Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to give thanks for the life of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Praise has poured in from all corners of the Commonwealth and beyond its horizons, too, all repeating words of love and respect for Her Majesty. I'll add the words of the Toowoomba region to that refrain. Like many other towns, we had our first visit in 1954, with Her Majesty's convoy only just slowing down to wave at the people of Oakey on its way to an official welcome in Toowoomba.

In the days since Her Majesty's passing, I've met with so many locals, most of whom won't mind the description 'well seasoned', who still remember that day with some fondness and excitement. At the Goombungee QCWA hall Mr Lyle Voll told the story of lining up with his schoolmates, all fighting to get to the front of the crowd and then arguing afterwards over who the young Queen had actually been waving at. I had been at the hall to replace the portrait of the Queen, something that hadn't been done, judging by her youthful appearance in the picture, since at least the 1980s. There would be very few monarchs or leaders who have had their portraits replaced so often. I can assure the House the ladies of the QCWA were very happy to receive that new portrait.

As the Leader of the Opposition said this morning, Her Majesty was very much a country lady at heart and nowhere more than in a CWA hall, which she genuinely loved and respected. In both the blink of an eye and the long, hard grind of a 70-year reign, Her Majesty went from someone handwaving in a passing car to somebody we all felt an extraordinary attachment to. It wasn't just the length of her reign or the relentless workload she undertook but rather the manner in which she performed her role that let her into our hearts.

My generation saw her deal with the more universal issues that we recognise in our own lives, those of family breakdown and personal loss. I pause to remember the contribution of her late husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, in supporting Her Majesty. But those of Mr Voll's generation I think saw her greater work, that of her early years, the slow welding together of the then still new Commonwealth. It was and is a beautiful concept, a union not of Crown possessions but of nations that share the desire to treat each other with the grace, dignity, compassion and respect with which Her Majesty treated all she met. It is an idea that dwarfs that of empire, making something even better from the last strains of its long coda.

At yesterday's memorial service at St Luke's in Toowoomba we saw a great reminder of how just how full a chord that idea of Commonwealth struck. Amongst the packed crowd, representatives of many Commonwealth nations came forward and laid wreaths from their home countries. It was not only a great display of Her Majesty's success in building the Commonwealth but also a demonstration of the Toowoomba region's wholehearted embrace of it. How could the Queen have imagined during her first visit to Toowoomba that at the end of her reign that small country town would be a city filled with people from all corners of the Earth, Her Majesty's vast vision of Commonwealth played out so beautifully in regional Australia.

In praising the Queen's extraordinary vigour, leadership and vision, I wish also to speak to her more ordinary traits. She may well have been the greatest leader of her time. Even in the company of Churchill, Roosevelt and Mandela those words ring true. But it is on her connection to us, the everyman and everywoman, that she is most dearly remembered. It would not take too much imagination to see her cheering on her ponies as they came up the long hill and towards the final straight at Clifford Park or to see her letting her corgis off the leash at Queens Park golf course on a cold and foggy Toowoomba morning, maybe holding a hot coffee, or to see her navigating some of the muddy dirt roads after a storm out past Bogie in her old Land Rover Defender. My only personal connection to Her Majesty is a shared ownership of the same vehicle. Her Majesty's experience as a mechanic during World War II would have been well needed, I suspect, on more than a few hunting trips around Balmoral as they have a tendency to break down on occasion, leading to the wonderful line, 'It's not broken; it's British.' There is some analogy there to the triumph of will and determination over our physical bounds that I think speaks well to the British spirit.

We have grieved as a nation, as individuals and as a Commonwealth. We've all shared in a loss that we perhaps each understand in a different way. However, for me, I now feel a sense of hope that has followed my time of mourning because the traits Her Majesty has been so celebrated for are not just valued by those of her generation or mine; her traits of dignity, respect, service, grace and humility are very much valued by our younger generations, too. At Coronation Park, I stopped with the member for Toowoomba South, Mr David Janetzki, to lay a wreath in the hours after her passing and caught the attention of a few young gentleman from Harristown State High School. When I explained to them that the park had been named after Her Majesty's ascension to the throne, they all agreed with something of youthful enthusiasm that she was a good queen, a great leader and an even better person. Rest in peace, Your Majesty.

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