Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Freedom and liberty, 100 years ago this month, were under threat as the gods of war awoke. Armies of empires stretching back before the Middle Ages were slowly moving to Armageddon—a world war with deaths of millions, the end of four royal houses and the beginning of wicked new orders of communist and fascist cruelty. This war ended realms of geography but brought in dominions of political terror imprisoning generations under dictatorship, ending hope, freedom and liberty for many until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Indeed, the war that began in 1914 with the invasion of Belgium was the second 'Hundred Years War', the war against tyranny, continuing from the Armistice, pausing in 1989, and resuming in 2001 in New York. The 'Hundred Years War against Tyranny' continues today on three fronts: first of all Islamist fundamentalism intent on caliphates destroying Western civilisation, especially religious freedom; secondly, democratic governments restricting freedom of speech and association, betraying hundreds of years of liberty; and, finally, leftists delegitimising all views other than their own, especially in media and education.

Freedom and liberty are not abstract concepts. You either have freedom or you are not free. Whether I serve here for 16 days or 16 years, I shall always judge myself on how I have battled against tyranny and fought for the axis of enlightenment—that is, liberty of the individual, a free market, small government and low taxes. I will let others badge and brand and box me, as, in my great broad church that is the Liberal Party, my pew is a moveable feast. I have campaigned against dictator-loving Islamist fundamentalists in the Maldives; Sinn Fein- and PLO-supporting Labour candidates in London; and godless rebranded communists in Mongolia—not to mention the Queensland branch of the Australian Labor Party!

My life has not been about the pursuit or gain of power but to confiscate power back from government to free people. My story is not special or unique. I come from the great blancmange that is the Australian middle class. Families are modest and shy. They are joiners and doers, workers and strivers, not shirkers. Our homes are not big and flash, and cars often second-hand. The biggest investment is never super, bricks or shares, but education. My mob are farmers, saddlers, soldiers, gardeners, small business owners, nurses, teachers, doctors and, shamefully, the odd lawyer. One side is stridently Labor and unionist, the other cheerfully Liberal National and Tory.

The first McGrath was a convict, rightly punished by a sensible judge and sent down to Australia. Family folklore has it was for stealing a sheep. On my mother's side are the Schneiders and Doughertys. The first to arrive was German, illegitimate, with barely a word of English. He moved to western Queensland in the 1870s. His son, my great-grandfather, patented the Schneider saddle, and his store stood on George Street in Brisbane until the 1970s. Schneiders would become guests of the emperor, caught in the fall of Singapore, on the way to fight the Nazis.

Like many, my journey started young. I worked on my first Liberal campaign in the 1989 Queensland state election. I started the Capitalist Club at Toowoomba State High School a year later. When 17, continuing my quest to become the most popular kid at school, I led the campaign to save the school principal when the new Queensland Labor government engaged in some restructuring. Our school community was the only one to actively campaign for their principal's retention. Our school community was the only one whose principal was eventually made redundant. I learned early on that you can be right in life but still lose in politics.

Politics is not about the pursuit of power as an end in itself. Those who seek power for the sake of power will always fail. Politics is about seeking power though democratic means in order to take power away from the elites, whether bureaucratic or corporate, and return power to the people. I have been lucky in politics. I do not think I am that good at politics but I do learn from my mistakes, personal and political, and I have made a few—some spectacular. And I have learned from some wise mentors as, along my journey, I have been fortunate to work with some erudite people here in Australia and overseas.

I believe there are 11 principles of politics and power that should guide me as I work for Queensland, and all principles were taught to me or learnt from my own mistakes. I start with the greatest ever peacetime leader, Margaret Thatcher. I never met Mrs Thatcher, but I get her. I get that someone from a corner store in a small market town could be so strong to rise so high, not just in making decisions but holding fast to her underlying values—because she had to fight for everything, and she said, 'You might have to fight a battle more than once to win it.'

Likewise, the moral courage of my friend Mohamed Nasheed, former President of the Maldives, taught me the power of forgiveness. A former political prisoner and Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, he forgave those who jailed and tortured him. I fail this principle. As much as I try, I cannot forgive and I will never forget how communist and fascist regimes incarcerated generations through political terror. Che Guevara, Castro and Chavez are not freedom fighters. They are murderers, common thugs and torturers, destroyers of hope.

I do have a confession to make. While working for the British Tories, I fell in love—and I am big enough to admit it—with a man called Eric: Eric Pickles, a Tory MP, former Conservative Party chairman and now British cabinet minister. He is one of those rotund, Rubenesque, larger-than-life Yorkshiremen, whose method of elucidating his garbled tongue was to shout at me and call me 'Skippy'. Eric, as a consummate MP and grassroots councillor, taught me that all politics is local and timing matters. With local council elections in the UK around spring, Eric would always ensure that the spring bulbs and flowers would be in full glory in the weeks leading up to polling day, to present his council at its best.

Another Tory minister, Francis Maude, whose father, incidentally, was editor of TheSydney Morning Herald, before serving Mrs Thatcher in her cabinet—it wouldn't happen nowadays, would it, Fairfax?—taught to me to pick your fights and parties should never be afraid to change or stand up for a fight.

I have worked on a few campaigns with the greatest campaign duo going, Mark Textor and Lynton Crosby. Their main focus is: always be honest and stand for your beliefs and stick to them as you communicate with voters, as message matters. Likewise, former Northern Territory Chief Minister Shane Stone taught me to be humble and constantly deliver on my promises. 'It is what people hear, not what you say' was drummed into me by the Tory Party when I was a pretty average media adviser—especially by my good friend Gavin Megaw, who is always appalled when I speak to the media as it normally never ends well for me!

James Dillon was an inconsequential Irish politician of the mid-20th century. His inconsequence came about because of his statement of the principle that 'democracy, freedom and liberty must always be defended'. A third-generation Irish Parliamentarian Nationalist, his view was that the Irish Free State should put aside disputes with Britain and support her against the Nazis. In 1942 he was the only Irish MP to do so, and he was expelled by his own party and pilloried by the Irish Free State.

My old boss Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, one of the great wordsmiths of the modern political age, is living proof that you should not 'dumb down' to voters. The man who twice won the largest direct election in western Europe outside of France—thanks to a bit of Australian help—uses poetry, the classics and an oversized vocabulary to speak to Londoners.

After I was elected I went and saw Campbell Newman and asked him how I could help him and Queensland. Instead of a detailed discussion on taxes, federalism and federal budgets, he just said, 'Be good, and do good.' And finally from Lord Ashcroft: 'I will always trust the people and treat issues seriously but never take myself seriously.' I will use these principles to deliver on a better deal for Queensland—and this starts with the Federation.

The Federation of Australia is slowly creaking towards political death. Successive governments have taken power and decisions from the states. The best government is in a federation where power is split between different levels of government. Taking power from the states and away from local communities must be stopped. To bring about competitive or market federalism between the states, we need to sort out the tax system and bring in taxes that do not punish ambition and productivity or continue to centralise power in Canberra—a low tax structure that is simple, clear and transparent.

Taxes on jobs and productivity, such as the payroll tax and company tax, must be abolished and reduced respectively. To cover the states for the loss of income from payroll tax the GST should be broadened to cover everything—and it should also be increased to 15 per cent. Of course there should be compensation for the less well-off and income tax cuts. Tied grants should be abolished, with states to decide the priorities. A proportion of income taxes should be allocated to each state, with those states that push growth to be doubly rewarded with more jobs and more revenue.

The ying to the yang of low tax is small government—government that trusts people to make their own decisions. In Australia today the growth and centralisation of government at a federal level is a clear and present danger to our Federation and to the individual. We have a federal health department with thousands of staff but they do not manage a single hospital or treat a single patient. The federal education department also has thousands of staff but they do not look after a single school or teach a single student. Bureaucracies have become more bloated, more process driven and more out of touch. The states run the hospitals and schools, so why does the Commonwealth need to be involved? I am calling for the abolition of the federal departments of health and education, with universities also to be run at a state level. Each year, I will be compiling my own red-tape report to keep my government and my party on the Hayek road—away from serfdom and towards lower regulation, lower taxes and smaller government.

As someone who grew up in regional Queensland, I grew up with the ABC. But the ABC has left people like me and my constituents behind. I want to support the ABC. I like the ABC. But while it continues to represent only inner-city leftist views, funded by our taxes, it is in danger of losing its social licence to operate. I am calling for a review of the ABC's charter. And if they fail to make inroads to restore balance, then the ABC should be sold and replaced by a regional and rural broadcasting service. In the meantime, Triple J, because of its demographic dominance and clear ability to stand on its own, should be immediately sold.

In February this year I laid a wreath at the Brisbane Cenotaph to commemorate the fall of Singapore. With only six former prisoners of war of the Japanese left in Queensland, we should always honour and help those who did so much to defend our liberty in this hundred-year war against tyranny. I ask Labor and the minor parties and cross benchers to work with me to bring forward a covenant, based on the British model, between Australia and the Defence Forces and their families. The ongoing commitment of the men and women who have served or are serving in the Defence Force, along with the sacrifices of their families, is worthy of formal recognition by way of a covenant that supports their families.

Like many on this side of the chamber, I am a graduate of the greatest political training school in the country—namely, the Young Liberal Movement and the Australian Liberal Students Federation, both strong voices for freedom of association and liberty of thought. Compulsory student unionism, or SSAF as it is now called, is an attack on the fundamental freedom of association. Students, like anyone, should have the freedom to decide for themselves whether they join a student body or union. I give notice that I will be moving a private member's bill to abolish the SSAF and bring back true voluntary student unionism—and I hope all freedom lovers will join me in supporting the bill.

Likewise, freedom of speech should never be restricted by government, because when speech is regulated in any manner, it is no longer free. People will say hurtful and bigoted and stupid and dumb things. People will make racist and sexist and homophobic comments. Those views are wrong, but the right to express them is not. If you believe in democracy, you cannot cleanse it of the views you disagree with. The true test of a democratic nation is not how we treat those with whom we agree but how we treat the rights of those with whom we disagree. The best way to deal with those with whom you disagree is not to force them into the dark shadows but to let the sun shine, to let the disinfectant of light and public scrutiny judge those offensive views.

From the dockyards of Kronstat to the editorial desk of The Age, the Left always want to control and brutalise. By restricting freedom of speech, they are building Australian gulags for words and thoughts. The Australian people are a pretty sensible bunch. They always make the right decisions when it comes to elections. They elected everyone is this chamber. Rather than calling in the thought police, I trust them always to make the correct judgement and response.

Each day, when I wake, I give thanks. I know that I am here because, over the years, a lot of people have done a lot to help me. I give thanks to the voters of Queensland—I will be a humble but strong advocate for my home state. I give thanks for being raised with my sister Emma—and I thank her and her husband, Anthony—by parents who while short of money were never short of honesty, goodness or encouragement. I wish a happy birthday to my Nana, the last of her line—a daughter, wife and mother to farmers, and a farmer herself—who turns a sprightly 97 today.

I give thanks for having friends, whether from uni to the Young Liberals to the Marquis of Granby, a great pub in London, here or overseas, who put up with me being grumpy and the worst friend in replying to texts, emails and phone calls and my love and sometime overindulgence of Bundy rum. I give thanks to all my friends for helping me—especially Rebecca Smith for her support in helping organise today. To Toby, Tess and Rosie and their parents Gavin and Helen: thank you for keeping it real. It's been 10 years since I was best man at their wedding and forgot the rings and the speech!

To Bruce McIver, Gary Spence and the state executive and state council of the LNP: thank you for your support. And to Brad Henderson and all the LNP staff and volunteers at headquarters: thank you for helping me. To Estee and Jamie Briggs, Scott Ryan, Simon Birmingham and Tony Barry: thank you for helping me. And to Wyatt Roy and Joe and Carol Humphries: thank you for taking me to the Palmwoods Pub and twisting my arm to convince me to run for the Senate. I give thanks for the Liberal Party and the Liberal National Party in Queensland and the thousands of party members and supporters who helped in my election.

There are too many members and friends from here and overseas in the gallery this afternoon to thank by name, but thank you all for coming down. I look forward to having some cheerios and a Bundy or three with you later.

I give thanks to the Young LNP in Queensland for being not just roadside warriors, letterbox stuffers and student union victors but true bearers of the flame of liberty and freedom.

I give thanks to those whom I follow. In my own political memory I wear the shoes of Sue Boyce, Santo Santoro, and John Herron, all unique and strong contributors to public life in Australia, and I hope I live up to their political inheritance. I also acknowledge Ron Boswell and Russell Trood in the gallery.

I thank all my fellow Queensland LNP Senate candidates led by Senator Macdonald, who entered this chamber when I was still in high school and who advised me other day to do as he says but not as he does! Ian, thank you for your support and Senator Canavan for your friendship—and good luck in a few minutes. To Senators Brandis and Mason: thank you for your guidance. And to Senator O'Sullivan: Irish eyes are smiling at the two of us here together. And I would like to acknowledge Amanda Stoker, Theresa Craig and David Goodwin for their candidature during the 2012 and 2013 campaign.

Mr President, I congratulate you on your election and thank you, the Clerk of the Senate, the Usher of the Black Rod and everyone in this building for helping me and my team settle into the Senate.

I started my speech in 1914 and I will conclude in the 1940s over the skies of Nazi occupied France. The Royal Air Force dropped to the French a poem called Liberte by Paul Eluard—a poet not of my politics, I confess. I will end as I close with its final stanzas:

On passionless absence

On naked solitude

On the marches of death

I write your name

On health that's regained

On danger that's past

On hope without memories

I write your name

By the power of the word

I regain my life

I was born to know you

And to name you

LIBERTY

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am honoured to give my first speech in the Senate and I am honoured to have been elected by the Queensland people to represent them. I will do my best to serve their collective interests with courage, integrity and humility. It is a privilege to follow a great friend of mine, Senator McGrath, and I just want to put on record at the start that there are lots of people here tonight, but most of them are here at his calling. They have come here for him, and I say, 'Good on you, James, for being able to get more people to come along to the Senate to see a speech than go to the average Raiders game here in Canberra!' Apologies, Zed.

In my time here I want to make sure that all Australians can choose their own job, buy their own home, start their own business or have their own family. For each small Australian to be big they must be free from big government, big banks, big unions and big corporations. I believe that the best way we can give Australians that independence is to keep taxes low, make it easy to employ someone, promote property rights, protect the family and continue to develop the 'plains extended' of our vast continent.

I have been lucky to have two wonderful parents, Bryan and Maria, who are here tonight; my brother and sister, John and Emma, who are also here; and my grandma Val Canavan. I will never forget the hours upon hours of playing cricket in our backyard in Logan, just south of Brisbane. My dad built us a full-length concrete cricket pitch. He boxed up the pitch himself and he even started mixing the concrete in a wheelbarrow. Very soon, a few yards into the full 22, he realised that was a bit silly and he ordered in a cement truck. I joke now that, while my dad is very proud that I have been elected a senator for Queensland, there is still a tinge of disappointment that I did not reach my true calling to wear the baggy green for Australia.

I have been lucky to meet my beautiful wife, Andrea, and I feel so blessed to have one person who I can share everything with—the ups and downs, the moves all around the countryside and most of all our three beautiful sons: William, Jack and Henry. We are expecting our fourth child very soon, and, just in case anyone is wondering, the due date is not nine months from election night.

I started talking about my family tonight because that is the reason I got involved in politics. I wanted to do something where my children could see the differences that I was making, so one day when I was sitting in front of a computer at the Productivity Commission I cold-called Tony Abbott's office and asked if he needed an economist. His office did not, but Barnaby did, so I ended up with him.

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was not meant to be a joke. I did not know Barnaby then, but I had met someone I very quickly grew to respect enormously. You get to know your bosses very quickly in politics. A few months in, we were working an election campaign and one night right in the middle of the campaign we were sharing a particularly comfy room together where the two single beds would have been at most half a metre apart. We tucked ourselves in for the night, and then I remembered that I had not called my wife. So I got out my phone and I texted my wife: 'Hi, babe. Love you. Miss you lots.' At least I thought that text went to my wife. Instead, I had been texting Barnaby so much that it went to him by mistake.

More seriously, in the words of TE Lawrence, Barnaby is someone who 'dreams with open eyes', and I want to thank him for the opportunity he gave me to work for him. One of our first trips together was to Cubbie Station. Late one night as we were coming home after a drink at the Dirranbandi Hotel we got talking about climate change, the ETS and all that. I said to him that what I could not understand while working at the Productivity Commission was why the renewable energy target had bipartisan support, even though it was clearly the most costly policy because it made poor people pay rich people to invest in wind farms or to put solar panels on their roofs. At this, Barnaby riled up and said that it was not the policy of the National Party, and of Ron Boswell, in particular. That was my introduction to Bozzie. There is no-one like Ron Boswell, and I certainly cannot replace him alone. It is up to all of us in the Nationals Senate party room—Nigel, Fiona, Wacka, Bridget and Barry—to follow Ron's example and take up the fight for the causes we may not want to fight for and we may not think we can fight for, but we know we must.

I come into the Nationals party room not as your typical National Party senator. I am not a farmer and I am not a small businessman; I am an economist who has spent most of his time working for the Productivity Commission. We are lucky to have an organisation like the Productivity Commission. There are very few independent organisations in the world that are set up by governments to criticise governments. In my time there Gary Banks led the organisation with consummate skill, and I thank him for taking the time to come here tonight. My first boss, Ian Gibbs, is also here, and later tonight I am expecting to receive a copy of this speech back with lots of corrections and red ink all over it.

It is an unusual path to travel from the Productivity Commission to the National Party. The predecessor bodies of the commission fought famous battles against a great leader of the Country Party, John McEwen. Those battles about protectionism are well and truly behind us. John McEwen's underlying principles and values are what we should remember today. What drove John McEwen was not a desire to impose higher tariffs but to protect the wealth-producing industries of our nation. Once again, our wealth-producing industries need support. Our agricultural, mining, manufacturing and tourism industries face high taxes, over-regulation and, most of all, a complacency that they will keep producing wealth regardless of what we do in this place.

While I was at the Productivity Commission, I was constantly reminded of how important it is to get the costs of business down. We spent 30 years in Australia removing tariffs to reduce business costs, deregulating financial markets to reduce business costs and reforming our energy sector to reduce business costs. It is now often forgotten how successful that was. From 1990 to the mid-2000s, electricity costs fell by 27 per cent in real terms for businesses. For the past half a decade we have followed the opposite approach. We have imposed a carbon tax and a renewable energy target that increased business costs, and we have unwound many of the improvements to industrial relations that provided a way to link greater productivity to higher wages. We have gone from having some of the cheapest power prices in the world to now being just above average. Just seven years ago businesses in Australia paid less than 10c per kilowatt hour for electricity. Today many pay more than 20c per kilowatt hour. In the United States, businesses pay the same prices that we did just a few years ago.

We have very similar resources to the United States—abundant supplies of coal and gas—but we give up our natural advantage in wealth and job creation when we turn our back on them. I want to put on the record my admiration and support for our fossil fuel industry and the thousands of jobs it supports, including my brother's. Fossil fuels have made more contribution than almost any other product or invention towards humanity's long ascent from lives that were nasty, brutish and short to ones of comparative luxury and leisure.

The only form of energy that I want to promote is cheap energy, because we have a choice: we can either have cheap energy or we will get cheap wages. To get cheaper energy, we need to rediscover that the whole point of providing infrastructure is for the users of infrastructure, not the owners. We have made a mistake in putting the profits of electricity and gas networks ahead of lower prices for end consumers, businesses and families. We need a new national productivity agenda to bring down the costs of doing business, to boost productivity and to create well-paying jobs. Higher productivity is the only viable way to lift our standard of living over the long term.

While I am an economist, our national debate is sometimes driven too much by economists. There are lots of truths in Adam Smith; there are also lots of truths in Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Rousseau and Rawls. Just because something does not have a price does not mean it has no value. In the National Party we believe that small is beautiful. Small farms and small businesses allow more Australians to have a stake in their country. Smaller towns provide for greater community spirit and the smallest social unit of society, the family, is the most important one for us all. As Aristotle noted, the nature of everything is best seen in its smallest portions.

The fundamental mistake of the National Competition Policy was the view you only needed the potential competition of a few big firms to deliver the benefits of actual competition from many small firms. The lived experience of potential competition has not delivered the goods. Farmers struggle to achieve a return on assets of more than two per cent, while our major supermarkets and banks make returns regularly of more than 10 per cent. It is not right that the people who produce and grow our food make returns so much lower than the people who sell our food. Our competition laws are too focused on protecting against monopoly power—but just as economically ruinous can be too much buying power, or monopsony.

It is probably a bigger issue, monopsony, for our economy because we are of a relatively small size, we have highly concentrated markets and we are a long way from potential overseas buyers. Apple growers in Stanthorpe rely heavily on the major supermarkets; sugar growers generally only have one mill to sell to; and grain growers, despite selling all around the world, have limited means to transport their product to market. Yet Australia's seminal legal textbook on competition laws does not mention the word monopsony, or buying power, once. This is not a criticism of the authors; they are simply reflecting the state of our laws and our jurisprudence. Too-low prices can be just as detrimental as too-high prices because they lead to lower supply and reduce incentives to invest in new technologies. To protect small businesses we need stronger competition laws. We need an effects test in the Trade Practices Act. We need low-cost arbitration processes and stronger penalties for dominant businesses that do the wrong thing.

We should encourage as many Australians as possible to own property. Owning property gives you both individual freedom and a collective stake in the defence of our nation, its liberties and its rights. One of the greatest days of my life was the day my wife and I got the keys to our first home. I remember that night well—we had pizza on the floor of our home. We had no furniture in it yet, but we were monarchs in a room of our own with rights that no-one could dispute.

But homeownership is becoming increasingly out of reach for my generation. Unreasonable restrictions on land release are part of the reason, but these are largely state issues. At the federal level we make it harder for young people to buy their own home by forcing them to put 9.5 per cent of their income into a savings account they may not be able to access until they are 65. I wanted to own a home when I was 25, not 65. Why make people save for retirement before they can own their own home? We should free up the rules around superannuation so that young people can use their income and their savings to buy their first home.

Property rights generally are under attack in Australia. The states should have the right to promote and protect public health, safety, welfare and morals; but governments across Australia are abusing this right. Farmers have had their right to clear land taken from them. Fishermen have had their right to fish restricted. Local councils are enforcing draconian restrictions on what can be done in self-defined green zones and landowners have more ability to keep their mother-in-law off their property than a mining company. By the way—hi, Joan; thanks for coming down!

In all of these cases the government is not acquiring property from landowners but the government is regulating its use to such an extent that it is effectively taken from private hands. Under our Constitution, property owners only have compensation rights for the acquisition of property, not for the taking of it by means of regulation. Our Constitution differs from the fifth amendment to the US Constitution in this regard. American courts have developed a detailed case law on regulatory takings that defines when government decisions amount to a taking and therefore trigger a compensation claim.

The private individual should not pay for the public good. If the public seeks greater protections, then it should be willing to pay just compensation for them. We should look at providing the same protections as exist in the United States here, either through our own constitutional change or an act of parliament. Property rights are important because they help protect the basic unit of our society, the family. Property delivers security and permanence and that encourages people to make the biggest investment decision of their lives: the decision to have children. I support a tax system that recognises the family. Family tax benefits are not welfare—they are due recognition that families face higher unavoidable costs and therefore deserve taxation relief. But not all families are treated equally under our tax system. Two Australian households that earn the same amount of joint household income can pay vastly different amounts of tax.

Take a household of two children where both parents work full time and each earn $60,000 per year. Their total household income is $120,000 and they pay about $24,000 a year in tax. Compare that to a household, also with two children, where only one parent works and earns $120,000 per year. They have the same household income, yet this household pays about $34,000 per year in tax—$10,000 per year more than the double-income household. Putting it another way, a double-income family could potentially earn up to $215,000 a year before they pay the same average tax rate as a single-income family on just $120,000 year. This is unfair. People with similar ways and means should pay similar amounts of tax. Other countries, including the United States, Germany and France, allow parents to split income for tax purposes. The Canadian government has promised to introduce income splitting once their budget has returned to surplus. We too should have a goal of correcting the injustice for single-income families once our budget returns to surplus under a coalition government.

The great reform efforts in industrial relations over the past 200 years were all aimed at reducing the time we spend at work, and I recognise the efforts of the Labor Party in bringing many of these achievements about. But it is a backward step in modern times that we now try to maximise the number of people in work. For most of us, what we achieve in the home will far outweigh our achievements at work. My wife and I have made the decision that she would stay at home and look after our children while they were young. Even so, she too feels the modern pressure to enter paid work because, as it works now, unless you are in paid work you are not contributing. That view is rubbish. Whatever I achieve in my professional career, including in this place, will not matter a jot compared with to the achievements and legacy of my wife. When we are 64, enjoying a bottle of wine, what we will reflect on is our children and, God willing, our grandchildren. My wife will have a greater impact on that outcome, because I spend too much time at work.

My son came home from school the other day with one of those posters of himself with his picture on it and questions about what he likes and does not like. He said his favourite thing to do was to 'tackle daddy'. Henry, I hope I find the time in this job so you can keep tackling me enough. Andrea, if you want to tackle me from time to time, that is okay, too.

Mr President, you would be aware of the hardships we senators face. Unlike our colleagues in the other place, we sometimes have to wait up to 10 months before taking our seat in parliament! But it is not all bad. I used some of my time to spend a few weeks working in a stock camp in the Gulf of Carpentaria. I went there to learn about cattle, but I came away learning more about people. I learnt about the young Australians that get off their backsides and work hard in a place thousands of kilometres from their friends and their family, often for not very much money.

I want to thank Brendan Menegazzo, Tony McCormack and John O'Kane for making this happen. I also want to thank Tom and Tanya Arnold, the property managers at Miranda, for their kindness and hospitality; and Tess Cox, the head stock woman, and her team for finding nice quiet horses for me to ride on, even if that did not stop me falling off.

I hope that in my time here I can make decisions that do not make their lives any more difficult, because we want people to follow them and go to the frontiers of our nation, work hard and build something better. I want to make it easier for them to get to town on a Friday night on decent roads. I want to let them pay tax that reflects the level of public services that exist 100 kilometres from Normanton—which isn't very much. I want to let them enjoy the simple pleasures of living that life, which include fishing; rum and coke; pigging; and, for some, cigarettes, without putting up taxes every year, or regulating every little risky enjoyment in life.

I am proud to have been elected as the 10th Liberal National Party senator and the 52nd Nationals or Country Party senator. I have been a member of both the Liberal and National parties separately. In Queensland, we are a stronger unit for combining the great principles and people of these two great parties. I want to thank all the members of the LNP for the work they did to help me be here. I am always humbled to see so many people work for free to help me get a well-paying job. Getting elected to the Senate is a team effort. I want to thank, like James did, the great work that Senator Ian McDonald did in leading our team at last year's election—and, of course, James as well for his work. But also most of all to our other candidates David Goodwin, Theresa Craig and Amanda Stoker who put in tireless amounts of work, travelling a big state to help us all be here.

Many from the LNP have travelled down to be here tonight, but I want to particularly thank Bruce McIver and hard work of his executive and office team. I also want to pay tribute to Brad Henderson, who could not be here tonight because they work so hard they have another election this Saturday and they are up in Brisbane.

I pray to God that He can help me meet the expectations I have set here. I pray that I can contribute to the Senate in ways that respect and build on its great legacy. I pray that I can work with a government that returns Australia to the path of balanced budgets; returns Australia to a path where opportunity and security increases every year; and, most of all, a place where all Australians find their own independence and freedom to live the lives they want to lead. I look forward to working with every one of you for the benefit of all Queenslanders and all Australians. Thank you and God bless.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senators will resume with business of the Senate.