Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Joyce for allowing me to speak ahead of him. I join with all my colleagues in wishing all retiring senators well and to say that I hope this next stage in their lives is rewarding and fulfilling. I want to make some very brief remarks tonight focusing on the couple of South Australian colleagues.

Before I do that I want to, because he has spoken tonight, say something about Steve Hutchins. When I came into the Senate I knew Steve Hutchins as one of those scary right-wing hard men. He was not that scary, actually. In fact, I found Steve, as he has demonstrated in the work he has done here as well as in his speech tonight, a right-wing hard man with a compassionate heart. He is also somebody who showed enormous personal courage to be in this place through his illnesses. I wish him and his wife all the very best.

I also wanted to very briefly say something about Senator Nick Minchin, who has been another hard man of the right. I said when I was yesterday publicly asked by journalists to make some comment about Senator Minchin that, despite our differences of views, I think he is a man who keeps his word and honours his beliefs. I sometimes wish he had not fought so hard to honour his beliefs. I certainly wished that at the time he was participating in the rolling of Malcolm Turnbull after Mr Turnbull had done a deal with me—but anyway. That is history. He certainly was very effective, and I wish him all the very best in the future. As a South Australian Labor senator, I want to make some comments in relation to Senator Annette Hurley. It is important to place on record that Senator Hurley is one of the senior figures of South Australian Labor and one of our most senior women. Her achievements have been substantial. She has held a range of positions and some very senior positions, which, I think, confirm the regard with which she is held in the South Australian branch. She has been not only a state member of parliament for many years prior to coming to this place but also deputy leader of our party in the state parliament during some very difficult times for South Australian Labor. It is no small thing to be the deputy leader of the party. She did that job extraordinarily well.

Senator Hurley has brought a number of qualities to her political career which I want to remark on. The first is that, in a profession that is not short of egos, she is somebody who puts her party and her group before herself. A hallmark of her career has been the fact that she has not made it all about her, as I think this profession sometimes causes people to do. She has been intrinsically a team player, both in the South Australian parliament, with the seats that the party has asked her to run for, and also in this place.

The second quality is that she has been extraordinarily calm in some very difficult circumstances. As a minister who has had to appear before the Economics Committee, I have been most grateful for the fact that she has stayed calm and grounded amidst some pretty lively discussion, some of which has been rather public.

So I place on record my personal thanks to Senator Hurley for her contribution to Labor but particularly South Australian Labor, and I also want to ensure that this place recognises that she is a very senior person in South Australia who has made a very significant contribution. I wish her well in the future.

I join with all of my colleagues to wish all of our senators, but particularly our Labor senators—Annette Hurley, Kerry O'Brien, Dana Wortley, Steve Hutchins and Mike Forshaw—all the very best for the future.