Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Alby John Schultz would be horrified because it appears as though the last say on the condolence motion is going to go to a National Party member wearing a National Party tie—country Party tie indeed!. But I think Alby would also see the humour in it because he was a man of humour. There was a funny thing at his funeral, if you can call it funny. There was this wonderful slide show of Alby. It covered his life. There were some tremendous pictures of Alby doing what he did best—that is, being the local member for Hume. They were wonderful pictures, fantastic images, of Alby with schoolchildren, of Alby with his beloved family and of Alby fiercely representing his electorate of Hume and the state seat of Burrinjuck, which he held from 1988 to 1998, and also as a councillor with the Cootamundra Shire Council.

Right at the very end of the loop, which played over and over again, was a picture, believe it or not, of the wind turbines at the wind farm in his electorate. During the service I leant over my wife, Catherine, who was sitting beside me, to Craig Kelly and we mused over this image which kept appearing over and over again. I said, 'That's the funny side of Alby.' The member for Hughes, Craig Kelly, said, 'Yes, but if you actually look closely at that image I think down in the corner is Alby taking to that wind turbine with an angle grinder,' because Alby could not stand wind turbines.

He was fiercely proud of his electorate. At the risk of saying that the Prime Minister was wrong, because that is career limiting, I will take him up on a point which he made in his speech on this condolence motion, which started things off on 12 August. He said that Alby's successor had to have two prerequisites. The Prime Minister said, first, he or she had to be a potential cabinet minister and, second, he or she could not be a member of the National Party under any circumstances. In the Hansard it says: 'Honourable members interjecting'. I was one of those honourable members interjecting on my Prime Minister, because I think the Prime Minister actually got it wrong. I think the two prerequisites should have been the other way round. The first prerequisite was surely the fact that Alby's successor could not be a member of the National Party. That was certainly No. 1. Perhaps No. 2 was the fact that, as the Prime Minister said in his wonderful eulogy on 21 July, his successor needed to be able to go a long way in public life. I am sure that Angus Taylor will certainly do just that. Alby was justifiably proud of Angus and justifiably pleased with the fact that Angus was not a National Party member.

One of my favourite stories is when Angus had been preselected. There was a comment made by one of my colleagues—indeed, it was Senator Fiona Nash—about certain things. I was unaware of these comments, which were quite well publicised at the time. We had our usual Thursday morning tea in, as it was, the opposition lobby room—just out there. I walked in and Alby fronted me. You could tell he was hostile. You could tell he was angry. He came up and all but shirt-fronted me. He was going on about 'my colleague who said this; my colleague who said that'. I had no idea what he was talking about. I hadn't actually read the article. I hadn't heard the comments. I said: 'Well, Alby, if it is a colleague of mine then surely it has got to be a colleague of yours.' 'It's no colleague of mine!' he thundered. 'It's no colleague. It's a National Party member.' I said: 'As I will say again, Alby, in case you've forgotten: we are in a coalition. The Liberals and the National Party are in a coalition.' Alby again stormed at me, 'It's not a colleague of mine,' and with that he took a step towards me. I thought, 'Well, I can either end up copping it from Alby for the rest of my parliamentary career and I can back off, or I can also take a step forward.' So, me being me, I took a step forward and I ended up nose to nose with Alby Schultz. It was like that famous State of Origin Rugby League picture. For a moment, I actually thought it was going to be like a State of Origin Queensland versus New South Wales match during the early settling down period where blows are traded. Here I am nose to nose with Alby. In the back of my mind I am thinking, 'This is not such a good place to be.' It was John Cobb, the member for Calare, who came and sort of separated us. I could actually see out to the back of the lobby where Labor members were also assembling and doing what they always did in their tactics meeting, and they were looking in. They could hear us going toe to toe, arguing.

Later on that morning Alby apologised, because word had got back to then opposition leader Tony Abbott that there had been words exchanged at the morning tea and that perhaps it was not such a good thing for the coalition spirit that this had taken place. Alby rang to apologise, but he said it in such a way that you knew he was doing it through gritted teeth. I said: 'Alby, you and I have been mates for years. We're both passionate people. In the heat of the moment, we both said things that perhaps could have been better left unsaid. But, look, we're in a robust debate. We're both adults. You don't need to apologise to me, Alby. It's all good.'

That was May 2012. Fast forward to December 2012. It was the last parliamentary sitting week. I had put in a motion of disallowance on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. This was not well received within the Liberal Party. Indeed, it was probably not well received within the National Party. It was going against not so much the policy; rather, it was being viewed that we needed to have made Labor and its failings the focus of the week and not the fact that we were divided over the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which had been a coalition policy since 2007, when it was put forward by then water minister Malcolm Turnbull.

I had moved my Murray-Darling Basin motion, and it came down to the vote. It was the very last thing that we were doing in the parliamentary sitting year. You need five speakers to get the whips to count the vote—and here we were. We had the member for Melbourne sitting right up the back there. He had a completely different, opposite, view to mine. He wanted more water for the environment; I wanted less. We had the member for Kennedy, Bob Katter, sitting down with us. At the time, he was not at all enamoured with me. I had my good mate the member for Murray, Dr Sharman Stone, who had seconded my motion. And there was Alby, sitting right beside us. Everyone else—Labor, Liberal and one or two Nats—were over on the other side. The motion was lost. It was 95 to five, or whatever the vote might have been. It was of that proportion, anyway. And so parliament retired for the year. I caught up with Alby just up here. I said, 'Look, Alby, please give my love to Gloria'—because I have always had a soft spot for Gloria—and we shook hands. I said, 'Alby, I have to ask you: why did you side with me? I can't understand it, given we're sort of argy-bargy on most things and, at the end of the day, I am a Nat and you are a Lib and you don't like my party.' He said, 'You know, I can't stand the Nats. That's a long-held view, but there is something about you I like. You've got a bit of spirit. You've got a bit spunk about you. Keep it up.' I think that was Alby's way of saying: I accept you.

I have to say that, in February 2012, when Warren Truss was sent out for the first time in his long and distinguished parliamentary career by then Speaker Peter Slipper, I led a Nats walk out—so disgusted were we that Warren had been thrown out for what we felt were unjustifiable reasons. Later on that year—in fact, it was 20 August—Tony Abbott was thrown out by then Speaker Anna Burke. He was the first opposition leader to be thrown out in 26 years. Alby got up and was going to do his own walkout—and no-one followed him! It was just Alby on his own! He came up to me after that and said, 'Well, I'll give you credit. At least you Nats stuck by your leader. I can't understand why they didn't all walk out with me!'

Alby was a great bloke. He made his very fine valedictory speech on 25 June 2013. He was sitting just over there opposite. I well recall the long line of members from both sides going up to shake his hand or kiss him, as is traditional with a retiring member. I waited patiently in the queue. He shook hands in a perfunctory way with most of the Liberals who went up to shake his hand. When I went up, not only did he shake my hand; he gave me a hug. I do not get very easily moved or very moist-eyed too often, but I did on that occasion. He gave me a hug, and I thought, 'Wow! There's Alby Schultz—National Party hater!' That really was his way of saying how much he respected the fact that I was as passionate as he was. Even when we came to blows, he respected me as a rival but also as a person.

My association with Alby goes back a long way. I am certainly not criticising any of my National Party colleagues, but their relationship with Alby probably did not extend in the way that mine did. When Alby first became a councillor for Cootamundra, I was a journalist at The Daily Advertiser in Wagga Wagga. I came to know him then. I was the editor when he was the state member for Burrinjuck. I was still the editor when he became the federal member for Hume. We, as a newspaper, supported his—and perhaps, even more so, Gloria's—campaign to get more breast cancer services for the Riverina region, the central west region of New South Wales and those areas that he fiercely represented, because they were needed and because it was a good idea—and that remains so. The work that Gloria did in that regard was second to none.

Up until the time I nominated for National Party candidacy, Alby and I were really close. After I put my hand up to replace the retiring Kay Hull, that was when Alby started! I well remember how he went to the Wagga Wagga media and rubbished me over a policy position I had taken when I was campaigning to win the seat of Riverina. Alby was the first one there when the Liberal candidate, Andrew Negline, had his launch and other events to get his name out there. Alby was very supportive of the Liberal candidate. To Alby's credit, when I arrived here, he shook my hand warmly, but perhaps that was where the friendship stopped until he sided with me on the Murray-Darling Basin motion and hugged me when he made his valedictory speech.

I was very saddened when Alby passed away. He was a very good man. I liked, in particular, the eulogies that were delivered on that day by the Prime Minister, the member for Mackellar, his successor Angus Taylor, the current member for Hume, and his good mate Josh Frydenberg, the Assistant Treasurer, who sat beside Alby in the 43rd Parliament. I picked up Josh from the Wagga Wagga airport to take him to the funeral at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Cootamundra, and Josh and I put the finishing touches to Josh's eulogy for Alby. I was very pleased that, even as a Nat, I had a little bit of a say in one way, shape or form in that measure of respect too.

Alby earned respect. He did everything he could, as other speakers in this condolence motion have pointed out, to help lone fathers, drought stricken farmers and those who did not have a voice for whatever reason. Whether you voted Labor or Liberal—I am not quite sure about those who voted National Party!—it did not matter what your political affiliation was; if you were a person who lived in the seat of Hume, Alby Schultz would staunchly and steadfastly stick up for you in this place. As the member for Leichhardt has just said, we sometimes are a little bit too bland these days in politics. Alby was a colourful character and 'bland' was a word which you would never, ever associate with him!

I pay my respects to Gloria, his widow, and to his sons, Dean and Grant, their wives, Alby's beloved grandchildren and all who knew him, whether they be Liberal, Labor or, indeed, National Party people. We will miss Alby's contributions in this place. We will miss Alby's support of all the things he so proudly believed in. We will perhaps not see his like again, but I know that he will be sorely and sadly missed. He is missed now. Vale Alby John Schultz! You were a fine man and I greatly appreciated our friendship.

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