Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too join my colleagues in rising with great sadness today to pay my respects for the life of Major General and Senator Jim Molan, AO, DSC, a man I had the great honour of escorting here into the Senate chamber to be sworn in. That was a particular honour for me as a junior officer within Defence, where there was this towering figure of General Jim Molan. It was a great privilege and honour that he accorded me. I also acknowledge Anne and all his family, his friends and his staff, who are still mourning the loss of this great man.

Bapak Jim, or General Molan, was the rarest of officers. He was both a soldier's general and a general's general. He had that wonderful magic of the common touch, but also of great command presence. I thank the family very much for allowing many of us to join in that wonderful commemoration of his very rich life. Although, as was said, he wasn't much for pomp and circumstance, I'm sure he was looking down with great delight at this wonderful mixture of military honours and also a service that represented his deep Catholic faith. In particular, I'm sure he was down there looking with great pride at his very headstrong granddaughters, and he would be sitting there, probably chuckling—again with pride—and there is no doubt where they get that from.

Australia has lost a true servant of our nation and of our alliance, and it is also a great loss to many people across so many different aspects of Australian life. He was a complex man: he was a gentle man; he was a battle experienced soldier; a loving and devoted husband, as we've heard; and a father and grandfather. As Senator Fawcett said, he was a man of great humility but also a man of great humanity. He was a volunteer firefighter, an insightful author and a senator focused just as much on strategic geopolitics as he was on fixing some of society's biggest problems and challenges. He served, as we've heard, for four decades in the Australian Army before retiring in 2008. He was justly recognised for his distinguished service with a Distinguished Service Cross and also, as part of our alliance, with the American Legion of Merit for the work that he did on Operation Catalyst in Iraq.

His distinguished service also included deployments to Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Malaysia, Germany and, of course, the United States. I had the opportunity to travel with Jim to a country we both have a great fondness for—that is, Israel—and I'll never forget our visit to Beersheba. I also remember going up to the Golan Heights and visiting UNDOF troops there. I have this fabulous picture—which I now treasure—of Jim and me standing there with UNDOF soldiers, and there is General Jim with these big glasses looking out into Syria, and you can see that great picture of a true general.

I also greatly admired Jim for his fierce intellect, which was so evident in his books, in his command of the Australian Defence College, in his leadership of thought in command leadership and more widely in politics. As Minister for Defence I was very grateful for Jim's approach to how he gave his advice. I always greatly appreciated the way that he provided advice and insights, but I also greatly appreciated that we had a shared value of seeing the world as it actually is and not necessarily how we would like it to be. I also appreciated that he understood, through his personal experience and his academic pursuits, that—as with generals—to be politicians in this place, to be compassionate for the people that we serve, we often have to be strong and we have to be decisive. He understood, as many of us do, that peace for our nation and for the globe requires strength, conviction and courage.

He was a true patriot, as many people have said, but he was also a nuanced patriot. Following his career, he became special envoy for Operation Sovereign Borders. That was a very challenging role, but we were so grateful on our side of politics—and I'm sure the nation was as well—that we had demonstrated a great and implementable policy, one that required great strength and courage of convictions to be compassionate. He, like those on this side, saw that we had to be strong and we had to stop the people-smuggling trade because that was the most compassionate outcome for those people who were being exploited and for the families who lost thousands of people when they drowned in the most horrific deaths at sea.

At Jim's funeral, there were many fitting tributes that captured his warmth, his smile, his leadership, his service, his courage, his community service, his intellect and his humility and compassion. But I think his priest, Father Grant, captured the essence of Jim so perfectly in referring to a life of gratitude. That gratitude is reciprocated by his colleagues here and by thousands of others whose lives he touched. We are so grateful for his life and his contributions. Quite simply, the Senate chamber and Australia will not be the same without him. I extend my deepest condolences to Jim's family, his friends and his staff, who are all here today, and I'm so glad you could be here to hear the respect and the love that we had for Jim.

Jim, I will greatly miss your smile, your friendship, your considered advice and what you brought to us all. Thank you for your service—a lifetime of service to our nation, in so many different roles. As was said in his service: rest easy, soldier—your duty is done.