Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is not true. I do not doze off—I walk out of the room now! Kerry asked questions from nine o'clock in the morning until 11 o'clock at night for four full days—and first thing Monday morning he let the chair know that he was going to have a spillover day on the Friday. I have never seen anything like it since. Kerry, we are going to miss you on that committee, and I am going to miss you as a mate. I look forward to you joining me in the Kimberley again for another sojourn in your retirement, when we can swap tall stories again.

Finally, there is my good mate Dana Wortley. Dana and I go back before our Senate careers, though we did come into the parliament together. Dana and I were linked through her husband, Russell, who was a TWU branch secretary with the gas branch. Russell and I were federal councillors together from 1998 and I had the pleasure of meeting Dana before she had her wonderful baby. It is true that on those late sitting nights we used to head for the Wortley cave. For all us ferals, all us blokes, it brought a little bit of decency into our lives. Dana would make sure that we ordered a meal. We would have our meal and then we would have to listen to Senator Farrell trying to play Danny Boy 17 different ways. Fortunately, Dana and I decided we would take over the iPod and have a competition to see who could play the best seventies songs, and who sang them word for word. Dana, I am going to miss you but I will certainly still be seeing you in South Australia. Our friendship cannot be split just because you are leaving us now. Good luck, mate. At least you can do one thing that I cannot: you can put your arm around your boy and give him a kiss and cuddle and he will not give you a punch in the head because he is still young enough. Make the most of it, because they do grow up very quickly. I am looking forward to a bevvie with Senator Wortley, her husband and others, so I am going to shut up.