John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Before I call Senator Edwards, I remind honourable senators that this is his first speech; therefore, I ask that the usual courtesies be extended to him.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President, and I congratulate you on your re-election as President. I am honoured to be elected to serve the people of South Australia as the 25th Liberal senator for that state since the formation of our party in 1944. I have been a proud member of the South Australian Liberal Party for more than half my lifetime, including serving as the state president for three years until my election to this place. I am proud of the contribution that Liberal members at all levels of the party continue to make to the lives of everyday South Aust­ralians in the regional communities and the suburbs. I take this opportunity to acknow­ledge the service of Liberal South Australian former senators Nick Minchin and Alan Ferguson, who have recently left this place. Both were strong and effective advocates for South Australia. I thank and pay tribute to the people of South Australia. They have entrusted me with their confidence to represent their interests and they will always be at the forefront of my mind.

South Australia, despite its landmass, remains today one of the smaller states in our Federation. Back home, you know your politics might be different from your neigh­bour's, your business might be competing with theirs or you may even support different football teams, but you also know that those same people will forget their differences and pull together to maintain the integrity and the very survival of those same communities. This foundation has helped nurture success­ful artists, scientists and community leaders, and it has fostered giants in business.

From humble beginnings, the Coopers brewing family has become a brand known throughout the world, as has the Crotti family with San Remo, another great South Australian family company, which exports pasta to more than 35 countries around the world, including Italy. Australia's oldest fam­ily owned chocolate manufacturing retailer, Haigh's—a favourite in our family and I am sure it is for many in this place—began in Adelaide and today still employs hundreds of people across its operations. The mighty Gerard family behind the famed Clipsal Australia continues to employ over 1,500 people and exports electrical appliances to 25 countries around the world. I acknow­ledge and celebrate the success of these iconic companies, with their origins in strong families from resilient South Australian communities. They are evidence of what can be achieved when we apply tenacity and leverage it with ambition.

I grew up in, still live in and have my family home in the Clare Valley. It is a special place of which I am very proud. It is a place internationally recognised for its fine wine, wool and wheat. I am proud to be of fifth generation bush stock, although it should ring alarm bells in this place that of 12 senators I am the only South Australian who has my life and loves rooted in the country. The Edwardses, through the genera­tions, are typical of so many early South Australian families—farmers, retailers and business owners. They are people who work hard and make sacrifices to give their children the opportunities they aspired to.

The greatest opportunity any parent and any society can give the next generation is education. Our family had regional learning opportunities. Like many other children in the regions, they did not match those of our city cousins. Despite this, members of my family have pursued higher education and have been able to develop skills which have led them to prosper in their businesses and to travel the globe. Some of our country peers have not been so lucky. I am deeply com­mitted to enhancing the broad educational opportunities of Australians, particularly regional South Australians.

I am happy to say that in my home state we can boast a number of world leading educational institutions; in particular, I would like to mention Roseworthy Agricult­ural College, which is now a University of Adelaide campus. It was Australia's first agricultural college, founded in 1883, and today it is internationally recognised for its teaching in dryland agriculture, natural resource management and animal produc­tion. I have not trod the well-worn path to this place from the office of a lawyer, a trade union official or a political staffer, admirable though these professions may be. I hope that with my experience in rural businesses I may be able to add to the diversity of back­grounds and quality of government in this place. At 18 I finished secondary school and immediately assumed responsibility for my own income, prosperity and destiny. I have started small businesses and grown them to medium sized ones. I have struggled with the stifling mountain of paperwork that the dead hand of bureaucracy imposes on business. I have had the privilege to hire some of the most amazing, talented and professional people to work with me and I have had the privilege of lying awake at night working out ways to make my debtors pay me so that I could pay my staff wages at the end of the week. It is not an unusual story for millions of Australians who own or manage a bus­iness, but it is becoming rarer in this place.

I have benefited from the economic growth and prosperity generated by the important reforms undertaken by the former Howard government and, it would be churlish not to mention, some undertaken by the Hawke government. I have also invested everything into a business only to watch two years of hard slog come undone when the recession we had to have knocked the guts out of the economy. It was during that difficult economic period that I realised that politics was real and that it affects us, the people, our families and our communities.

The business which I ran is the second largest of 42 wineries in the Clare Valley, employing many South Australians, including winemakers, viticulturalists, cellar hands and tractor drivers—all vital and all valued. I am also keen to let those opposite know that despite employing hundreds of people over my time I have never had or been involved in a business with a trade union presence. Many of my people are onto their second round of long-service leave entitlement. Perhaps I might assert that we on this side of the chamber might know a thing or two about finding a workplace balance. I am also very proud that most of the senior management positions in the companies that I have been involved in have been dominated by women.

Being in the wine industry has taught me so much. To be sustainable you have to deploy many skills. In an effort to be competitive you have to sync your farming and your production environment with your community expectations. We are environ­mentalists, factory operators, marketers and supreme risk takers. Like all primary producers, we battle climate risk and commercial risk every day, a challenge no more evident than in our experience of surviving the last 10 years of droughts then floods, only to be marginalised again by a surging Australian dollar and an asphyxia­ting consolidation of retail markets. Governments need to be mindful of the significant contribution and reputation Australia is afforded by the wine industry, particularly when forming future policies proposed under the spurious mask of health initiatives.

My experience in business has highlighted the significance of the public debt that the South Australian economy now has. Like our national economy, it is again being burdened. Debt is more than just a set of numbers. The brackets around the bottom of the public balance sheet represent a constrained people, people whose wages cannot be increased or, worse, paid at all, or who will remain without work because businesses cannot afford to employ them. They represent the families who will go without services because they cannot afford to pay for them as their hospital or school has been downgraded. While no sector is immune, the impacts are magnified in the regions. For example, South Australia has experienced too many funding cutbacks in country hospitals. As I speak, three country hospitals—Moonta, Ardrossan and Keith—face a very uncertain future due the lack of political will from Labor to maintain their excellent regional service.

There can be no luxury in debt. Debt limits choice to individuals, to families, to businesses and to the government which have been charged with the responsibility of using taxpayer funds wisely to provide services and infrastructure to the people. Our public debt has been created and compoun­ded by poor government. I experienced the destruction that poor government and poor governance can wreak upon business profitability and the stress felt by families and the entire community as a result. Poor government fails to remember that it is there to serve the people. It fails to recognise and reward effort, creativity and conviction. It acknowledges its own achievement and ambition, listens only to its own advice and believes that government is the only answer to all of society's ills. Poor governments make poor decisions, but not making a decision at all can be as destructive as making a bad decision. Sadly, some leaders are unwilling or unable to make decisions. They lack the intestinal fortitude to make a change for the better.

Today I look around the community I live in and the communities I represent and I see many people for whom getting by day to day is the priority. The increasing cost of living is putting constraint pressures on our families. It is not good enough for us in this place to sit back and say, 'Well, it is the global economy,' or, 'They will just have to sit tight and save; we know what is best for them.' That is the excuse of thought bubble driven politicians seduced by remunerated focus groups rather than themselves having the life skills to generate real policy to benefit real people. It is the mantra of elected leaders more interested in the demands of special interest groups than in taking responsibility for making difficult decisions, decisions that will help deliver a strong economy, secure borders, sustainable growth and more opportunities for people to choose how they want to live their own lives, to raise their families, to work and to contribute to society. Our debt burden and our recent poor government has prevented long-term thinking about our nation, but that only makes it all the more necessary. As we consider the choices we are faced with in this place, we need to think beyond the next electoral cycle, plan not for five or 10 years but audaciously for 30 years.

I am the first to acknowledge that long-term vision being mugged by the day-to-day reality of politics is nothing new. As a prime example, it is 114 years since a federal management plan for the Murray-Darling Basin was discussed at the Federation convention in 1897. The hope that was generated by the plan announced by the former Prime Minister John Howard in 2007 has once again been systematically decon­structed by political interests enslaved in the electoral cycle. I lament that inertia and I will make an earnest contribution to the cause whilst in this place. I hope that during my time here we can formally agree that the river system does not recognise state borders and nor should its management.

In our long-term thinking for Australia and our globalised world, food security is an important consideration and an area of our economy where we have a competitive advantage. In an increasingly urbanised world, food security for our growing nation and global populations will only come from our regions. Our farmers have a proud history, which continues to this day, of adaptation to difficult and changing circumstances. If, as it is often said, Australia's small businesses are the engine room of the economy, then her regions are her lifeblood and the oil pumping around it. Sustainability and innovation, including world leading carbon management, are critical to the future and to the legacy we leave future Australians. When I look at our future opportunities for growth, I see South Australia's regions, which boast a natural competitive advantage in many areas, playing a key role. There are our high quality grains, our incomparable wines, our environment of unequalled beauty and natural resources to name but a few. Not maximising that advantage is, I believe, hypocritical to say the least and at the worst an abrogation of our responsibility to provide future generations with the opportunities that we can build on today.

In that context we cannot sidestep uranium. In South Australia we have some of the largest reserves on the planet. We dig it up, yet others are reaping the greatest benefit by taking our raw product and employing hundreds of thousands of people to develop it—all of this to lift the living standards in their own country. Let us not look back in 50 years and work out that we were simply a quarry to the developing world around us. Now is the time to have the debate about leveraging our competitive advantage for the betterment of South Australia and indeed all Australians.

Small- and medium-sized business enterprises, especially those in the regions, are critical to the future of South Australia—from the commercial forests in the south, seafood on the west coast, serials in the mid-north and, of course, wine from all over. Every business owner takes risks, which for some can reap great benefits but which can also deliver significant personal and professional costs. I speak from personal experience. My experience has led me to be fiercely supportive of leveraging our competitive advantage, minimising bureaucratic burden and fostering innovative businesses. Business is not an end in itself. The taxes which profitable businesses pay are the means through which we generate a strong economy to deliver jobs, better education, health and future opportunities for our children.

I am proud to say that I have never had anybody drive my bus for me, but I have been grateful to the many people who have aided the navigation along the way. I have been fortunate to count amongst them my long-time loyal friend and political confidante Mr Darcy Douglas, who challenges and supports me. More recently I have enjoyed the perspectives of the irrepressible Mr James Lisle, who has been giving me great insights into all things international. I wish to acknowledge my lifetime friend Mr Chris Coulter, who has made a great commitment and travelled from Canada to share with me today. I am thankful to another great friend and business partner Mr Peter Worthington, who has travelled from London to be here today, and to my childhood mates Peter and Mark Barry and Richard and Sue Barlow for being here today. I wish to acknowledge the late Mr Frederick Geoffrey de Vere Tyndall, who shared with me his intellect and knowledge and helped me find my own ways of thinking about government and society. I want to thank Peter Vandeleur, a great hardworking Australian, who has picked up the baton to help keep politics alive in my home community.

I cannot thank enough my wife, Ashleigh, and her stepdaughter, Natasha, for leaving their home and family in the UK seven years ago to be with me in this country. Ashleigh, seven years ago when I asked you to marry me I swear I was not planning to come to this place. But despite not signing up for this, you have been my greatest support. I love you and I thank you. Thank you to my children, Abbey, George and Harrison. Thank you for your continued love and support and remember: life is full of choices. Looking at the people my children have become is without doubt my greatest source of pride. My colleague Senator Bill Heffernan put it best in his first speech in this place. He said:

No-one really understands what they mean to their own parents till they have their own children.

In saying that I wish to thank my father, Bryan, and mother, Elaine, and my five brothers, Paul, David, Stephen, Tim and Andrew, who have joined me for this occasion. You have all helped me become the person I am today. Time prevents me from mentioning the others of you who have been great friends and who have travelled here, at great expense. Thank you all for your enduring support in every aspect of my life.

There is one person who cannot be here today, but whom I would like to mention in closing. I never met my uncle Robert, and he never met his daughter. My mother's brother died seven months before the end of the Second World War, 17 years before I was born. But he, and the thousands like him who sacrificed their lives in the defence of our nation and our ideals, were a strong presence in our lives through the impact their loss had on the ones they left behind. They were known by the sudden or unexplained tears in the eyes of our loved ones, the silences in conversations, their unfilled jobs in local towns or on farms and in the loneliness of women who never married or remarried. We felt them in the way our parents looked to instil in their children not only respect and tolerance but the importance of hard work, diligence and, importantly, service to the community. We looked to their example while our parents worked hard to ensure that such sacrifices would never again be demanded of an entire generation.

In my family, as in so many others, it was the sacrifice of one generation for the betterment of the next. Reciprocated was the promise to remember and honour that sacrifice, and to build a nation worthy of it. We must continue this promise as thousands of our young men and women today serve in our name.

Australians have proven time and time again how resilient they are and have shown their willingness to make great sacrifices for our nation. We must take responsibility for our actions, persist in the face of adversity and overcome the lure of short-term political fixes in order to make decisions that are in the long term interests of our nation. I will endeavour to prove that I am up to the job of honouring my uncle Bob and those like him through my work representing South of Australia in this place.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Before I call Senator McKenzie, I remind honourable senators that this is her first speech; therefore, I ask that the usual courtesies be extended to her.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an honour to stand here as a Victorian senator. I congratulate my fellow incoming senators for their insightful and inspiring words this past fortnight, and I am confident that given the strong bipartisan traditions of this place we will collectively be able to make a difference.

This week's news reminds us that we live in troubling times. The very real challenges to our economy and our way of life cannot be met with wistful thinking or glib press releases, looking at the unrest overseas over the past months. That we can all sit here today as democratically elected senators, arguing where the line is drawn between individual freedom and notions of equity, means we are truly, truly blessed.

For my first speech, I shall in true conservative fashion not outline an agenda to be pursued blindly; my role is to reflect and represent rather than revolutionise. I will outline my belief in regional Victoria and share with you the values and experiences which have led me to the Senate and hence the prism through which I shall pursue my work here. First and foremost, I am a very proud country Australian, the first generation born off the farm. The relationship between my sense of self and the land is strong—the way it is used and the natural environment have shaped who I am and how I think.

As a child, I learnt to ride through the creeks and paddocks of north-east Victoria, I swam in the dams and, yes, I listened to the birds. Many decades later when I was travelling through Canada on one of those soulless night trips that you do when you are a young person—I had been away from home for a long period of time—the sound of a magpie came over the airwaves. I smiled in surprised recognition at the impact that that sound had on me. The natural world really had an impact on me during my formative years. The memories run deep. Victoria is a beautiful and an industrious state. The coalmining areas of the Latrobe Valley, the snowfields of the Great Dividing Range, the wide plains of the west, the Murray River communities, our magnificent surf coasts and our vibrant regional cities attest to that fact. And, just for the record, Melbourne is absolutely the best city in Australia—and I am happy to take that one outside. It is only natural for me, then, to find political expression in the party which has represented regional Australians for more than 95 years: the Nationals.

My pledge tonight is to the people of Victoria. I commit to putting forward our case for a sustainable future and pursuing it with energy and passion. This pledge is underpinned by the concepts of authenticity, generosity, simplicity and hard work. For me, these characteristics epitomise regional Australians, and nowhere have we seen them on display more than in Victoria during the past two years. With perseverance and stoicism, country Victorians battled 10 years of drought and its crippling impact on the health of our families, our local economies and our environment. Similarly, the floods last year devastated much of the north and west of regional Victoria. The cleaning up was still going on when floods struck us again in Gippsland, a place very dear to me. We were visited by the worst loss of life, other than in war, in our nation's history when, tragically, 173 Victorians died in the horrific bushfires of 2009. The physical and social effects will be felt for generations. Throughout these natural disasters the empathy of all Australians was extra­ordinary. And the character of regional Victorians was clear as we pulled together to fight those fires, rescue our neighbours, sandbag the flood and then just get on with the recovery. That is leadership.

Such collective strength is all in a day's work for country Victorians. We live in communities where we understand and appreciate the necessity of interdependence. It has long been essential to our survival. Each individual's skill is appreciated and respected more than the income or property they own; thoughtfulness actually counts; and the concept of an honest day's pay for an honest day's work is still commonplace. It's the place to be.

Despite the impact of these natural disasters, we have a great story to tell in regional Victoria. We have exciting future prospects for growth, particularly in food production and processing, education provision, manufacturing, the development of energy resources and the arts. Whilst only one-third of Australians live outside our capital cities, more than a quarter of Victorians choose to live in the regions, where research shows that they are connec­ted to their communities, participating in activities with strong social networks. I paint a rosy picture of regional Victoria obviously because I have chosen to make my home there, with all the benefits available to my family.

The Nationals come to Canberra with an understanding of the people they represent and a necessary appreciation of that inter­dependence. As a Nationals senator, my focus is completely and unashamedly on the needs and interests of regional Australia. When the Country Party was founded in Melbourne in 1922 it was because a group of parliamentarians recognised the need for unified regional representation. Dr Earle Page, leader of the Country Party for over three decades, stated:

It was now made plain beyond any doubt that the rural areas must attain a voice in the government of their own affairs.

From our earliest days, our initiatives and infrastructure projects have inspired: the formation of the national scientific agency, the CSIRO; the restructure of the Commonwealth Bank as a central bank. And, much later, we established the Reserve Bank. We introduced medical treatment for pensioners and free access to medicines for Australians.

We have delivered for the regions and the nation, but 95 years on there is still much to be done. Issues of low median income levels, skills shortages and high youth unemployment are consistent across the regions. Similarly, health outcomes are lower for regional Australians. In Victoria, educational attainment is another area of concern, with a significant disparity in year 12 completion rates and more than half of rural Victorian residents with no form of vocational or tertiary qualification. And although major regional centres such as Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong are growing rapidly, 11 of our regional local government areas are currently shrinking.

So, whilst recognising that improvements have been made, it is a desire to address the disparity that drives me and drives my party. A sustainable future for regional Australia is worth fighting for. It is a future that the other Victorian coalition senators—Senators Fifield, Ronaldson, Ryan and Kroger—will fight alongside me to deliver, but I also hope that Senators Madigan, Di Natale, Carr, Conroy, Collins and co. will work with me to promote policy that benefits all Victorians.

I take this opportunity to pay tribute to Victorian Nationals who have played a pivotal role in developing our state and our nation, in particular Jack McEwen and Peter Ryan. The first was Prime Minister, patriot, advocate for soldier settlers, promoter and protector of country Australia and our manufacturing industries. Black Jack was pragmatic, loyal and would only compromise for his constituents—values exemplified by the Nationals Senate team today. The Leader of the Nationals in Victoria and Deputy Premier, Peter Ryan, is also my local member. His advice is simple: if the policy is good for regional Victoria, support it; if it is not, don't. And that is advice that I plan to listen to.

The history of the Victorian National Party senators is actually one of diversity. There is no such thing as a stereotypical Nat pollie—it's true. I am the 11th Nationals senator for Victoria. Although I am the first woman, I am not the first teacher. Laurence Neal was a politics lecturer from La Trobe. Others have been from the armed services and—yes, even in Victoria, Barnaby—we have had our fair share of senators who were also accountants. We have also had a disproportionate number of Scotsmen.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Good on you!

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Och yeah! I too am proud of my Scottish heritage and I hope those characteristics of stoicism, hard work, humour and thrift—

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

will be welcomed here in Canberra. So how does a very typical X gen maths and PE teacher end up here in a house of parliament which is the last remaining check on executive power, a true representation of the nation's political expression, the Senate?

I am here because of the investment over a long period of time by a lot of people. The strong rural traditions of small business, sport and agriculture feature heavily on both sides of my family. My maternal grandfather was a polocrosse-playing, high country cattleman—a great horseman and sportsman who was always willing to share with us his knowledge of horsemanship and his love of the land. His grandfather was carried over the Great Dividing Range in saddlebags as an infant. These Danish settlers and future relations of Brumby Jack worked hard to clear the country round Omeo and forge a family business in beef and sheep that continues today. My grandmother wanted her daughters educated, so the family moved from Omeo to Alexandra and my mother became a teacher and my aunt a nurse.

The importance of agriculture to our past and future prosperity is paramount and I am committed to being a strong advocate for agribusiness and related industries. My father's family set up and ran a successful bus line throughout regional Victoria—creatively named McKenzie's—the type of business which is the backbone of regional communities and sustains so many of our local economies. My father started his working life as a logger and has some great stories to tell about the bush, log truck driving and brakes—almost as many stories as he shares with my own sons about his glory-seeking days as the full forward for the Marysville Mustard Pots. He went on to be the local milkman in towns in north-east Victoria and his HR practices were instructive—any child reared in a small business family would understand. The $2-per-milk-round wage he paid for three hours of hard manual labour would not fly anywhere close to best-case industrial relations practice. However, what it did do was give me an opportunity to learn the business, to spend time with my dad, to learn the value of a dollar and the importance of hard work. Thanks, Dad.

Watching the impact that the deregulation of the industry and multinational milk processes had on local milk rounds and the families that ran them informs my approach to competition policy. I commit to fighting to ensure that small businesses—the hardware stores, newsagents, family farms, gift shops and cafes; the mum and dad businesses—have an environment where they can get on with doing business rather than worrying about burdensome regulatory environments and increased taxes.

The women in my family are strong, community minded, also local sporting heroes and all committed to education. My mother was a primary school teacher. Her commitment to social justice has flowed through to her children, none of whom can resist a good cause. A particularly longstanding campaign for mum has been with the sports sections of Victorian daily newspapers and the coverage given to female athletes and teams.

Valuing the importance of public education is fundamental to who I am. This is not to decrease my co-belief in choice of educational provision—and I am a direct beneficiary of my mother's hard work in paying for an excellent education—however, notions of equity require an accessible, high-quality, vibrant, independent public education system, especially in the regions. As a former lecturer, teacher and student advocate, I commit to improving education access and quality for Australians no matter where they live. I also commit to fighting to ensure that our universities are well funded and to ensure that our research is a balanced mix of world-class innovation and that which is locally valuable. I also commit to promoting the role of academia in wider society.

In addition to a preference for partially differentiated equations, a recurrent theme of my working life has been my involvement and encouragement of young people and their capacity. I am genuinely inspired by working with young people. My own preliminary research into physical activity and young women in rural areas saw the development of the GConnect program, promoting student led physical education with a focus on self-esteem and wellbeing. The data is collected; the thesis, however, has been packed away in the shed and I am fearful it will never actually get finished. Time will tell.

Young people are a precious asset for our future, and our nation needs individuals who are prepared to contribute, who are engaged and who can think critically. I commit to working to lessen the impact of geography on outcomes for young people, particularly around access to work and study.

My own family's involvement in local sporting clubs spans generations and sports. Participating in golf clubs, football, netball and surf-lifesaving is an integral part of what we do and what so many country families do, contributing to the physical and social health of their communities. It is an area that I look forward to supporting.

There are many challenges for the 21st century which require action now. These include the allocation of resources, especially water, what to do with all that prime agricultural land, dealing with the issues of population and sustainability, and managing the impact of technology on human relationships.

Taking communications as an example—my generation are the last to have spoken on landlines after school to friends we had spent all day at school with. We did not have smartphones, the internet or Facebook. We are the last of the internet non-natives. This cultural shift—because it is a cultural shift; we have changed the language—challenges parents, researchers and policymakers, as these developments fundamentally change how young people communicate.

I am confident in two things—my faith and science. They are not contradictory for me. Science will find the answers to the many of the challenges of the 21st century, as it has always done—we are a creative and curious species. Our challenge is to stand tall on the platforms provided by science, to reject the anti-intellectualism in equal measure with the elitism. Let us just use some common sense!

While we are on the subject, another challenge was aptly stated by Ian Chubb, Australia's Chief Scientist, when he asked:

Why does science, with its potential to cure diseases, struggle to make it onto the front page, yet a reality cooking show dominates headlines?

An excellent question—both as a commentary on the state of public debate and as a commentary on the state of science in Australia, both of which I hope to consciously assist in changing. After all, it was the Nationals' Earle Page who oversaw the establishment of the CSIRO, providing a foundation for future research and development. I come to this place as a conservative, a constitutional monarchist, a proponent of states' rights—all of those lovely things—appreciating the organic nature of society and the need for my representation to reflect that fact.

I will make decisions based on sound evidence and principles which have stood the test of time.

It may be unfashionable, and I acknowledge the inherent contradiction, but I am suspicious of government and its role in our lives. I am thankful to the framers of our Constitution for their efforts to enshrine states' rights, not only for the obvious benefits that decentralisation of both power and purpose brings, but also for the competition this brings to the field in the great battle of ideals.

Sociologists have tried to articulate what it is to possess a 'rural mindedness'. Characteristics that I hope will typify my work here have been articulated by thinkers such as Henry Thoreau and his appreciation of the simple things on writing of his time in Concord woods; the ferocious authenticity of Rousseau and the romantic mythology of 'Banjo' Paterson; proud country people whose writing articulates the simplicity, integrity and hard work of people who are reared in natural landscapes.

In describing my community, my party and myself in this way, please do not assume that the principles of reverse logic apply. Rather it is the conscious rejection of complexity, consumerism, laziness and selfishness that typify our way of life, not a lack of capacity.

Finally, I would like to put on the record my appreciation to the many people who have supported me over the years, materially, socially and politically.

To the Victorian coalition Senate team, it was a pleasure to campaign with you at the last election and I look forward to increasing our numbers, both here and in the other place, at the next federal election and beyond.

To my colleagues in The Nationals party who have smoothed the way with advice, encouragement and practical support to both myself and my staff, it's great to be part of the team. Thanks everyone!

Thank you to my fantastic staff: Leanne, Peter, Annie, Noel and Megan.

To the grassroots Nationals members in Victoria, I am a home-grown National and will always remember why I am here and where I come from. Thank you to the preselectors—grassroots members of my party who have placed such a great trust and responsibility in me. I would like to make special mention of John, Jenny, Peter, Anne and Meree—everyone down at South Gippy AEDC—as I would not be standing here without your encouragement, support and advice.

To my parents, for their belief in education, their example of hard work and community contribution, thank you.

To my many friends and family, it is great to see you! Thank you for your humour, advice and practical assistance which has made all the difference for one of us to be standing here today.

But mostly I would like to pay tribute to four young Australians whom it is my great privilege to parent: Rhett, Jake, Brydie and Rory. Thank you for your ongoing support, sacrifice and understanding. Everything I do and I think, despite what you read in the papers and see at question time, what everybody in this chamber does is for your future and the future of our country.

My sincere hope is to contribute to this nation in a thoughtful, constructive and positive manner and to always advocate for regional Victoria.

May their faith in me be well placed.

I shall work tirelessly to that end.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Before I call Senator Madigan, I ask if it is the wish of the Senate to proceed to the consideration of government documents, pursuant to standing order 57(1)(d)(xi), at the conclusion of his speech?

Question agreed to.

Pursuant to order, I now call Senator Madigan to make his first speech and ask honourable senators that the usual courtesies be extended to him. I call Senator Madigan.

John Madigan (Victoria, Democratic Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President, and congratulations on your re-election as President of the Senate. Before anything else I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff of the Senate who, like you, have been both patient and professional in helping me accustom myself to this new role. It has only been eight weeks and already I have come to realise that the Senate would not be able to function without the tireless efforts of these dedicated people.

Mr President, there is an expression, 'It's been a long time between drinks'. For the Democratic Labor Party I cannot think of a more apt description of our re-emergence into the federal arena. For me personally I can honestly say that the last 12 months of my life has been a surreal experience. Twelve months ago I was paying the bills by, amongst other things, forging pinch bars for Munro Engineering's post drivers—those in the rural community would know—while campaigning for the Senate on the side. After a series of lengthy discussions with many people, my wife, Teresa, was convinced that I should stand for the Senate but that the chances of my winning were slight.

At about 11 pm on election night, Antony Green, wearing a puzzled look on his face, announced, 'We appear to have a DLP senator.' I imagined that all the junior journalists would be searching Wikipedia for some reference to this new and obscure group. Teresa came to me, gave me a whack on the back of the head and said, 'So much for your predictions.'

For what my wife, Teresa, and my children, Lucy and Jack, have had to put up with, then and now, and will probably have to put up with for some years to come, I am truly grateful and apologetic. To my mother, Patricia, and my late father, John, I give thanks for having been raised in a loving and supportive home. To my grandparents, John, Hilda, Seymour and Myrtle, to my siblings, Catherine, Luke and Mark, as well as my wife's family and the members of my extended family across Australia and to all my friends, especially Richard Rigby and Kevin Flintoff, I would like to express my appreciation for the support they have given me.

To the Presentation Sisters and the Christian Brothers, especially Brother McManus, Brother McDonough, Brother Ward and Brother McGlade, I would sincerely like to thank them for their wonderful guidance, prayers and patience that they have given me over the years. To Tom Colmo, Dinny Wheelahan, Carl Pettersen, Lance McAnulty, Harry Rizzetti, Jim Baxter and Gus Henderson—the blacksmiths, foundrymen and wheelwrights of my childhood—I offer my deep and heartfelt thanks to them for revealing the skills and wonders of their craft to a wide-eyed young lad. To Frank Pocock and Shane Taylor, my masters and mentors at the Victorian Railways Newport workshops, where as a proud member of the AMWU I did my apprenticeship, I give my sincere thanks and appreciation for sharing with me the skills, disciplines and knowledge of our trade.

And, lastly, I would like to give a special thanks to my great-great-grandfather, Antonio Salvadore Dominguez, for jumping ship in Port Phillip 140-odd years ago. I am sure at that time he would never have believed that one of his great-great-grandsons of one of Australia's early boat people would rise to the office of senator. From the Victorian Railways to my blacksmith's forge at Hepburn Springs in the Central Victorian Highlands, I now find myself representing the people of Victoria and Australia in the Senate. As the Victorian Senate candidate for the Democratic Labor Party, my election was far from a foregone conclusion. Fortunately, the people of Victoria, the DLP members and a group of determined smaller parties demanding better representation and accountability from the majors thought otherwise. Through the dedication, prayers and incredible hard work of so many true believers in the labour movement—stalwarts such as Billy and Cath O’Connell of east Trentham and the late Max and Eileen Crockett of Geelong—the Democratic Labor Party achieved a remarkable feat. The DLP has been referred to as 'the party of the last, the least and the lost' in Australian society. We were the first party to call for an end to the White Australia policy and to seek equal pay for equal work, the vote for 18-year-olds, equity in education funding and many other conditions that Australians now take for granted.

Our antidumping policy, placing the onus of proof on the overseas competitor rather than on the local producer, has largely been addressed by the work of Senator Nick Xenophon, who has done his best to address the plight of the Australian worker and the Australian family.

The drug problem is a scourge on our society and, apart from the devastation wrought on families and individuals, it causes untold harm to our economy and our industries. I believe a nationwide campaign must be considered and we will be examining ways in which to introduce compulsory detoxification and rehabilitation for addicts of illegal drugs.

I could go on about legislation but there will be plenty of days for that in this chamber. During my time here there will no doubt be a number of controversial bills proposed. I do not intend to be deliberately controversial simply for a few cheap headlines but on some issues I cannot be complicit by my silence.

I am a senator representing the state of Victoria, the state that, in 2008, passed the worst abortion laws in the Western world. They would be the worst in the entire world, but we can be proud of the fact that in this matter Victoria is not quite as bad as the current occupiers of Tiananmen Square. These laws have been described as the most inhumane laws ever passed in this country. Some members on both sides of the house opposed them—unfortunately, not enough. In the last few weeks I have received thousands of emails on the live export trade. I was sickened by the sight of animals treated so inhumanely but what I will never understand is how people can so easily turn away from the even greater suffering we cause to our own children. Life at every stage is precious. No joy comes from a violent loss of life. I urge those senators who are unfamiliar with the scope of the Victorian laws to examine them in the hope they are never repeated in other states and may one day be repealed.

Everywhere I go I meet Australians who feel that they have lost their voice and that no politician from either side of the fence could give a damn about their future or the future of their families and communities. Year after year workers, families, farmers and small businesses are alienated by decisions of successive governments that allow and, apparently, encourage the easy sell-off of Australian companies, Australian jobs and Australia’s future. Every year ordinary Australians—that is, the people we are supposed to represent and defend—lose more and more control of their land and its resources. These ordinary Australians actually own this country—not us, their elected representatives; not the multinational corporations; and not the overseas buyers of our resources, our farms and our future.

We are the representatives of the Australian people, not their masters. And yet decision after decision made in this parliament strips the Australian people of the ownership of their own country. We rightly make laws protecting the ownership of land for the Indigenous people of this country but we seem incapable of making laws that will actively protect the resources, industry and land of the Australian people as a whole. Our people are told again and again that we are short-sighted if we do not embrace the supposed level playing field of global economics and the free trade system. This level playing field looks more like a ski slope to most Australians. Australian businesses pay superannuation, workers compensation, award wages and incur a dozen other costs to give our workforce a safe and secure environment. How many of our competitors incur the same costs? How many of them use workers as grist to the mill, provide no safety provisions, no superannuation, no leave and whose wage levels are barely high enough to meet daily costs?

Our manufacturing sector is under siege, a siege as great as any we fought in past wars. This week we see BlueScope Steel going under, with the loss of over 1,000 jobs. Say it quick enough and it is easy: 1,000 jobs. But it is not 1,000 jobs, is it? It is 1,000 families. It is the communities these thousands live in, the shops, the schools and the small businesses that rely on their money to keep going. One thousand jobs, families, communities—another statistic—but at least the directors of BlueScope can sympathise with them while they holiday in France or Hong Kong or anywhere their bonus dollar buys them more. If we are not making decisions that make the lives of Australians better, then we should at least make sure we do not make them any worse. A country is what a country makes. The great economies of the world have strong manufacturing sectors. They do not survive by simply digging holes in the ground, turning their country into a nation of drink waiters or educating their competitors on how to bury them.

During my time here, however long that will be, I hope to take steps to change this situation and to help restore and protect Australia’s industry to the best of my ability for the betterment of Australian families and workers. I also hope to raise the awareness of federal politicians of the daily pressures facing the Australian worker and farmer. Accordingly I will be moving to establish a parliamentary program. Just as the members and senators of the Australian parliament can and should show their support for the Australian Defence Force by taking part in the ADF Parliamentary Program, I believe an Australian manufacturing and farming sector parliamentary program should be established. Such a program would help senators and members gain a better appreciation for the men and women whose hard work keeps this nation alive. Surely a hands-on approach to the working conditions of the average Australian would benefit all of us when debating relevant legislation.

Finally, I would like to address something particularly close to the DLP and its members. Thirty-seven years ago the last DLP senators left the Senate. McManus, Little, Kane, Byrne and Gair: names that were once spoken of—either with admiration or derision—in households across this nation. They were the last of their kind, the last of an era, and their passing was not mourned by the parties present here today.

Two visionaries, John Curtin, who hailed from my wife's birthplace of Creswick, and Ben Chifley, a Bathurst boy and a railwayman, had proclaimed the principles of the labour movement only a few years prior to the split. Less than a decade had passed since a Labor government had saved this nation from invasion during the Second World War, and now the same party was prepared to sacrifice that hard-won future to an ideology with an agenda of social engineering and an upheaval as destructive as any invading army. Fifty-one members of parliament, including 14 ministers and a state Premier, stood fast for the Labor principles they swore to uphold and for this they were expelled, abandoned and left to carry on the fight for the sake of the Australian people and ironically to defend the principles of the Australian Labor Party. For most of the next 20 years the DLP held the balance of power and played a major role in determining who would govern this country. Were we always right in the decisions we made? No—we made mistakes too.

Over the last couple of years the Liberal Party has made a number of references to their apparent Labor credentials. We have heard that 'the principles of the DLP are alive and well in the Liberal Party', and even more recently that if Ben Chifley were alive today he would vote Liberal. Well, I can assure you that the DLP and its principles are alive and well—in the DLP. I can also assure you that the great Ben Chifley, a former Prime Minister of the labour movement that I support, would have resigned his office rather than vote Liberal. The Libs seem to forget that another great Prime Minister and the father of their party, Sir Robert Menzies, was so discouraged with the direction the Liberal Party had taken after his departure that, as confirmed by his family, rather than vote Liberal he voted for the Democratic Labor Party. So instead of Chifley voting for the Liberals, it is Menzies who showed the way by voting for a Labor Party.

Most of you have heard or read the following words at some time in your life. They speak to those who genuinely believe in the role that a Labor Party has in the future of this country and the lives of its people:

I try to think of the Labour movement, not as putting an extra sixpence into somebody's pocket, or making somebody Prime Minister or Premier, but as a movement bringing something better to the people, better standards of living, greater happiness to the mass of the people. We have a great objective—the light on the hill—which we aim to reach by working for the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand. If it were not for that, the Labour movement would not be worth fighting for.

This excerpt from Ben Chifley's Light on the Hill speech to an ALP conference, a united ALP, in 1949 defines the labour movement then, now and hereafter. Sixty-two years later we who call ourselves Labor are again called upon to fulfil that movement. Are we bringing something better to the people? Or are we just about putting an extra sixpence in our pockets? Are we providing better standards of living? Or are we just about making someone Prime Minister at any cost? Are we spreading greater happiness to the people? Or is a helping hand too much to pay for the betterment of mankind? And if we cannot answer these questions as honestly as Chifley asked them, is the continuation of this labour movement worth fighting for?

The DLP and the ALP are not the same. We differ in a number of ways but we both came from the same lineage and, however much some members on both sides may dislike it, we are kin, of sorts. Frank McManus, a true and loyal Labor senator, remarked:

I have often said that the best Government for Australia is a good Labor Government and the worst is a bad Labor Government.

This nation needs, wants and hopes for a good Labor government that will bring something better to the people—that works for the betterment of our people. The labour movement is still waiting to be fulfilled. The ALP has a chance to reaffirm its commitment to that unchanging labour movement. The DLP intends to pursue that vision. It would be good to do so with kin. May we all remember that it is incumbent upon each and every one of us to put the common good back into the Commonwealth.