Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to rise to speak on the retirement of Joe Hockey. Joe Hockey first expressed his political ambitions at about the age of 14 years when he announced as a schoolboy that he could solve the American hostage crisis in Iran. That was Joe. He was not on top of each and every one of his classes, as an article in The Sydney Morning Herald indicated, but according to this particular article he grilled his history teachers. He liked debating. Election as a student councillor in year 10 transformed him. 'It had a very positive impact on my self-esteem,' Joe said later. 'I didn't think I was worthy of anyone's votes.'

He qualified to study arts at the University of Sydney. He said he did not like his initial year, likening it to going from a small fishbowl to the ocean, but he embraced university life after going into St John's College on campus. In his third year, after transferring to law, in a shock victory he was elected president of the students' representative council, campaigning with a speaker plonked on top of his Peugeot 504. He later led a protest against the Hawke government's introduction of HECS fees in Martin Place in the late 1980s, telling a crowd, 'This is the rebirth of student activism in this country.'

He cut his early political teeth as a staff member in the office of former Nationals state leader George Souris, the long-serving member for Upper Hunter. He certainly would have learned a lot under George Souris, who was an MP in state politics for more than a quarter of a century and justifiably earned life membership of the New South Wales National Party. So Joe, like so many other Liberals, worked alongside and for a senior National Party colleague. That is what the coalition are good at: we are good at being all-embracing for both rural and regional Australia as well as for capital cities. We get on with the job of fixing up the debt we usually get left with. When Joe Hockey became the Treasurer of this great nation he certainly had a big job to do, and he got on with it with aplomb.

I believe he had one of the most difficult roles to play in the Abbott government, if not the most difficult, and that was being Treasurer and being saddled with that huge debt legacy. Sure, some of the policies that were brought forward in last year's budget were not popular. They were rejected, and Joe was left to wear a lot of that criticism, including public criticism, but he always served with the nation's best interests at heart. As a National Party member I have to particularly reflect on his decision to reject the Archer Daniels Midland takeover of GrainCorp. It was vital to the people I serve in the Riverina, vital to the people who grow wheat. And it was a controversial decision; it really was. I see the member for Grayndler acknowledging that. It was highly contentious. It had been sitting idle, gathering dust on the Labor Treasurer's desk and was seen to be a bit of a booby trap when we won government in September 2013 because—as many would know—of the National Party's die-in-a-ditch attitude about the attempted ADM acquisition and the Liberals' free-market policy of 'let the market rip'. There was a clash of ideas, and Joe Hockey was left to carry the can. He knew that it was going to be controversial. He knew that the National Party, following a meeting in Rockhampton, were not going to cop ADM taking over GrainCorp—were not going to wear that—so it was a very difficult position. I was on an aeroplane on the way to an electorate appointment in Griffith. When I alighted at the airport—I can see the member for Grayndler here; I acknowledge that I was in the terminal which Labor funded and Warren Truss opened—

Mr Albanese interjecting—

That was one of the only ones—and I did acknowledge the member for Grayndler at the time. I got to the terminal and was greeted with the news that the ADM proposed takeover had been rejected by Joe Hockey, the member for North Sydney, the Treasurer. He said in his media release:

After long and careful deliberations, I have today made an order under the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975 … prohibiting the proposed acquisition by Archer Daniels Midland Company … of 100 per cent of the shareholding in GrainCorp Limited.

It was an important, brave, bold decision, because previously only two other attempted foreign acquisitions had been refused. One was Peter Costello's refusal of the Shell bid for Woodside Petroleum in 2001. The other was the attempted takeover by Singapore of the Australian Stock Exchange in 2011. So this was setting a new benchmark as far as agribusiness was concerned. It was a rather controversial start to the coalition's government. It received round condemnation from Labor and from many others besides. But it was the right decision, and I certainly compliment Joe Hockey on that. He was not a man frightened of taking brave, bold decisions in the national interest. That is what set him apart from the treasurers in the Labor government in those six sorry years before we took over.

At the time I was very outspoken in my praise of the fact that good sense had prevailed. As I said in a media release:

The Treasurer’s task was to apply the national interest test to this proposal and I am very pleased to see that having weighed the evidence, the Treasurer has quite rightly rejected this takeover.

I highlighted the benefits of the rejection for Riverina and eastern state growers. Riverina growers were provided with certainty at a time when they were coming to the end of that year's harvest. Our $9 billion a year grain harvest, along with up-country silos and storage sites, rail, ports and other critical infrastructure, would remain in Australian hands, and decisions would not be taken by a boardroom in far-off Illinois in the United States of America. Our farmers feed the nation and the world. We know that. This decision gave growers certainty.

You only have to see the benefits that that decision has realised. GrainCorp is now investing in up-country silo storage sites. They are doing it in large licks at Junee and Ardlethan in my electorate, and in other places as well. I am not quite sure whether GrainCorp would necessarily have made those investments had they been taken over by ADM. In fact the price of wheat, and indeed how much wheat would be grown, would be determined way off in the US, depending on the Canadian harvest and on the success of the American harvest. That would have determined how much wheat we grew here and what price our farmers would receive.

That stopped and certainty started with Joe Hockey's rebuttal of that particular takeover. The booby trap left by Labor was not a booby trap after all, because he showed moral courage, he showed fortitude and he stood up against what would have been a terrible outcome not just for Australian growers but also for the nation itself. I compliment Joe Hockey for that particular brave decision and I compliment him for his political career. He was a larger-than-life figure. It sounds like I am talking about him in the past tense. I am politically, but I know he has a lot more to give to this nation and to international diplomacy. I know that he will continue to be a great advocate both here and abroad for Australian markets, Australian business, Australian jobs and, indeed, Australia. I compliment him on his wonderful service to our nation as far as being a parliamentarian is concerned. I am a little sad that the only person in the lower house other than me whose birthday is on 2 August has left the stage, but I am sure that the arena will be much larger for Joe in the future. He has a lot more to give, and I look forward very much to seeing what he does in the future for the benefit of this great nation. Thank you, Joe Hockey, for your services.

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