John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I seek leave to speak on behalf of the opposition about the death of Phillip Hughes.

Leave granted.

I thank the Senate and I thank my colleagues for this opportunity to speak on their behalf. Phillip Joel Hughes was a cricketer from humble origins with an unorthodox batting technique but a prodigious talent. He reminded us of a time when sport was less professional, less formulaic than it is today. It is perhaps why his career was so exhilarating. It is perhaps why his death is so sobering.

Phillip Hughes grew up on a banana plantation in the tiny town of Macksville on the mid-North Coast of New South Wales. Country New South Wales has produced and nurtured many fine cricketers, like Charlie Turner of Bathurst, Don Bradman of Bowral, Stan McCabe of Grenfell, Bill O'Reilly of Wingello, and Arthur Morris and Dougie Walters, both from Dungog; from another generation, the products of Wagga Wagga, Geoff Lawson, Mark Taylor and Michael Slater; and, more recently again, another North Coast of New South Wales lad, Adam Gilchrist.

It was in Macksville that Phillip Hughes developed his unorthodox approach to batting, playing against his brother in the backyard. Then, and until last Thursday, perhaps to the purist he never quite looked the part. Where most batsmen step across the crease, weight forward, Phillip Hughes would step towards square leg and look to play through the offside. It is said that his onside shots were blocked by the side of the family home, perhaps the reason he was so renowned for his offside play. Maybe the purists were right—his batting was not from the textbook—but he could play. He could really play. You might question the method, but never the result.

Phillip Hughes was playing adult cricket by the age of 12, and aged just 17 he moved to Sydney to play grade for Western Suburbs. He scored 141 on debut, and so word spread about a country boy with a unique style, scoring big in grade cricket, and that word was heard. Selectors took a look for themselves. A year later, aged just 18, Phillip Hughes was selected to play for New South Wales, where, once more, the talent and temperament overcame tradition and technique. He scored 559 runs at an average of 62.11 for New South Wales in his debut season. He became the second fastest player in New South Wales to score 1,500 in first-class cricket—the fastest was Donald Bradman, a boy from Bowral. At 19, he was the youngest player to make a century in a Sheffield Shield final. A place in the national side beckoned.

In 2009, Phillip Hughes got his break. He was selected to tour South Africa. Against the fierce pace bowling of Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn, he initially faltered, out for a duck in the first innings of the first test, playing an outrageous shot to a short-pitched delivery. He recovered with a steady knock of 75 runs in the second innings. But, in the second test of that tour, in Durban, he emphatically answered those who wondered whether test cricket was beyond him, by scoring a century into each innings, the youngest man ever to do so. There was a refreshing audacity and vitality to a player barely out of his teens against what was then the best bowling attack in the world, boldly hitting successive sixes to bring up a maiden test century. He scored 115 in the first innings and 160 in the second, helping Australia to an unlikely series victory. In the afterglow of those sparkling innings, Peter Roebuck wrote:

He can defend and he can lash. He is going to score buckets. He has figured out the odds, knows the angles, trusts his eye and likes batting. His technique may be homespun but that does not mean it does not work. He has fast eyes, feet and wits.

These were thrilling innings, full of promise, but a less successful Ashes campaign was to follow, where, in the dim light of a northern summer, the English bowlers targeted Phillip Hughes with short-pitched bowling. He spent the next five years in and out of the test side. There were brief hints of brilliance, portents of what many thought would be a long career: a dazzling debut century in a one-day match, a patient hundred against Sri Lanka away from home, a dogged and mature last-wicket stand in Trent Bridge—an epic that turned the match on its head. But he was inconsistent, and at each missed step he was asked to return to Shield cricket to work on his technique and make runs, and each time he did so, patiently and graciously, never envious of the success of others. After all, he was a young man; there was plenty of time. Many thought that Phillip Hughes's patience, grace and talent would be rewarded this very week with a recall to the test side. His death last week reminds us all of our own mortality—how uncertain and tenuous our grip on life can be.

I cannot pretend to have known Phillip Hughes well, having only had one substantial conversation with him, when he came to Reg Bartley Oval in Rushcutters Bay to give of his time and his support to the cricket charity the LBW Trust. I know many who did know him well, and they all say that he was modest, courteous, with no airs and graces—still very much the kid who made the big time and could not quite believe it. Phillip Hughes was a cricketer of immense talent, but, perhaps of greater importance, he was a fine young man. He denied no youngster his advice or his time.

As a family, as friends, as teammates, as the cricket community and as the nation mourn the loss of Phillip Hughes, our thoughts also turn to Sean Abbott and the terrible aberration and impact of just another of the countless balls he would have bowled over many years of practice and play. Of course there was no ill motivation but sheer, sheer, awful bad luck. My hope is that Sean—with the support of friends, family and the cricket community—will continue to play and prosper in cricket at the highest levels.

It is, at best, a bitter consolation that Phillip Hughes died doing what he loved, but it is some consolation. He was 25 years old. He was 63 not out. The scorebook will show he will remain forever 63 not out. The outpouring of grief of his passing is a matter I have not previously witnessed for any other sportsman. It will be apparent to all in this chamber that the death of this young man has reached beyond that moment at the Sydney Cricket Ground, and has reached well beyond cricket. In part, this is because of the quality of the overwhelmingly sensitive and appropriate coverage by the Australian media of this terrible tragedy. I acknowledge the respect that they have shown. I also acknowledge the Australian cricket team and Cricket Australia. They have been magnificent in the most difficult of circumstances.

You do not have to have known Phillip Hughes to have shed tears. I know of many who have wept at the sheer unfairness of his passing. Phillip has not been gifted with all those extra years to define his cricket career and his life. We have with his death an inkling of what it meant to Australia when we lost Victor Trumper and Archie Jackson. Nor should we forget the two young test cricketers who died in wars in Australian uniform, 'Tibby' Cotter and Ross Gregory.

Death should not come to the young. We grieve for who Phillip was and we grieve for what he might have been. Cricket will never be quite the same. What happens now is in the hands of the players, the umpires, the administrators and the wider family of cricket lovers. That is surely as it should be. Cricket belongs to those who love the game. My sincere condolences and the condolences of those I speak on behalf of today go to the family and friends of Phillip Hughes and to all in Australian cricket, and beyond, who mourn his loss.