Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to associate myself with the remarks of all my colleagues, particularly our leader in this place. For so many of us, Kevin Andrews was a parliamentarian's parliamentarian. Coming into this place in 2017, I had known Kevin through my time here as a staffer. Reflecting on that time, Kevin was always extremely respectful of people who worked in a staffing role in this place. It wasn't at all dismissive. He would talk, he would listen and he would communicate with you.

But, coming into this place, as you've heard from many of my colleagues, actually, I don't think Kevin perhaps realised how much of a mentor he was to so many of us. I believe I probably took Senator Hume's place on the joint committee on the NDIS, which at that time Kevin was chairing. Not only did I get a masterclass in how to chair a committee—how to do that very important work of the parliament—but I also saw someone who was deeply involved in utilising that committee system to get positive outcomes for Australians. It wasn't about political point-scoring. Kevin Andrews used his position as chair of the NDIS committee to see a public policy problem or a system that was failing an individual and utilised his position as a parliamentarian either to address that systemic problem or to help that individual.

So often in that time on the NDIS committee, we would have a meeting, and a problem would become apparent through hearing from a particular witness or a set of witnesses. Then the committee would disperse, and we would go back to our home states. Then, on reconvening in this place, we would find that Kevin Andrews had worked the problem, that Kevin Andrews had been in touch with the minister or that Kevin Andrews had been in touch with the department and, actually, if he had not solved the problem—which in many, many cases he did—then he at least brought that public policy problem or that issue affecting an individual to the attention of the minister or the bureaucracy. It was an absolute masterclass in being an effective parliamentarian in this place.

To Margie, to Kevin's family, to colleagues who knew him much, much better than I do, may he rest in peace.