Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I associate myself with the comments to the President and to my colleague Senator Sue Boyce. It is about Senator Alan Eggleston that I would like to use my minute and seven seconds. Alan and David Johnston conveyed me into this place in early 2009. The point I would like to make strongly is that Alan may be a man of small stature but he will cast an enormous shadow. He did over the Pilbara as a medical doctor and he has over this place. I stand very closely associated with his value that has been expressed in Western Australia.

People do not understand that Alan was badly discriminated against in medical school in Perth. But there is a silver lining on every cloud and that took him to England where he completed his medical degree. At the same time he developed a wonderful network for young doctors who actually came to Port Hedland. I think that tradition continues to this day.

Very briefly, we got off a plane from Barrow Island on one occasion and got on the bus. One person on the bus—a fly-in fly-out worker—made a disparaging comment about Alan. Three other people shut him up with the words 'He probably delivered you when he was an obstetrician.' I join with my colleagues in congratulating all three of them on a fine career.