Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

First of all to Warren Truss and Lyn, who I stand in proxy for at this point in time, we will welcome you back early in the new year. We know that you have had a bit of a hard run but we know that you will be back bigger and stronger than ever. Warren is for us on this side, and I think for the parliament, Cato the Elder. He is a person of natural sagacity, he is a person of political experience, he is a person who has used his farming to temper his politics and he is a brilliant asset in this place. He is widely respected and an extremely decent person.

To my colleagues in the other place, Nigel and Fiona, we thank you very much for the work that you have done in that intemperate environment which I once resided in, and we look forward next year to you continuing that odyssey. We will watch with great interest, some amusement and sometimes fury what goes on. To Mark Coulton and to Barry O'Sullivan, the respective whips, I thank you very much for the work that you have done in making sure that we, as a party, are well represented and diligent and are part of the proper process of government.

I propose today to endorse and will try my very best not to repeat so many of the previous comments. I might start by saying that, as an in globo tribute, I thank all who bring the continual endorsements from the public about the professional and polite way that the staff of this building deliver their services. From the security guards to the gardener, from the drivers to the attendants, from those who work fixing the air conditioners to those who work mowing the lawns—everything about this building is a tribute to them because when people come here they say they cannot believe how polite and how professional those in this building are.

This has been the first full year in government for the coalition. The first full year for any government is a dogfight—a dogfight in a fog; a fog of noise and fury and fast moving shadows, where staff try to triangulate targets and departments desperately warn of imminent collateral damage. However, this has been a year of delivery—we have started the dams program, we have delivered on drought, we have turned around the live cattle trade and we have finalised three free trade agreements that have made a vast difference to the prospects of soft commodities in this nation and their capacity to help us bring in the money to balance the books. Most importantly, we have started on that hard task of turning around the finances of our nation, basically getting the locomotive back on the railroad. If we do not deliver on that part, if we do not manage to make sure that the finances of this nation are on an even keel, then the legacy will be left to our children and it will be a debt for them to repay. No person of honour would ever intend to do that.

Christmas is a birth celebration, not a birthday. Without living in some way the deeper meaning of it, it does not achieve anything much away from shopping. Kindness counts more than presents. For some, it is merely a matter of photos and memories, and not hugs and laughter. For many, it is the loneliest time of the year. To those, the Christmas task falls on us to lighten their load and brighten their day. For most across this great nation of ours, people will be making plans—plans to pick up a case of beer and go home, to gather around the weatherboard and iron out west, or to collect the towels and the swimmers and head to the beach, or if they are lucky enough they can find a boat and get out on the harbour. For others, it is the brick and tile of the suburbs. People will celebrate in the luckiest country on earth.

Last night, I met a long-term friend from a long time ago, an ex-shearer. I happened to be walking back from having dinner and he was walking along in thongs and a T-shirt and he picked me out of the crowd. We sat down and had a couple of beers and he asked me, 'What goes on in this spaceship?' I felt like saying that people arrive with dreams and visions, which are beaten and tempered by the anvil of parliamentary reality, but I did not think that was the answer he was looking for. But it is true, some of those dreams and visions fail and some are cast out for scrap, but the rest is what is a large section of our lives. For many in regional areas, though, we have to make sure that this spaceship turns back into a parliament. We have to make sure that they understand the duties and complexities of what goes on here. At Christmas, National Party and other members use this break to cover vast distances to explain the decisions deliberated over here.

As I said at the start, I accept and reiterate all the endorsements that have been given by the Prime Minister of Australia and the Leader of the Opposition, but one needs to be repeated and that is the endorsement of our families—our wives, husbands and partners who patiently deal with the peculiar hand of political fate, who bring up the kids, who manage the house and the finances, who grimace at the state of question time and who have to live by our decisions and defend them, not actually having been part of them. Our children, too, who have grown up with an absentee parent who is never at sports, who is rarely at special days, who comes home grumpy and who leaves early, are the people who pay the greatest wage for our service here in this place.

We started the year with a drought. In some parts of our nation, we are finishing the year with a drought. We hope that this drought comes to a conclusion. But the office that will deal with that is not in this building. The office that deals with that is the same office we celebrate at Christmas time. I hope that the good Lord gives us rain and I hope that those who are going home travel safely. I thank all those who have put their shoulders to the wheel for our parliament. We look forward to a new year. We look forward with excitement to the prospect of the great honour of serving our nation again. All the best and God bless.

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