Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, can I indicate that I am extremely pleased to have been here to listen to a fantastic speech. You started your career in controversy and you are finishing your career in controversy. I think that is not a bad thing, Senator Crossin. The last thing you would want is to spend a lot of years in this place and have someone ask you whether you had been in the Senate. People will know that you have been in the Senate, I must say, because your contribution has been fantastic.

I want to thank you for the personal support and the personal friendship that you have given me in my time in the Senate. It has been fantastic. You welcomed me not only to the Senate but also to your home, along with Mark and your family when I came up to the Northern Territory on parliamentary business. Thanks for that. You have also welcomed my family from overseas to your home when they have come from overseas. You are a great friend and your family is a great family.

You are, I think, the epitome of what we should be looking for in this place—a trade union activist, a community activist, a parliamentary activist, someone who knows where they want to go, can articulate their values and stand up for the things that they think are important. That is how I have always found you, Trish, and it has been a pleasure to have worked with you—not for all of your career but for a short time in your career.

It is because of the genuine warmth that everyone here talks about here tonight—not in any confected way but in a genuine way—that I think people were appalled at the treatment that was meted out to you. As a personal friend, I was appalled and I took the view that I should say something about it publicly and I want to say something about it again tonight.

Sure politics is a tough game. Sure politics means that you cannot take anything for granted. But there is a level of common decency, I think, that should be in politics. If someone has made a contribution, like the contribution you have made, Trish, to your community, to your trade union and to the parliament, then they should be treated with common decency and dignity. You have made a contribution over many years, and I am appalled at the way my party has treated you and I hope that we never see the likes of that again. When you make a contribution, it is not only you that makes that contribution; your family, your staff, your friends and the other members of the Labor Party in the Northern Territory have helped make that contribution. Nobody comes here and makes a contribution as an individual; you come here as a collective. I would have thought that after the collective work that you have done, your commitment on every tough issue in this parliament and your commitment on every progressive issue in this parliament, you should have been treated with fairness and dignity. You were not, and it is a shame that the Labor Party was involved in that.

I hope that, given the broad support that you have across the Senate, you can find another career. Your capacity and your ability to contribute is still fantastic. In my view you still have a great contribution to make to public life in this country. You have made a huge contribution already, but I think you can make a bigger one. I hope that your family will continue to support you making a public contribution, because it is important that people of basic human decency like yourself make a contribution after having been a member of the Senate.

Sure this is a tough game, but it should not be a brutal game. The work that you have done over many years should be recognised. I, for one, will continue to publicly say that the contribution you made was fantastic, that your treatment was abominable—you should never have been treated like that—and that you should enjoy a career into the future knowing that you have many friends, many supporters, many colleagues and many good comrades in this place who will wish you and your family well for the future. Thanks for your friendship, thanks for your political activism, thanks for being a great trade unionist and thanks for being a great community activist. You are a great person. We will miss you and this place will be worse off for your leaving. I hope that you can continue to make a strong contribution into the future. Thanks, Trish.