Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, appreciate the opportunity to rise and speak on the occasion of the death of Andrew James Molan, our respected colleague that we all knew as 'Jim'. Compared to the other place over there, the Senate is quite a small place and, as others have observed this morning, it's a place characterised as much by collaboration as by conflict, notwithstanding the perceptions that people in public may have about how we work together. Here we work together, we get to know people and we get to understand them.

I served briefly with Jim on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, but I served with him for a much longer period on the Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media, where I was the chair and Jim was the deputy chair. Jim and I, of course, did not agree on everything or, indeed, many things. We came from very different political traditions. But, in grappling with the challenges presented by new digital technologies, we found common cause. These are complex issues and they sit at the intersection of technology, security, community and our democratic institutions. They're not simple and they don't lend themselves to simple solutions. Jim, in our committee work together, really leaned into that complexity. As others have observed, he was not shy in questioning government officials, officials representing his own government, because he was determined to get to the bottom of it, because he recognised the significance to our public life of the issue that we were examining. We were aligned, I think, in understanding that our democratic institutions are in fact core pillars of our national security framework. It was through that frame that Jim approached the work of the committee.

He was often not well during the period of that committee's work. It meant that we had to speak about how we would manage the work of the committee, but he was absolutely determined that the committee's work would go on, and he would make himself available whenever I needed him so that the work of the committee could continue. He was entirely dedicated to the work of the Senate and the job that the Senate had tasked us to do together. I was really pleased that we were able to deliver an interim report, with jointly sponsored recommendations, and of course later, when he was in a position to do so, Jim added some of his own personal reflections as additional comments at the back end of that report, which, again, demonstrated his deep engagement with the material that had been put before us.

Perhaps more particularly for today I'll say the daily experience of working with Jim was an absolute pleasure, of course. He was courteous, he was reasonable, he was generous and, perhaps most importantly, he understood the value of candid, serious, private discussions between colleagues. Jim and I of course reserved the right to vigorously disagree, and he was quite cross with me about some of the approaches that I took on climate change based on his position on climate change. But he understood that there was deep value in collaboration. He knew that personal relationships were the bedrock of such collaboration here. I always knew that I could go to Jim with a personal or confidential disclosure and that he would respect that.

This will be a time of enormous sadness for Jim's staff. He respected them and they respected him enormously. They were enormously fond of him. I offer my condolences to all of the people who worked with him. We also, of course, spoke frequently of our families in those quiet moments when we can quietly share a little bit of pride about the progress through the world of the people we love the most. To Anne, his four children, his five grandchildren, his extended family and all the people who loved him, I offer my condolences. Vale, Jim.