John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

He speaks Chinese, does he? That is very good—touche! The event was quite remarkable and a great tribute to the capacity of Australia to organise those events. I look forward to the day when Australia will host a soccer world cup. I continue to use the expression ‘soccer’ because we Australians know it by that name. Calling it football is thoroughly confusing, certainly for most of us.

Turning to this place, it has been a year when sadly we have lost some giants of the Australian political scene: Don Chipp, the founder of the Australian Democrats; two members who were perhaps not so well known except to some of the Liberals who have served in this place for a long period of time—namely, Sir Allen Fairhall, who was the last of the Liberal forty-niners, and Sir Reginald Swartz. who was also a Liberal forty-niner. I think, when he served here, he held the distinction of being the most senior in rank amongst those members from both sides of the House who had been prisoners of war of the Japanese in Thailand and had worked on the infamous Burma-Thailand railway. More recently we mourned the death of Sir Harold Young of South Australia, the former President of the Senate.

It has also been, in this place, a year of significant change for the Australian Labor Party. In a spirit of proper respect to the nature of parliamentary politics, let me again welcome the Leader of the Opposition to the dispatch box for these valedictories and wish him and his wife, Therese, and their three children a very happy and peaceful Christmas. All of us continue to feel very much for Kim Beazley and his wife, Susie. The loss of Kim’s brother was a terrible blow on the day of the leadership change. All of us also think of Kim’s parents, Kim and Betty. To them, we send our good wishes at this time of particular travail.

On my side, I pay a very particular tribute to two people. I want to thank Mark Vaile, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Leader of the National Party. I think we all recognise that, in a coalition government, inevitably there are some strains and differences. That is natural and there is no point in denying it. But this coalition has been remarkably free of those. I have served in a couple of coalition governments and I can say that the equanimity, the calm, the peace and the sense of tranquillity of this coalition has been quite remarkable. That has been due in no small measure to the contribution of three wonderful National Party leaders: Tim Fischer, John Anderson and the current Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the National Party, Mark Vaile. I wish Mark and Wendy every good health and happiness and a good rest over Christmas.

I pay tribute to Peter and Tanya Costello. Peter, of course, is the other great mainstay at the very top of the government and he has carried a great load in the last 10½ years. He has been the best Treasurer this country has ever had and he has made a remarkable contribution of economic stewardship. I thank Nick Minchin and Helen Coonan, the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, and Kerry Bartlett. I think everybody would say, no matter what their politics, that the Chief Government Whip’s nature is gentle and he is a person who looks after everybody. He is very solicitous towards his colleagues and he represents their concerns, periodic though they may be, to the leadership of the government. And his good friend the member for Corangamite, my good friend and longstanding colleague, and Joanna Gash, the member for Gilmore, and my colleague whips in the National Party, formerly the member for Mallee and then the member for Riverina, formerly Riverina Darling—I thank all of them.

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