Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I just want to take a moment to place on record my great admiration for our whip and current colleague, Senator Kroger, as she departs from this place. Again, on the record, I want to associate myself with all of the other things that others have said with far more time at their disposal. Helen has been a great contributor to this place and to Australia so far, but I know she has a lot more to contribute to public life in Australia, and I would certainly and fervently hope and expect to see her talents being used again for the benefit of her state and her country. Competent, compassionate, courageous and intelligent are just some of the words I would use to describe Helen. The vagaries of politics and the preselection process are such in our party that you can never really anticipate what is going to happen or why things happen, but it is such a shame that she is leaving us after too short a time here. I wish her all the very best for the future and, like my colleagues, I am certain that we will see a lot of her in the future in many different roles. I will conclude by wishing all the Labor senators who are leaving us next week all the very best for the future. I repeat my good wishes to Senator Furner. I said I wished him well for the future, but not in his political future, as he takes on a sitting LNP member in the state parliament in the time ahead. But apart from that, he and his colleagues go with my best wishes.