Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—As you are aware, I announced when I resigned from the ministry that I would leave the Senate fairly shortly after that. As this will be my last day in the parliament—I will resign in the next few weeks—and this is my last day in the Senate, I thought I might take the opportunity to make a few remarks.

I have never been one for valedictories. I have always called them 'obituaries' and I have often been unable to actually correct myself. It is not a practice I have been terribly fond of. I do want to make clear that this is not an obituary. I appreciate the cooperation of the Senate in allowing the fact that I should make the only speech. I have always thought that people should judge you on how you have treated people while you are here and what contribution you have made. To get a better reading of someone and their performance, standards and how they have carried themselves in this place is to actually seek to record the assessments people make of you in private rather than the ones they might make in the chamber on the occasion of your retirement. They are generally more honest.

I have been talked into making these remarks mainly in order to allow me to thank a few people. As I say, I think I have covered much of this ground in the press conference I gave with the Prime Minister when stepping down from the ministry. The point I made there was that I am very lucky to be in a situation, unlike so many of my colleagues, to retire at a time of my own choosing, to retire in good health and to retire without bitterness. Too few of us get to do that. It is an option open to senators and it is one that I was always determined I would take, even though it took me a bit longer to get there than I thought. I had promised my partner that I would be here for 10 or 12 years. She actually maintains I reneged on the deal, but I said I wanted to wait until we won. It looked like it might go on for a very, very long time but we got there in the end.

I have to stress that I go out in good health, because since I lost a bit of weight people keep coming up and saying, 'Chris, are you okay?' As I say, if I have got cancer, it is undiagnosed at this stage. It was a resolve of mine to leave in the sort of shape I came in as a much younger man. But I could not do anything about the colour of my hair.