Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Emergency Management and National Recovery and Resilience) Share this | Hansard source

This has been our decade year, so it's great to still be in the chamber. I think the tone of today's contributions really reflects the year that our country and our chamber has been through. So, like Senator Wong, I'll be very glad to see the back of 2021. I think our country is with us in echoing those sentiments.

I want to say thank you to our staff, too, and the families of the senators who I'm very proud to lead. They work very hard, often in trying circumstances, and it has been a challenging year for our staff. I want to say a huge thankyou to them.

The National Party Senate team are very proud of what we've been able to achieve this year: fighting for forestry, competition law and labelling laws; saving two seats in the Northern Territory; ensuring Australia Post continues to carry firearms legally; having a serious and considered debate on water policy; ensuring that local content is protected in our film industry; and, from the AWI to the ABC, coming to this place and making sure that those government entities which service our nation—but particularly us in the regions, as we are never going to be able to access these services as a result of commercial operations—are held to account is very important.

I've been very privileged as Leader of the Nationals in the Senate to work with a new Senate leader, Simon Birmingham, and his team. Thanks to the respect and communication we've developed—not only between ourselves but between our staff—we've been able to manage some very challenging periods and issues over this year. I want to say a huge thankyou both to your staff and to you as individuals. We, as a coalition, serve a very broad group of people in the Australian public, and we've been sent here to serve them. Thanks to the way we handle our relationship as the two parties of government, we really can achieve the best for them.

I'm privileged to serve and lead very courageous, principled and passionate National Party senators, who often have different views from each other, let alone from many in this chamber. The way they can have those conversations respectfully in this chamber really reflects what is unique about where and how we serve. The five people I lead are also very proud of who they are and where they come from; I think their voice is unique in this parliament, and I'm so proud to be part of a democracy that allows that minority voice to be heard.

COVID wasn't the only challenge that APH has experienced this year. I'm proud, again, to be part of a generation of parliamentarians, across the divide, who are going to see change in our workplace because of the decisions we as individual senators and members will make as a result of what has occurred and been disclosed throughout this year. I'm not shirking that responsibility. We're going to get there; we're the generation of change that's going to make this happen. That's going to be a good story.

People have thanked the gardeners, the COMCAR drivers and the attendants. Thank you, particularly for carrying in all my folders of recent months. To the gardeners: I walk in every day, and it is such a blessing to walk through such magnificent gardens here in APH. I find, given we're inside all the time, that those moments where we can run between courtyards for votes et cetera and feel the natural environment are important. This is our home away from home, and all the staff at APH, whether they're at Aussie's, our security guys or the COMCAR boys—and I'm saying that because they are actually both men, Lindsay and Andrew—take care of us. People say it's a boarding school. I think it's actually more of a home.

I'd like to also thank my chief of staff, Liz Dowd, who leads an incredible team of professional, passionate people in my office. I'd like to thank my deputy leader, Matty Canavan, and Perin Davey. It's no easy task being the Whip of the National Party in the Senate, I can tell you. She does it with aplomb, class and strength, which is amazing.

I wish everyone in this chamber and more broadly across our country a very COVID-safe Christmas, and recognise that for many this is the first time for years that you may have seen loved ones—not because they're overseas but because they're here and they just happen to be in the wrong state. I hope you get to hold them, laugh with them and share with them. I wish you all a very peaceful, loving and joyful Christmas, and I look forward to punching on next year.