Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

Marise, it has been an extreme honour to have spent 11 of your 26 years here with you. It has not been an ordinary 26 years; I think it has certainly been punctuated very regularly with amazing achievements, and many of our colleagues across the chamber have spoken of the amazing achievements in your portfolio areas and in this place.

I wanted to quickly make a couple of reflections on my personal experience in working with you. I had the amazing honour to be your assistant minister for nine months in 2018-2019, when you were the Minister for Foreign Affairs and I was the Assistant Minister for International Development and the Pacific. It gave me an extraordinary appreciation and love for the Pacific, but it also gave me a taste of what travel looks like for the foreign minister. I cannot imagine what you must have been like at the end of being the foreign minister. You must have gone to sleep for at least a month! Not only do you have to do your day job here in Australia; then you have to spend the rest of the night up talking to the rest of the world, or you're on a plane somewhere.

I suppose the way I would describe my interaction with you is that you're a conviction politician. There was nothing convenient about Marise's views on things. She was entirely consistent. I remember one of your New South Wales colleagues, who will remain nameless, saying to me once: 'If you really are a true politician and a true political believer, you will be consistent in your positions on things. You won't be convenient and jump from here to there because it suits your political purposes; you will hold our values true and you will always be absolutely consistent.' The one thing Marise could never be accused of is being convenient. She's probably got the scars to prove the fact that she often was not convenient but was very consistent.

She is also somebody who will clearly be remembered in this place as truly taking her role as being the supporter and advocate for other women very seriously. There are many that I think perhaps say that they are supporters of women, but Marise genuinely was a supporter of women, and I'm sure she will continue to be a great supporter of Liberal women to make sure that we have a pathway for great women to come into this place. I can assure you that increasing the number of fantastic women that sit in this place is definitely, for my mind, providing a better parliament.

I always accuse my mother of being the keeper of what is now the King's English, but clearly Marise is in contention for that! The one thing that I will always remember about Marise is that she has a very unique way of saying the word 'hilarious'. It's not 'hilarious', it's 'hiLARious'. Now I find myself, every time I say the word 'hilarious', saying 'hiLARious'!

In 26 years you've never lost your humility. This place is pretty combative. This place can be adversarial. Marise has never played the player; she's always played the ball. I think that's why you will leave this place with the absolute respect, admiration and regard of just about every single person in this chamber, no matter where they sit in this place, and I'm sure the same can be said for the other place. To Stuart, Ella and Frankie—if anybody is listening 'up there' and if there is such a thing as reincarnation, I want to come back as Marise's cat—to you both and your two beautiful fur babies, go well in whatever the future holds for you.