Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to pay my respects to Bob as well. I came to parliament in 1996, when Bob Halverson was set to become Speaker. So my first recollection was a phone call from him. With the big loss by the Keating government, there were in that class of '96 a whole heap of new Liberal members. There were therefore a lot of members that the candidates for the role of Speaker did not know. But Bob had done his homework and he recognised that I too was a graduate of the Officer Cadet School, Portsea. When he picked up the phone to me, therefore, he knew that he would be speaking to someone who would have a similar train of thought, if you like. The motto of OCS Portsea is 'Loyalty and Service' and I immediately knew what the make of the man, having graduated in that class of 1957, would be.

The member for Mackellar reflected on the fact that Bob was the top graduate in his class. But it is also interesting to note that it was the smallest class of OCS Portsea ever to graduate. There were 30 cadets selected to attend and only 15 graduated. That is quite a high attrition rate and it says something about what it took—particularly in the fifties and sixties and the lead-up to the Vietnam War—to graduate. The motto of 'Loyalty and Service' served him well and he observed it throughout his life. The member for Berowra mentioned that in his very first speech Bob talked about love of country and his concern about some of our country's values. Bob always put that proposition about values.

I have a couple of interesting little anecdotes. When I was a first term member of parliament, it was in fact the Speaker who first led me astray. I missed my first ever division—the only one I missed in 11½ years—because I was at dinner with the Speaker, which was a heck of a good excuse. For the benefit of members here, I will pass on that it was interesting to discover that our pagers do work in Manuka—because my pager went off. I queried whether we could get back to parliament within the four minutes. Bob assured me that it was not something to panic about and that, on our return, all would be forgiven.

Unlike the members for Mackellar and Berowra, I do not have a history with any speakers before Bob. But the tension between Bob and the government of the day was clear. He had taken Prime Minister Howard at his word that he was after an independent Speaker—and I am quite sure that John was indeed after an independent Speaker, although perhaps not one quite as independent as Bob was aiming to be. There is always that tension. I think the current member for Casey, Tony Smith, is finding that balance better than any Speaker I have witnessed in the 20-odd years I have been here—and that is no disrespect to anyone else. He has found a fine way to maintain that balance. I am sure that when Bob spoke to him, as the Speaker related yesterday, at the time he was a candidate to become the Liberal Party nominee for Speaker, he would have felt some trepidation. Whilst it is a wonderful honour, it is a heck of a responsibility and that balancing act is a hard one. But Tony Smith has done it with aplomb.

I could sense Bob's pain and anguish in that two years as he tried to balance what he thought was right—right for parliament, right for the government and right for the nation. That conflict, I am sure, was something that did not sit well with him, hence his decision—as has been pointed out, his alone—to break from the parliament and leave the incredibly important and significant role of Speaker. Sue and I travelled to Ireland and were hosted in Dublin when he was the ambassador. He was as gracious as you would always imagine him to be. If all of our ambassadors and our diplomats could carry themselves with the dignity that Bob did, then it would bode well for all of us.

It is with great sadness that I note, reflect upon and pay respect to his life of service and loyalty to his country, to the defence forces and to this parliament—and to his family as well. It is clear that Maggie, his family and his grandchildren have lost a dear, dear person who loved them so very much, who led by example and who lived a life that all of us can only aspire to be so proud of. To his family: may he rest in peace—he will not be forgotten by those who knew him so well.

See this speech in context