Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

My contribution will also be short because I know others want to talk and Bozzie has a jug presentation to get to in the National Party party room. I first met Senator Ron Boswell over a decade ago, whilst lobbying about higher education reforms. He will not remember this very naive National Party student president, trying to convince him of the ills of the coalition policy back then. However, I will never forget him waving his finger at me and giving me the rules of the land. And nothing has really changed! A decade later I arrive and I still get the finger in the face and a lecture every now and again, which is probably a good thing.

As a daughter of a small business man, I did feel the negative impact of the big end of town. Thank you for all the work you have done for us and our kind. I, too, look forward to a positive outcome of our review of the Competition and Consumer Act.

To add to Senator Williams' comments, trying to whip Senator Boswell is like trying to whip fat-free cream. I had to get the dairy industry in there—I am from Victoria. A lot of effort, sweat and tears, no cream, no results at the end of it. But I guess after this time, he has actually earned it.

In addition to the question time no-show—it is in The Australian; I have to get it up—there was a no-show today, despite several requests to his office, 'Where is Senator Boswell?' When Senator Williams was whip, he would continually be on the back bench over there—he and I, making up the Nats back bench—doing the numbers on Wacka. If he did not get the question up, Wacka was going to be rolled and I was going to be inserted as whip. That threat was continually rolled out.

Another saying that I remember and you will probably understand the complete blank look on my face when he told me, a Victorian senator: 'McKenzie, you've got to pack in tight and ruck hard.' I had no idea what he was talking about and I know sport. I do now, because he has demonstrated it time and time again. A lot of the advice has been similar. Bozzie, you put the stake in the ground—that is what you have tried to teach all of us to do.

I respect and honour your faith in God, your faith in your family and your faith in our nation. It has been repaid in spades, because I think many outside this place in Boswell they trust. We will miss you. We will miss your rants about policy, how the cake should have been better, our lack of courage and the carrying time taken to make me a senator. It is a job not yet done; I understand that. The other advice that you have given me, I will keep close to my heart and hopefully be able to fulfil over my time here. I thank you. I was listening. And God bless.