Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Housing and Homelessness) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to pay respect to the three senators tonight and to pay my respects to and thank Senator Ferguson, Senator Minchin and Senator McGauran for the work they have done and for their speeches last night.

Tonight I pay respect to Senator Hurley for what she has done in her time here and also in the South Australian parliament. While I have not spent much time professionally with Senator Hurley, I have been in awe of her chairing of the Economics Committee—one of the toughest committees, with the most detailed legislation. Her chairing of that committee has been inspirational, under some very, very tough and difficult debates. I wish her and her family luck in the future. To Senator Fielding: I have to apologise because I have cursed your name so many times in this parliament and out of this parliament on a number of votes that you undertook with the coalition, but I have to say that, over time, you have grown on me. I am one of the people who has spent a great deal of time with you on the sporting field, in either football, squash—and I still have not beaten you in a game of squash—or touch football. Without doubt, you are the most outstanding athlete in this place. It is my understanding that, even today, you are the squash champion of the parliament, so I congratulate you on that.

Largely—and you have said this before as well—you have been a misunderstood politician. You are someone who has great convictions. In many ways you are extremely conservative, but at the same time you are extremely compassionate. When I look at your voting record, I can understand where you come from as a politician. From the side of Labor, I see that you voted against Work Choices, you voted for the stimulus and you protected and saved thousands of jobs. We worked closely together in terms of the Getting Communities Working program. I know how committed you were to that. You fought for pension increases—but I, too, add my voice: it would have been better if you had kept your shirt on—and you fought for unit pricing. So you really did represent families and working people. I thank you for that. It must have been a lonely place for a single senator in this chamber, but you should be very proud of the work you have done.

To Senator Hutchins, two minutes and 27 seconds will not give me enough time to talk about my feelings on losing you in the Senate. It is a very sad day for me, seeing you give your last speech here. We have had our moments. We can both admit that. You have been a very close and dear friend to me for a long period of time. You gave me my first job in the Labor movement. You told me at the time that this is a five-to-nine job, not a nine-to-five job, and you were so right.

I have to say that, having watched you as secretary of the TWU, as far as I am concerned and knowing a little bit about the history of the TWU, there will be no greater secretary than you. In the disputes for increasing the pay of transport workers and owner-drivers, you really were a warrior. You were a warrior that succeeded in so many ways. So many people can thank their livelihood on the work you did as secretary of that organisation, but also as an organiser and an assistant secretary. We should be very thankful. In the Senate, you always stood proud by your Labor roots and you fought many times to preserve the conditions of Australians, through fighting Work Choices and in legislation that we passed in this house. We should be very thankful for that.

You have a wicked sense of humour. I still remember the day when I was giving my inaugural speech in this chamber and I noticed that my speech had gone missing. There could be only be one person who would take an inaugural speech and that was, of course, Senator Hutchins. I will never forget that moment.