Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is good to see you in the chamber, Sterlo. This is my last speech. I seek leave to incorporate my first speech into this speech.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

Senator HEFFERNAN(4.53 p.m.)—Thank you, Madam President, for the opportunity to make my first speech to this parliament on a day that, for me, combines family significance with political history. It was on this day 60 years ago that my mother, who is in the gallery there today, and my late father were married. Forty-seven years ago on this day, the Menzies government was elected for what was to become a record term in government. I feel sure Sir Robert is here in spirit today, not for my speech but to follow the West Indies playing the Prime Minister's X1.

Today, I come to this place proud to represent my state of New South Wales as a Senator. I am aware of the privilege and great responsibility and I am grateful to my family, mentors and the Liberal Party for the opportunity.

I am proud to be a product of the New South Wales Division of the Liberal Party and honoured to have served it as President for the last three years. The Division has taken many difficult decisions in those years, decisions which have included performance assessment and enhancement by audit and, where necessary, candidate replacement. These measures, backed by a determined state executive, have delivered, on merit, to this the 38th federal parliament, a fresh team of young men and women to complement their more experienced colleagues.

A record 14 new Liberal members from New South Wales entered this parliament following the March election. The Liberal Party, without fuss or fanfare, and certainly without quotas or tokens, has led the way to deliver more women to parliament.

We are proud that our team, this parliament and our nation is led by a member of the New South Wales Division, John Howard. He is a man who has all the qualities of leadership that are best summed up in John Buchan's `Great Captains' from Homilies and Recreations. I quote:

We can make a catalogue of the moral qualities of the greatest captains but we cannot exhaust them. First there will be courage, not merely the physical kind, but the rarer thing, the moral courage which we call fortitude—the power of enduring when hope is gone. There must be the capacity for self-sacrifice, the willingness to let worldly interests and even reputation and honour perish, if only the task be accomplished. The man who is concerned with his own prestige will never move mountains. There must be patience supreme patience under misunderstandings and set-backs, and the muddles and interferences of others. There must be resilience under defeat, a tough vitality and a manly optimism, which looks at the facts in all their bleakness and yet dares to be confident. There must be the sense of the eternal continuity of a great cause, so that failure and even death will not seem the end, and a man sees himself as only a part in a predestined purpose. It may not be for him to breach the fortress, but the breach will come. I add another quality . . . The greatest captains have laid their spell not only on the mind and spirit, but on the heart of their armies.

John Howard's battlers have long willed him to be Australia's Prime Minister, and I am proud to have been part of the army of Australians that created a new dawn on 2 March.

I am also mindful of the long and outstanding service to the people of New South Wales given by my predecessor Michael Baume. Michael was the member for Macarthur from 1975 to 1983 and a senator for New South Wales from 1985 to 1996. Michael has always been a loyal servant of the state of New South Wales and the Liberal Party.

The pig industry will regret Michael Baume's departure from his honorary position as biographer of the life and times of the slickest piggery proprietor the industry has ever known. Michael gave a new meaning to `pig ties' as the proprietor did to porkies. I wish Michael all the best in his position as Consul-General in New York.

I am a proud son of Junee—they say that half of Junee is in the gallery today—a town of 4,000 people, situated midway between Sydney and Melbourne on the main southern line. Junee, along with Werris Creek in northern New South Wales, is one of the great rail towns and rail junctions of New South Wales. We have had to adapt to the changing technology and the paradox of productivity and employment. Junee now has a greatly reduced dependence on rail.

It was during my time as shire president that the shire council, backed by strong community support, convinced the Liberal state government to allow the development in Junee of a drought proof employer—a long stay institution which also enjoys a high occupancy rate. I refer to the first privately designed, constructed and managed correctional centre in New South Wales, built by Theiss Contractors and operated by Australian Correctional Management.

The Junee community, like most bush communities, considers blood to be thicker than water. We are proud of a long list of high achievers who were born and raised in our shire. To name just a few, we sent Laurie Daley to Canberra to add a touch of class to the Raiders, Bernie Fraser to the Treasury and the Reserve Bank, and Ian Pike to be Chief Magistrate in New South Wales.

Junee is also fortunate to be 20 minutes from the `place of many crows', the dynamic regional capital of the Murrumbidgee Valley, Wagga Wagga, also known as the `garden city of the south'. Wagga Wagga is the largest inland city in New South Wales and home to 57,000 people.

Some of Wagga Wagga's prominent institutions include the Charles Sturt University—with a campus of 10,000 students including 500 international students; its flagship courses include wine sciences and equine sciences—the RAAF base, which is the primary ground-training base to all three services; and the Kapooka army base, which is the headquarters of the 1st recruit training battalion. By 1999, Wagga Wagga district will also have a naval communications base.

Several of Wagga's current home-grown sporting heroes include the captain of Australia's cricket team, Mark Taylor, and his opening partner of 33 tests—sure to be back—Michael Slater. Included as well are the captains of both AFL grand final teams: Paul Kelly of the Sydney Swans, and Wayne Carey of North Melbourne. Beat that!

I come from a large family. My mother is one of 14, my father is one of eight, I am one of seven. My wife, Margaret, and I have four children. Our home is simple Irish with many bedrooms and little carpet. Since leaving Joey's—that great institution—in 1959, I have lived in a world where there are more stars at night, where sunset is a work of art, where you freeze in winter and cook in summer. It is an environment where we have learnt from the ancient skills of our indigenous people and from the recent lessons of land care that man is merely the custodian of the land and that planet survival demands a certain order of our water, land, plants and animals—an order which when respected will provide for man. It is a world where words are rarely wasted and hard work, individual endeavour, fortitude, favourable weather and commonsense are basic requirements for success.

I come to the Senate as the 16th Liberal Senator for New South Wales since the foundation of the Party in 1945. My initial observations in this place are that it needs more fresh air, it has many bookshelves whose books seem to be valued by the metre, words seem valued by time, many speeches are delivered to attentive walls, many conversations are ended by bells, and life is an endless meeting—and I would not miss it for quids.

However, I am mindful that the cost to family life of political commitment is both high and well documented. I would not be here without the help of my Sydney foster family, Bill and Trish McPhee, the support of my family and my hardworking wife, Margaret, and my children, Kate, Will, Ted and Harriet—all of whom have had to make considerable sacrifices. They have always displayed much understanding and given me great support through the inevitable highs and lows of family, farming and politics.

No-one really understands what they mean to their own parents till they have their own children. I am saddened that the tide of life sweeps that meaning away for many people. For me, there are no more important words than the words I use to end every conversation I have with my children. No matter how robust and energetic these conversations are—and they seem to get more vigorous and assertive as the family gets older—the conversation always ends with a reciprocated, `I love you.'

We people from rural and remote Australia are a friendly mob. I found during early morning walks in Sydney with friends that saying `G'day' to other early morning walkers often invoked alarm. Madam President, you will be pleased to know after a few days we always broke down the barrier, and we had them all saying `Hello.' I am now working on the shy passers-by in this place.

My public life began in 1981 when the local baker, the late Ted Benbow, encouraged me to run—successfully—for a local government position on the Junee Shire Council. Then, in 1985, along with Alby Shultz—g'day, Alby; he is now the indefatigable Liberal State member for Burrinjuck but was then the dynamic field officer for the New South Wales Division—Ted got me to join the Liberal Party.

I would not mind a bag of wheat for every time I have been asked, `Why are you interested in politics?' and `Why aren't you a member of the National Party?' Suffice to say, I have a strong view that the Liberal and National parties should recognise the changing demographics in Australia, end the ridiculous pretence of differing constituencies, set aside individual agendas and ego, and have the guts and determination to give up the horse and sulky logic and become one strong, united party.

A decision to merge the Liberal and National Parties would strengthen the political hand of rural Australia, do much to strengthen cooperation and interaction between city and country and would be the most strategic political decision taken in recent political history.

I joined the Liberal Party because it is best placed to represent all Australians. It is not dominated by sectional interests. It is owned by no one individual or group. It is a Party in which all members, whatever their station in life, can enjoy equal self-esteem. Unlike other parties which have to put up barriers to retain their constituency, we are about breaking down the barriers and uniting all Australians.

Australia has one of the lowest participation rates by the wider community in party politics. It would probably be fair to say most Australians have a low regard for politics and politicians. Most believe that individuals can make no difference. Many have given up. I believe we can all make a contribution to a better Australia.

My first awareness of the national interest occurred when, as a young boy in the late 1940s, I attended an Anzac ceremony with my Uncle Kevin. I still remember when the bugle sounded the last post tears came to his eyes, and I cried because he cried. Later I discovered they were tears from a Changi-Burma line prison survivor. I then learnt of the significance of my uncle's tears, of the sacrifices and atrocities of war and how prejudices and ego often cause conflict. So was born my instinct for the national interest—an instinct that is far stronger than any ego or personal agenda, an instinct that has served me well, especially during my three years as Liberal Party president in New South Wales.

Many times I have observed the capacity of all Australians to pull together during times of war and national disaster. Is it too much to ask of the beneficiaries, of such capacity, to pull together in times of peace for social justice and a fair go for every Australian? The great challenge of uniting Australia in these times of shrinking government resources includes the provision of services and infrastructure to those people who are the backbone of our primary industries and who live in rural, regional and remote areas to enable them to enjoy a lifestyle that does not deteriorate into an underclass.

Equal is the challenge in our towns and cities, where much of suburbia is filled with a generation of unemployed parents and children, isolated by poverty, with low self-esteem and a lifestyle where drugs and suicide are an everyday expectation and work is a faded Bob Hawke promise. These people need real jobs, not retraining for non-existent jobs.

No less is the challenge imposed on this generation of Australians by the centuries of misunderstanding and neglect of our indigenous people. We must provide for the return to our indigenous people of their self-esteem: built up over thousands of years by their majestic mastery of traditional living, land custodial skills and timeless culture; broken down in 200 years by the inevitable exploratory nature of man, the intrusiveness of his machines, the enticement of his money and the destructive onslaught of his social habits.

A paradigm shift is required and will only occur when provision is made for our indigenous people to progress, even in remote areas, from communal benefit to individual benefit; when access for all Australians to health, education and employment is not distorted by location or station in life; and when, regardless of race, creed and colour, we purge those leaders who believe all should be equal except the equalisers and who see the often generous funds of government as the opportunity for a feast on which to fatten their personal circumstances while neglecting the famine. Unfortunately, when these predators of the public purse turn on, Australians who would normally be concerned and supportive turn off.

I wish to pay tribute to our primary industries. Primary industry, which is generally carried on in rural, regional and remote Australia and includes fishing, farming, forestry and mining, continues to contribute 75 per cent of Australia's net external earnings. Our regional cities, towns and villages that support our fishermen, foresters, farmers and miners are a vital part of that contribution, as are our rural women.

Our rural women are often taken for granted. Many run the farm, more often the farmer. Rural women display greater patience, more resilience and are generally better educated than are rural men. 'Marry a teacher or nurse and droughtproof the farm' is still a well-known bush convention. Rural women often have to contend with droving, drafting and old harvest trucks, yet find the time to do the books, do the washing and ironing, cook the meals, oversee the homework, school excursions and weekend sport, water the garden and look like a lady of leisure for church on Sunday. Our rural women deserve a medal for holding together the spirit of family farming.

Our farmers are an endangered species. Despite the declining numbers of farmers, now down to 120,000, and an increasing average age, now 53; despite the drift to the coast and the fact that more people live in the western suburbs of Sydney than all of rural Australia; despite the decline of farm employment from 27 per cent of total employment in the 1920s to three per cent today; and despite the relentless decline in terms of trade for agriculture, our farmers and the world's farmers have to feed an extra 90 million people every year.

We live in a world where 1.3 billion people lack regular access to fresh water, where 800 million people do not enjoy food security, where 185 million children suffer malnutrition and where 1 billion people have an income of no more than $1 a day. Population growth is wearing down Mother Earth and swallowing up our farming land and agricultural water resources. Twenty-five per cent of the world's agricultural land is degraded and 25 per cent of the world's wild fisheries are overfished. If the world does not wake up, in 100 years there will be no tropical rainforest.

The loss of land from dryland agricultural production to urban development requires, in resource transfer terms, 1,000 tonnes of water to produce from irrigation 1 tonne of wheat. Many land scarce societies who face such transfers face the paradox of the reproductive rights of the current generation and the survival rights of the next generation.

The great challenge in feeding the world will be to produce enough food at a price that is affordable to all without destroying the environment. Rural, regional and remote Australia has taken up this challenge. We have adopted landcare and our farmers are bonded to the land, often in a similar way to the custodial and spiritual ways of our indigenous people. They have stuck through drought, fires and floods, through good times and bad, they compete in world markets corrupted by the US and European treasuries and in many years have accepted fresh air and freedom as their only income.

My tribute also extends to my bush companions, our indigenous people, who live in rural and remote Australia. I share their love of the land and their concern for the loss of their timeless culture. They, like myself, sleep many nights under the stars, understand the value of a campfire and can read Mother Nature, her seasons and warning signals. They, sadly, often live in a mire of low self-esteem, shunned by the passage of time and technology.

Professor Ian Ring, who published research this year on the health of our indigenous people in the cape, found no improvement in any major health indicator since 1976. On every indicator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are disadvantaged compared with non-indigenous Australians. Life expectancy is 15 to 20 years less for Aboriginal people, while infant mortality is three times higher. An Aboriginal baby born today has still, despite our best efforts, only a one in three chance of living to the age of 65.

For many years, try as many have, we have failed these people. They, like our jackeroos, drovers, shearers, shearer's cooks and all rural dwellers, are a precious part of Australia's culture. All these people need not feel isolated and forgotten. They will have a champion for their cause in me.

It has been easy for many Australians to stir, by fax, phone and emotion, the melting pot recently introduced to this parliament by an Independent member of the House of Representatives. That universally poisonous melting pot of candour, criticism, blissful ignorance, fear, poignant truth and racial undertones is not peculiar to Australia, but it has tempted many in the media to report that speech with glasshouse headlines which invoke basic territorial jealousies, tribal instincts and human inconsistencies—headlines which trigger the pollsters and cult figures but which blatantly ignore the issues that unite Australians and overlook the proven capacity of Australians to embrace our `fair go' ethic.

The strength in the fabric of Australian society has always been the woven cloth, never a single thread. Our woven cloth has always included some threads of individual failure, tragedy, injustice and intolerance. The same cloth held threads of success, fortitude, self-sacrifice and compassion. We should not allow the thread of discontent spun from one speech in this parliament to unravel the fabric of Australian society.

Social inequity and disadvantage cannot be simply identified and isolated on a map. It is not determined by birth, bound by creed or colour, nor solved by worldwide days of recognition. Madam President, visiting Australia's disadvantaged by airconditioned car or bus or through the eye of the TV news is a comfortable First World response but no solution. Providing a real world solution will require Australians from all walks of life rolling up their sleeves and opening up their hearts.

I invite all concerned Australians to answer a call of feet, hands, hearts and means to establish a care corp—volunteers whose sole task would be to identify the priorities of disadvantage within Australia and act to alleviate them. By giving up a week of their time or a few days pay, not once but year after year, to marshal the resources of both government and the able in our community to overcome the plight of the most disadvantaged and needy in our society.

Our Governor-General, Sir William Deane, has recognised the collective plight of our disadvantaged as the most important problem facing our nation. If we can maintain the volunteer ethic in areas as diverse as firefighting, Meals on Wheels and international aid, then surely we can provide volunteer supervision and target community ownership of programs to rebuild self-esteem and refurbish essential services to our disadvantage.

Only a strong economy will fund from income the compassionate side of government, `the true measure of good government'. Bold initiatives will produce a strong economy, real jobs and real wealth. Australia is ready for an era of bold initiatives, an era of national savings and real wealth creation. Like the Snowy Mountain scheme of the 20th century, we need a plan for the 21st century—a plan which will bring cohesion and long-term benefit to all.

Our plan should include a very fast train which adopts an inland route and has passenger and freight capacity and time lines to link our capital cities. The VFT will break down the barrier between city and country, curb the environmentally destructive urban sprawl, open up development corridors for the next 100 years and be the bridge to the 21st century. It will take Australia from a country retiring to the coast, living on welfare and resting on its laurels to a new frontier for development with job opportunities and excitement.

We should also harness some of the millions of megalitres of fresh water that flows annually into our northern tropical seas. This water resource can be used to open up some of the last tracts of virgin farming land available in the world. Such a plan would recognise that in a world of shrinking land, mineral and water resources Australia has much to offer. It would also allow many remote communities, both black and white, a lifeline to higher self-esteem and a train ride to better health and education facilities and employment opportunities.

Our plan should also include research and development to allow the construction of mass transit systems, a vital strategy to meet Australia's commitment to reduction in greenhouse gases and addressing the looming fossil fuel crisis. Why can't we also develop technology to recycle the millions of megalitres of sewage polluting our seas and break the nexus of a throwaway society and a mountain of garbage?

For my own state of New South Wales, the development of an inland international air freight terminal would be a catalyst to restructure and vertically integrate the Murray-Darling farm enterprise and provide a long-term solution to salinity and degradation by water and land management practices. With the added value of workplace reform it would allow Murray-Darling farmers to competitively enter Asian supermarkets as fresh food suppliers to three billion people.

Madam President, the paradox of urban consolidation and urban sprawl, public and private transport, productivity and employment, the myriad of environmental issues, clean air, fresh water—we buy fresh water now; will we eventually have to buy clean air?—are not some trendy `Greens' issues; they are our issues. They are planet survival issues which will not be solved by lobby groups, radical political agendas or single issue political parties. These issues will only be solved by government achieving interaction and understanding between city and country, between the various competing energies and agendas and between the producers and the users.

In recent years, Australian taxpayers have remained largely unaware yet committed to subsidising from future tax revenue $120 billion worth of unfunded state and federal public sector superannuation. We have tolerated a public purse which has allowed rights to overpower responsibilities and build in billion dollar rorts; an archaic tax system that taxes battlers and the thrifty, yet allows taxable profits in key industries to be exported by foreign owned and vertically integrated companies that use transfer pricing; and a 13-year fire sale of Australian equity in key export industries.

We have allowed our agricultural industries to have their disease free status and marketing edge threatened by political agendas and world trade predators. We have ignored the development of our national infrastructure, yet allowed Australian superannuation savings to develop foreign owned offshore infrastructure. We have largely ignored the vast underdeveloped water, land and mineral resources of Australia's far north. Is it any wonder we cannot fund hospitals, schools or house the homeless?

Who can fix all of this? We in this chamber can. We can ensure our children and future generations inherit from us a social, economic and environmental climate that is safe and secure, that Australia remains a great place to raise a family, breathe fresh air and drink clean water.

Madam President, every time I hear the bugle sound the last post, I am reminded that I belong to a generation that has never been to war, has taken much and given little. I am reminded that the debt we all owe to earlier generations of Australians cannot be repaid but merely serviced.

My aspirations are bound by the honour boards of past campaigns in both war and peace. My commitment is to reward the individual, unburden the dependent and protect the vulnerable. My hope is that in walking the tightrope between rights and responsibilities the balance will always be maintained in Australia by the peaceful democratic processes of our parliament.

My dream is that on the day of my last speech in this chamber I will be able to say that I have served in a parliament whose members have all put the nation's interests ahead of their own; a parliament which has robustly discarded as un-Australian the morays of the eighties and its legacy of greed, corruption and debt; a parliament which has promoted a fair go for all as the spirit of Australia; a parliament which has delivered the opportunity for all Australians to enjoy independence of means and mind; and, finally, that my contribution in this place will be judged by my fellow Australians as worthwhile. My only wish then will be that God allows me to return with my family to the peace and tranquillity of the bush. Thank you very much.

I would firstly like to thank the constituency of New South Wales for allowing me the great honour and privilege of representing them in this chamber for the best part of 20 years—in particular, those from rural and regional Australia; I have long fought to have their voices heard in this place. I would like to thank my family and acknowledge that I would not be here without their support: my hardworking wife, Margaret, who is in the gallery up there; Kate, who is also in the gallery; and my other children, Will, Ted and Harriet. Hello, everybody. They have always displayed much understanding—a bloody lot of understanding—and given me great support through the inevitable highs and lows of family, farming and politics. I would also like to thank all current and former members and senators and my parliamentary colleagues, my current and former staff and the Liberal Party and, in particular, John Winston Howard, who rang me up and said one day, 'What about having a crack in the Senate?' So there you go, I had a crack.

Those passing by have commented on a sign displayed in my office titled 'the Heffernan pledge'. It states, 'I will behave at estimates, I will not swear and I will give other Senators an opportunity to ask questions.' I am sure Senator Sterle will agree how well I have followed these guidelines.

I will go to my maiden speech, which I will incorporate. From John Buchan's 'Great Captains' from Homilies and Recreations, I quote:

We can make a catalogue of the moral qualities of the greatest captains but we cannot exhaust them. First there will be courage, not merely the physical kind, but the rarer thing, the moral courage which we call fortitude—the power of enduring when hope is gone. There must be the capacity for self-sacrifice, the willingness to let worldly interests and even reputation and honour perish, if only the task be accomplished. The man who is concerned with his own prestige will never move mountains. There must be patience supreme patience under misunderstandings and set-backs, and the muddles and interferences of others. There must be resilience under defeat, a tough vitality and a manly optimism, which looks at the facts in all their bleakness and yet dares to be confident. There must be the sense of the eternal continuity of a great cause, so that failure and even death will not seem the end, and a man sees himself as only a part in a predestined purpose. It may not be for him to breach the fortress, but the breach will come. I add another quality: the greatest captains have laid their spell not only on the mind and spirit, but on the heart of their armies.

I will now quote from various parts of my maiden speech in 1996 which I think are still relevant.

I wish to pay tribute to our primary industries. Primary industry, which is generally carried on in rural, regional and remote Australia and includes fishing, farming, forestry and mining, continues to contribute 75 per cent of Australia's net external earnings.

That was in '96.

Our regional cities, towns and villages that support our fishermen, foresters, farmers and miners are a vital part of that contribution, as are our rural women.

Our rural women are often taken for granted. Many run the farm, more often the farmer. Rural women display greater patience, more resilience and are generally better educated than are rural men. 'Marry a teacher or nurse and drought proof the farm' is still a well-known bush convention. Rural women often have to contend with droving, drafting and old harvest trucks, yet find the time to do the books, do the washing and ironing, cook the meals, oversee the homework, school excursions and weekend sport, water the garden and look like a lady of leisure for church on Sunday. Our rural women deserve a medal for holding together the spirit of family farming.

Our farmers are an endangered species. Despite the declining numbers of farmers, now down to 120,000, and an increasing average age, now 53; despite the drift to the coast and the fact that more people live in the western suburbs of Sydney than all of rural Australia; despite the decline of farm employment from 27 per cent of total employment in the 1920s to three per cent today; and despite the relentless decline in terms of trade for agriculture, our farmers and the world's farmers have to feed an extra 90 million people every year.

We live in a world where 1.3 billion people lack regular access to fresh water, where 800 million people do not enjoy food security, where 185 million children suffer malnutrition and where 1 billion people have a