Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

They did not vote for change, Senator McKim.

I would like to acknowledge the wonderful work that was done by a whole series of great Queenslanders to contribute to that result in my home state of Queensland. First, to the Liberal National Party grassroots members, you are the heart, the soul and the backbone of the Liberal National Party in Queensland, and none of us would be here—none of us would have the opportunity to make our contributions to this Senate—but for your efforts. So to each and every one of you I say thank you. I would also like to pay tribute to my colleagues Trevor Evans, Julian Simmonds and Amanda Stoker, who unfortunately lost their seats at the last federal election. They could not have worked harder for their constituencies and for the state of Queensland during the course of the last parliament. I congratulate them on their efforts and wish them all the best in their future endeavours.

I would also like to congratulate all of the other unsuccessful Liberal National Party candidates in the state of Queensland. In my first speech in this place I recognised the special contribution, and I called them the heroes of Australian democracy, of those who stand for their party and stand for their beliefs in seats where there is little prospect of victory but every prospect of demonstrating the commitment to their values and participating in our democratic process. In particular I pay tribute to Sam Biggins, our wonderful candidate in the federal seat of Blair; Olivia Roberts, who has stood twice for the party in the difficult seat of Griffith; Bryce McDonald, who achieved an outstanding result in Kennedy in Far North Queensland; Vivian Lobo in the seat of Lilley; my dear friend Stephen Huang in the seat of Moreton; and Kyle McMillen, who arrived on the electoral landscape like a knight on a white charger at the eleventh hour, two minutes to midnight, after our candidate had pulled out of the race something like an hour before nominations closed. Kyle rode in on his white charger and did an absolutely fantastic job representing the party and its values in the seat of Oxley. I should also acknowledge that the member for Oxley, Milton Dick, MP—we cover the same patch in many respects—has had the honour of achieving the post of Speaker in the other place, and I am sure he will do an outstanding job in that regard. Lastly, Paul Darwen in the Treasurer's seat of Rankin, another seat where it is difficult for our side of politics to secure victory, again did a wonderful job. To the Senate candidates, in addition to Amanda Stoker, who were unsuccessful—Nicole Tobin, Andrew Cripps and Fiona Ward: thank you. Thank you so much. And to the new colleagues who come to this place—Henry Pike, representing the constituency of Bowman; Andrew Willcox, Dawson; and Colin Boyce, Flynn: you will all make outstanding contributions to this place, as your predecessors did.

Having dealt with the preliminaries, I'd like to get straight into it and talk about the ABCC, the Australian Building and Construction Commission, and the outrageous, unlawful, recidivist behaviour of the CFMMEU. One of the first actions of the Albanese federal government was to gut the powers of the ABCC, but we saw no reference to the CFMMEU in the Governor-General's address to this place yesterday. In fact, when the industrial relations minister, Mr Tony Burke, put out his three-page press release called 'Restoring equal rights for construction workers' on his website, in three pages he could not bring himself to mention the recidivist, unlawful activities of the CFMMEU. The whole reason why the Australian Building and Construction Commission was established was the unlawful behaviour of the CFMMEU, and he couldn't bear to mention it once. I'll be listening very carefully to the contributions made by other senators in this place during this debate as to whether or not they've got the gumption—