taking over. I think that we should acknowledge grand public servants of the nation who have made such a significant contribution. I am sure my colleague Senator Williams, affectionately known as ‘Wacka’, would have seen the amount of rail track that has been replaced with concrete sleepers and the impact that it has had on the economy of our state. So I want to make sure that in my contribution today Mr Marchant is suitably recognised for his contribution.

Finally, I want to compliment a young lady who made her maiden speech in the Victorian parliament last night—my wife. I was listening to Natalie Hutchins make her contribution to parliament, and in fact I voted in the national executive of the Labor Party for Natalie to be the candidate for Keilor. At a pub named Taylors Lakes Hotel, which is not far from where Nat lives and where I will also be living shortly—it is one of the few places in Victoria where you can get a schooner, and Steve, Ann and Jessie look after us there—Nat has been affectionately christened by the locals as ‘the sheila from Keilor’. In her contribution last night she made a very considered and passionate speech on behalf of her electorate of Keilor. I think it is important that we acknowledge the contribution of activists. My wife is a former union official and a former small business woman and she is now a member of the Victorian parliament. She is very dedicated to her electorate and she of course mentioned her husband in her maiden speech, which I thought was very important! One of the interesting things is that my wife decided to run under her married name, Hutchins, rather than under her maiden name, which was Sykes. The reason for that is that her brother said to her, ‘What would you rather be known as, ‘Hutcho’ or ‘Syko’? So she chose the former.

I have a significant contribution to make on opposition to the legalisation of drugs and I will have to do that at another time. But I do want to just reiterate in my final comments that we in the Labor Party do owe a great deal of debt to the New South Wales division of the Liberals. Without their assistance, we probably would not be in power today. Without Louise Markus running away from Greenway and running in Macquarie, we probably would not have won Greenway. Without their poor selection of candidates in Lindsay, we possibly would not have held Lindsay. So it is left to me, a former president of the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party, to make sure that the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party is suitably acknowledged for their woeful efforts in the last campaign. Look at the magnificent contribution that you, Senator Mason, and you, Madam Acting Deputy President Boyce, must feel that you made as Queenslanders to the coalition effort, and then look at the contribution of New South Wales Liberals. Again, all you have got is three New South Welshmen to choose from, and, again, Tony Abbott does run the New South Wales division. So once more on behalf of a grateful Labor government we thank the New South Wales division of the Liberals for their magnificent effort in making sure that we are on this side of the chamber and you are on that side.