David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

) ( ): I rise to pay tribute to Alex Gallacher. I first met Alex in my first term in parliament, as a young fresh-faced, first-term member, having come out of medicine. I wouldn't go as far as saying I was getting my feet on the ground or being oriented, but committees were a whole new experience for me. Alex and I sat together on the joint standing committee for oversight of the NDIS. Having come into this building from a totally different field, I was preconditioned to think that, between people on that side and people on this side, it was always full of argy-bargy. But, as we all know, that is not the case. We fight the good fight and the principles, but often, after the debates are over, you've got someone who you get on with, and that was Alex Gallacher.

He gave wise counsel to a first-termer, and, as other people have said, he called it how it was. He was a straight shooter. He was the old-school Labor that I knew as a kid; some in my family are from that family, and my father himself was a DLP advocate. But, like many people, the Labor Party moved in one direction and other people went their way. But we're not talking about that; we're talking about Alex. He was a great guy to play a game of golf with. Many times I would have a bad shot, and I tend to internalise my stuff-ups, but with Alex you knew exactly where you stood in golf, as you did in a political argument. The member for Burt mentioned Glenn Sterle. Playing with them, you could see they were mates. They were sort of the yin and yang of a greater thought bubble. They sort of knew by mental telepathy what was going on. And I am sure Glenn is grieving as much as Alex's family.

Alex had an amazing career. Because of my medical background, when I saw how much he'd deteriorated from the lung cancer, I thought, 'Oh, gee, this is not good.' But, look, he bore up, amazingly. He was going to be in this place. He was losing his voice, and he still turned up. I was really honoured to have him be a co-chair with me. He faced the wrath of maybe the factions or the wrath of some of the people who were supporters of his party, who've had distorted and out-of-context views about the capability of nuclear technology to help us in the transition to a sustainable industrial base and a better climate outcome, but he was quite proud and loud about putting his hand up to be a co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Nuclear Industries. I would like to thank him and other members of the Labor Party who have joined this bipartisan group, and we've had some great discussions about modern technology, Australia's involvement in nuclear, and Alex was at the forefront of that. So I really tip my lid to him, because, in the Labor Party, it's sometimes a bit stricter. The National Party—we can go off on our personal ideas about policy without risk or fear of being sent to Siberia.

I would also like to say thank you to other people who, like me, who have stood here and tipped their lid or said a salute to Alex, because he really was a charming fellow. I am sure his family and children, his wife and grandchildren are grieving, because he was a very likeable bloke. I can see his background in the TWU, grounding him in a serious base of reality. I was really impressed that he worked for TAA for a long period of his life—all these things that I'm learning about Alex after his passing. I knew he was a unionist; I knew he was TWA. But I was in the TAA Juniors Flyer Club, and TAA was a great airline. Unfortunately it's no longer here. I thought, 'Oh well, I can see why he worked for them,' because they were seen as the good guys against Ansett and were a big part of my life when I was a youngster.

So many people have things to say, but I would like to express my public and deepest condolences to everyone who was a friend of Alex, his family, his children and his grandchildren. And everyone else is, I'm sure, equally as sad as I am that he's passed.

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