Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the condolence motion for Senator Alex Gallacher. In doing so, I express my condolences to his wife, Paola, to his children, to his grandchildren and to his friends and colleagues here, particularly Senator Sterle and Senator Bilyk. It is never easy to watch somebody die of cancer—and 67 is far too young.

Of course, the COVID pandemic made it very difficult for Alex and for those who loved him. It made it exceptionally difficult for those of us who would have liked to have spent time with him, and I think, particularly, it's hard today for Senator Sterle and Senator Bilyk and so many of our colleagues who are remote and unable to participate in person in the chamber today. I am very grateful that we have the remote participation and the video links that allow that to happen. COVID has been really hard, and I think many of us have had experiences in the last year of losing someone. It's very difficult to say goodbye to someone when you can't be with them in person.

I think back to the day after the May 2019 election—that unexpected result we all had. As I was driving back to my house, I got a phone call. The first phone call I got from a colleague the day after the election was from Alex Gallacher, and he called to offer me his analysis on what had happened, to offer me his frank assessment that we had too many policies and to offer me his views on what we should do next, as a party and a movement. And, less than 12 hours from the loss, he was already charting our path to victory, to the next election.

To me, and to many of us—I think, all of us—the great tragedy of Alex's death this year is that he will not be with us next year, when we, hopefully, see a Labor government come to power. And when that happens—when that happens—the passion and the values and the policy sense and the commitment to working people that Alex Gallacher brought, not just to the job but, indeed, to his every interaction with his colleagues, on this side of the chamber and that side of the chamber, in his advocacy and in his committee work, will sit at the heart of the next Labor government. So the greatest testament that we, as Alex's colleagues, can pay to him is to ensure that a government that governs for the people he fought for, for the people he represented and for the values he espoused is the government of Australia.

Alex was a fierce warrior for working Australians, he was a dedicated family man and he was a dear friend to so many in this chamber. So many here today have already recounted his life and his journey. I think, as the shadow minister for immigration, one of the things that strikes me about Alex's family story is that it's one that so many Australian families can relate to, and that is: a decision to pack up and leave the country that they have known and called home and to come to Australia, seeking a better life, seeking more opportunity, seeking to build something new in this country. And, I dare say, Scotland's loss was Australia's gain when the Gallachers chose to relocate—first to the Northern Territory, where Alex began his career and spent much of his career in the seventies and eighties working as a labourer, a truck driver and finally as an airline ramp services operator with Trans Australia Airlines.

Now, those early jobs—they won't surprise anyone who saw Alex in this place. He was always immensely proud of his background. It always had an indelible impact on his politics. Those experiences, particularly in trucking and aviation, drew Alex to the Australian Labor Party and the trade union movement. He joined the Northern Territory branch of the Australian Labor Party and the Transport Workers Union in 1988. Through both the ALP and the TWU, Alex became a proud advocate for Australian workers, fighting endlessly for their rights and their pay and their conditions. He also served with distinction as the Commissioner for the National Road Transport Commission and as a director of the South Australian Motor Accident Commission.

A constant theme throughout his time, whether in the committee work, in parliamentary debates or in our caucus committees, in our caucus, was that he had a straight-talking approach and an affinity for ordinary Australians. He proudly fought for them because he was one of them, and rarely, if ever, did they have a better champion than they did in Alex. His work in this place was a testament to his humility. He always stayed true to those values of his early life and consistently advocated, with great pride and passion, the issues which impacted ordinary Australians.

Senator Farrell has done well in pointing to some of the key work that Alex did on committees. He served on 23 committees during his political career, including the Road Safety and Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport committees. One of the great challenges I had over the past few years, along with Senator Farrell, was to constantly have to check in with Senator Gallacher, to know if he was going to be able to make it into parliament or if he was going to be able to make committee hearings and what arrangements we needed to make. The thing that always struck me in those conversations is that he was generous. He wasn't territorial. He was honest and sometimes showed an extraordinary determination at times when I might have thought that the illness might have got the better of him—to come in here to do estimates, to do committee hearings. But he also was straightforward if he felt he couldn't do it, and generous in making sure his colleagues could step in—not without propriety.

One of the other challenges I sometimes faced with Senator Gallacher in our conversations was that he had a lot of views about motions, and sometimes he had a lot of views about the positions we were taking on certain motions—Senator Sterle is nodding his head on the screen; he knows of what I speak! The thing about that is that Alex was frank. He was direct. He sometimes kept me on my toes. He never took anything for granted, and he never took a backward step. What he was, at times, willing to do was to recognise that there was a forest and to see it for the trees. I make that point because, while we are right to laud his straight-talking, passionate conviction—which never wavered—he was part of a collectivist movement: the great Australian Labor Party. And before that he was part of another collectivist movement, the Transport Workers Union.

Alex, in his conviction and in his passion, never saw himself as greater than the whole. He never put himself outside of his colleagues. He understood that we were a collective. He never compromised, but he also never made his view more important than someone else's. He always worked with me and with others to try to find ways to ensure that we were true to our collectivist commitment to one another.

Alex was a good friend to so many in this caucus, and I know that so many of my colleagues will make a contribution on this condolence motion. I will say, at a personal level he offered me support, friendship and loyalty, far more than I could have ever expected, perhaps because he and Senator Sterle, very generously, recognised my brief period as a member of the Teamsters Union—thank you, Senator Sterle!—as appropriate enough to be a somewhat honorary member of the TWU. Alex, in his advocacy for working people—in his principled, passionate commitment—fought for the rights of working people, to ensure that they had the opportunity for a better life and that a working person could support their family, buy a home and have some time for recreation and a holiday on an ordinary working salary. They're humble, important, significant goals for the Australian people, and Alex was constantly motivated by them.

I'm sure Alex, as a humble man, would have shied away from some of this pomp and circumstance today. But I hope it's the first of many accolades and honours that serve to remind us of what people can achieve when they live their lives with passion and dedication. I conclude by again expressing my condolences to Paola and to their children and grandchildren. My thoughts are with all of them today as we celebrate Alex's life.

We will all miss Alex. The past few months of sittings have not been the same without him, and I hope that we see his likes in this chamber again. His passing is a great loss to this chamber, to the Australian Labor Party, to the Transport Workers Union and indeed to the nation as a whole.