Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Prime Minister for his fine and very heartfelt words in response to the contribution today. It's a day of deep emotion right across the chamber. That was evidenced in the Prime Minister's contribution. It was certainly evidenced in Scott's speech as well. On behalf of our party, I want to extend our heartfelt thanks to our 30th Prime Minister and the 14th leader of our party. I thank him for the sacrifice that he made for our country and I thank him for the way in which he led our party. Sixteen years is a very significant contribution to public life. That period has a punctuation mark today, but I'm sure in many ways it will continue.

In his maiden speech, the member for Cook predominantly spoke about three issues: family, faith and the Australian vision. He also spoke about a fourth, which he spent a lot of time on today, which is forgiveness. There's a consistency in Scott Morrison that we saw 16 years ago, and that was evidenced again today. I think that's really what has been at the heart of Scott's continued success as a leader, as a prime minister, as a local member, as a father and as a husband. He has endeared himself to many colleagues over the course of his journey for that very reason.

Scott was quite modest in his speech today, but we can go back through some of his significant achievements, not just as Prime Minister but as immigration minister and as Treasurer. He retained the AAA credit rating, presided over a series of decisions which were tough decisions but ultimately in the country's best interests and delivered us back to a balanced budget position after a fairly precarious inherited position. He made decisions that ultimately, although not known at the time, put our country in the best possible position to deal with the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic. There were many of us who worked closely with Prime Minister Morrison at that time, and it was confronting, certainly from where I sat.

There were the initial briefings that we received from the Chief of the Defence Force, from the Chief Medical Officer and from the experts otherwise and there was the intelligence that we were receiving from Europe and about what was happening in North America and elsewhere. As the Prime Minister rightly pointed out, the decisions that Scott was able to take really steered us through a very difficult course and put our country onto a path that we should be very proud of. They were decisions in relation to the health portfolio, and the former Prime Minister rightly acknowledged Greg Hunt for the work that he did in literally saving lives. There are many things that you can hang your hat on after a 16-year career, but having had the leading role in saving tens of thousands of lives of fellow Australians who would not have survived otherwise has to be at the top of the tree. As Scott pointed out, they were not just lives but livelihoods.

To this very day, whenever we move around and speak to individual business owners or employees, countless people across the country cite the fact that their business would not have survived. There are 700,000 of them and over a million employees, a million Australians, who ultimately would not have been in the position that they were without the decisions taken by Prime Minister Morrison, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and others who sat around that National Security Committee decision-making body. That is one hell of a legacy.

But it didn't stop there. I think Prime Minister Morrison's crowning achievement has been the AUKUS deal that was struck between the United States and the United Kingdom. I can tell you it was no easy feat. The Americans had only shared their closest held secrets with the Brits in the 1950s, and, despite numerous requests from very close allies during the intervening period, they had not decided to share that secret and have that confidence in another leader up until their interaction with Prime Minister Morrison. It will be the underpinning of our security for decades to come in a very uncertain world. Scott Morrison has that as part of his legacy.

It doesn't stop there. Scott was able to bring Japan and India together in the QUAD and form a very close relationship, as he said, with the then Japanese Prime Minister, who was tragically lost, but also Prime Minister Modi as well. They had a mutual respect for each other and they knew that it was in the best interests of our respective countries, but collectively, to be able to come together to provide support for each other, not just now but into the decades ahead. Again, that was a very significant achievement.

I think it's true to say that the Prime Minister, as he then was, stood up immediately in a way that not many other world leaders did in relation to Ukraine. One of my proudest moments in this place, Scott, was seeing the decisions that you swiftly took to provide support to people, which ultimately went to your values of faith and family and your vision, particularly in relation to humanity. The decisions that you took and that we took in government supported the people of Ukraine and the bravery of President Zelenskyy and ultimately resulted in saving the lives of men, women and children to this very day.

You spoke very passionately about the rise and the unacceptable incidents of antisemitism that we see in our country today. It is endemic and it is shameful. You had the courage to stand up, consistent with your long-held values, to call that out, to be a friend of Israel and to provide support to people, who, on 7 October, had suffered the most horrific attack since the Holocaust, when six million people were gassed. You stand as a world leader, as a result of all of that combined, that we can be very proud of.

I want to say thank you, on a personal level. We did have an exchange in 2018, as I recall, but when we came out of the meeting that day you were gracious enough to extend the hand of friendship to me, and I pledged to you on that day that I would serve you loyally. Together, since that day, I think we've been able to bring our party together in a way that wasn't possible for the period after 2007. I'm very grateful that that friendship continues today and long into the future. I wish you every success that you deserve into the future. I wish Jenny and the girls every success. The two beautiful young adults we see today, Abbey and Lily, were little girls, and we watched them grow up. They might watch the footage now and think, 'Why did I wear that? Why did I say that? Why was my hair cut like that?' as my kids often do. You have so much to be proud of.

In this place, as the Prime Minister rightly points out, family is often forgotten. There will be a lot of cynicism in some of the reporting of Scott's speech, with its references to his faith and to his God. In this age of inclusion those people, who would normally parrot the fact that we need to be more inclusive and that our society needs to be more tolerant, will be the people who scribe tomorrow in a cynical way the words that Scott—in a very heartfelt way—conveyed to us today. There's a significant amount of irony in that. It's not going to change. That's the reality of the world in which we live.

For Abbey and Lily, they know that they've been born into an amazing family, and Jenny is central to all of that. She's been graceful, she has been supportive, she's been generous and the country saw in her—at that time and since—somebody with a very big heart and somebody who loved her husband very dearly. So I want to say to the Morrison family, thank you for sacrifice and thank you very much for the contribution that you have given to our country. To Mrs Marion Morrison today and, in his absence, to John, thank you very much for the values you've instilled even to the current generation. The legacy that you have presided over is significant in itself.

My closing words are to Abbey and Lily. Thank you very much for facilitating that daggy dad moment, as well, where your father went through, at your wish, to detail the Taylor Swift songs. He got away with it and it shows the influence that you have on his life, which is a very special thing.

We wish him every success and good fortune and good health into the future. He has served our country with great distinction and we honour him today as a leader of our party and as a leader of our great country.

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