Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

Take two: honouring the trust afforded as the first to have retaken the same seat lost to an independent—the second chance given, a third term granted, and voters stepping forth to buck history. I give thanks by living out the commitment given nearly a decade ago: that the people of Goldstein know their community is not an inheritance, or a seat to be warmed; it is a trust to be earned in your service. Since last standing two sword lengths away in this chamber, I've lived a political winter. There are times when only the words of Kipling fit:

… force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on'.

None of us wish to live a winter through sickness, family or relationship breakdown, financial loss or public humiliation, but, when these moments present themselves, our choice is only how we respond. To that end, in my first, first speech to the House, I uttered words that would stalk me:

We know people sometimes fall down. That is why we respect the speed at which they seek to pick themselves back up.

When my winter came, it was family, friends, community and professional support that cushioned, that humbled, nurtured and changed me. But we must also never forget that winter is followed by the hope of spring. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars. I am not the first, nor will I be the last, member to have run and won, lost, and then lived. He's mad. He's stark raving bonkers. But I'll let you in on a little secret: all the best people are—enough to return to this place. Perhaps I am the most appreciative.

Uniquely, I am going to thank the people of Goldstein for their decision three years ago, and it is for one simple reason: it was an opportunity for growth. Now, before we go further, I'm quite happy for it to be a oncer. But, as my husband said on the Sunday morning after, 'You need to look at this as a gift'. So, when announcing I was re-contesting, I started by saying that, 'Defeat was a gift, and thanks to the community.' I meant it and, today, I confirm it and thank the former member, Zoe Daniel, for her service too.

I recently said that I'm in the truth bomb phase of my career. For years, our movement has been sold a pup—that voters can be neatly sliced into electoral majority by design. After the marriage law postal survey, the miracle victory and the Voice referendum, we were told electoral riches lay in new heartlands and we should abandon tradition. If you still believe this story, as the only Liberal MP for a city seat, and one of two in inner metro Australia, I have some magic beans I can sell you. I used to joke that Goldstein was a Liberal political island, except for about a kilometre of shared border with the electorate of Higgins. I now love that one kilometre. I now have to drive 50 kilometres to reach another Liberal electorate. It's simple: you can't multiply your vote by dividing Australians. It betrays Menzian liberalism because liberalism has no geography.

Liberalism is the spark of aspiration that compels a young farmhand to milk cows before sunrise so they can save to own their own dairy farm one day. It's the fuel of a young tradie, caffeinated to clock on at seven so they can surf by four. It's the sobriety of a new Australian nurse, late after sunset, so they can own a one-bedder and not face renting in retirement. It's the ambition of two young mates hawking a slice of their start-up to venture capital, in the hope that one day it will list. It's the risk of a CEO reinvesting to navigate competition because they understand change is the only certainty. It's the drive of a mum working in legal, while working from home on Fridays, so they can have independence and career. And it's the energy of her husband and his small business that sponsors the local netball team because his success is tied to a thriving community. It's the teachers like my husband, Ryan, who are inspiring a new generation to open their eyes to a better Australia and future every day. It is the story of millions, in Goldstein and elsewhere, who wake up each morning choosing to take responsibility so that tomorrow will be better for themselves and for others too. They don't want us to solve their problems, but they are counting on us to defend their agency. And, at the last election, we let them down because we were not the bold and courageous Liberals that gave Australians confidence to dare for a better future.

Having lived my winter, it is clear my party is now facing its own. In grief, it is easy to seek out simple solutions when reflection is necessary. Three years ago, I read Doris Kearns Goodwin's Leadership in Turbulent Times, and, yes, a young Teddy Roosevelt's wilderness years held lessons for building the foundations for future success. It started a journey that allowed me to be honest enough that, whatever the driver of our local defeat, there were still things that I needed to learn. It started with listening and it concluded with building.

There were the usual noisy voices on broadcast platforms about what to stand for, but the true genius of Menzies was that he understood and started by standing for the forgotten people, and, from there, what he stood for followed. I found the real kernels were in the quiet conversations in pubs, in Pilates classes, in church halls and on the sidelines of Saturday sports, and this was embodied in every part of our local campaign.

What I am most proud of is that our Goldstein team did this together, because, with me as the community backed Liberal, we built a movement of 3½ thousand people that went from local cafes to our oversubscribed, 800-strong campaign launch to energise a community and defy political gravity—and many are in the gallery today. The victory in Goldstein is theirs. The azure-blue T-shirted volunteers armed with hearty smiles and passion carried me here. They have shown that the path back is not one our parliamentary team can take alone. It relies on rebuilding our movement in Goldstein, Wentworth, Mackellar, Menzies, Aston, Lyons, Dickson, Brisbane, Boothby, Curtin and right across the electorates of this country.

The parliamentary party's job is to lead, and our people will follow if we fight for them when we give them something to fight for and when we are worthy of them fighting for us because we spirit them to a higher purpose of common destiny. To thrive once again, we need to see this moment as our gift, because it will mean we have reconnected and given Australians Liberal hope again.

I did not grow up with a silver spoon, nor under a weatherboard and iron. I grew up in a household of publicans and small-business people. For my father, it was pulling beers, pushing a lawnmower, building fences and bagging the post. For my mother, it was also pulling beers, and cooking at a fryer and greeting at supermarkets. They lived different lives, but the one lesson they shared was work, and this was the simple faith my siblings and I gained—that, if you worked hard, respected your neighbour, played by the rules and loved this country, you'd be rewarded with dignity, opportunity and the chance to live a better life.

The Australian promise was a social contract that there was no entitlement but a fair go. It didn't mean choppy waters didn't come, but it meant that hope and aspiration should guide your decision-making and that the circumstances of your birth should not define the boundaries of your life. It was embodied in the ideals that Menzies described of his modern Liberal movement—that it was 'not the conservative party dying on the last barricade' but 'a lively mind and a forward-looking heart'. It believed in free people, their responsibility and their enterprise, and in respecting tradition and institutions that empower people, families and communities and small business to decide their own futures. That is an agent for progress because human advancement depends on rising living standards and stewards a clean environment to hand to future generations. And this was the promise of Goldstein. As the fourth generation of my family that has lived and worked within the community—it has always lived these values and been a forward-looking modern liberal community that has understood its responsibility to each other.

Goldstein does not want Canberra to run it. But it does not expect Canberra to undermine it either, such as stripping out a hundred million dollars from local infrastructure projects, as occurred over the past three years. It also does not want to live the failure of Canberra's leadership. From the threats of local crime, the rise of antisemitism, financial stress for families and small business, and limited access to affordable housing, Goldstein expects leadership. It believes in our country and wills its success. This is why I continue to want to represent Goldstein and give its values voice in this parliament, because when Goldstein's values influence Australia, we are a better nation.

It is these values that are increasingly under threat. There is an undercurrent in our democracy where too many voters no longer trust the system is working for them. I hear this from Australians at all stages of life. I hear young adults questioning the value of their tertiary education and whether they'll ever be able to get ahead of their debt; whether young workers can afford rent, let alone save a deposit, and then pay off a mortgage and then have a family; whether they have the confidence to chance their hand to start a business or the space in their lives to invest in their community; and whether they stare down their retirement years with confidence. It is the threat of the slow erosion of trust in our institutions, our leadership and even in each other.

I don't wear my faith on my sleeve, but the Good Book's insight that a house divided against itself cannot stand is truer today than ever. I utterly reject the politics that infect too many from the extremities of all sides of the political and the corporate funded Independents, who all share a different vision anchored in the same idea: that we must stand for some but not for all.

Our party's founder called these attempts to pit Australians against each other 'the false wars'. We are all Australians, and nothing is more corrosive to the Australian promise than people no longer believing sacrifice and effort will get them ahead. It is why the unapologetic pursuit of the next chapter of our nation's economic growth remains paramount. Because too many of those we need to create it are moving offshore and the only voices we hear feed resentment over how to carve up shares of a diminishing pie.

It is particularly important for us. If we are to be the party of aspiration, we must always be on the side of the aspiring, which is always the next generation and new Australians, not entrenched interests. These are Goldstein's values and I know these are the values of our party's leader, and I thank her and appreciate her support today.

Power is like the breath that sustains the nation's lungs. When at threat, the central organs breathe in power from the people to protect the whole. For 30 years, Australia has enjoyed a long exhale. But the internationalist era, with the confidence that nations would peacefully trade for the future advancement of humanity, has sunsetted. History has struck back.

We are experiencing the culmination of relaxed and comfortable leadership, and, as Liberals, we must have the courage to tell uncomfortable truths today about what we know is on the horizon. If not, Australians will have no reason to trust us on how to confront them as they are revealed. We are at an inflection point in our nation's history that demands controlled breathing to confront the future with confidence.

The nation is but the sum of its people, and we must always be mindful to nourish the soil of our society, from which future generations draw their strength. Nourishment does not come from fostering the division of identity but investing in our common bonds, knitting the social fabric of family and community, finding our cultural confidence and promoting excellence in education once more. It comes from agreement on a shared common story for our nation, because we cannot expect new Australians to integrate into a story that we cannot tell, and from a belief in Australia and its progress because we can tell a story of Australia that recognises, respects and has reconciled and takes the best of our past to define our future. We can defend our national unity and stridently stand against the poisons of racism, whatever its extremist origins, and particularly the gateway of socialised antisemitism. We must again be the democratic defenders of our values and equal dignity of free people, and we must grasp Menzies' great vision of homes material, homes human and homes spiritual that places home ownership at the centre of public policy. Because when we do, the nucleus of social, economic and political power rebalances from the corridors of this place in Canberra and those of the corporates back to the kitchen tables of this nation. While no-one has a right to the size of a home or a specific suburb, we cannot strengthen families when involuntary distance divides generations and their mutual support.

We must stand for fiscal prudence because borrowing from the future fuels inflation today, taxes tomorrow and indebts those who follow. When residents living with Down syndrome are raising concerns about the NDIS's fiscal trajectory just after 7 am at McKinnon railway station, it says the anxiety is not just economic. We must live limited government because it is a simple truth that big government makes us small citizens, and no society has ever been better because people have been encouraged to take less responsibility. We must be trusted and reliable partners and defenders of our alliances because a world without strong friends is a world where we risk standing defenceless and alone. And we must be advocates for the re-industrialisation of Australia and its farms in the future and an energy mix based on physics and economics because the foundation of our economy is dug and grown. Right now, the source of our next chapter of growth seems utterly foreign, and we're unprepared for the end of the frothy prices of our mineral resources and the realities of artificial intelligence that could displace employment—let alone the flexibilities of a work force that will increasingly be a mix of salaries, side hustles and shared equity. Indeed, our biggest challenge is not capital but an abundance of complacency in a time that demands urgency.

We are now at a pivotal moment for our party, our values and our nation. For our party, coalition and movement, we are now at our lowest ebb since the Albury rebuild eight decades ago. For our values, the vote harvesters are hoping we let the social democratic conformity march unchallenged so the only story sold is the false promise to hand over power for security. And for our nation, it is a choice about the type of people we want to be and whether we carry our inheritance of freedom, prosperity, hope and opportunity forward for a new generation or sit idly by and watch its decline.

On every flank, we are outnumbered. The armies of vested interests have never been stronger, better resourced and ready to finish us off. Organised labour is seeking to suck the remaining initiative out of private enterprise. Organised capital is leveraging their power to bend corporate bureaucrats to their will. Foreign globalists are propping up front groups and corporate candidates who want to de-industrialise Australia for their profit. We are at a Menzian moment, and the gift of defeat is the opportunity of Liberal revival.

We are all that is left to stand up for the public and national interest. If we do not, no-one will. The gravitational pull could not be stronger, the call to Liberal courage could not be heavier and the stakes could not be greater. If Australians do not share our Liberal call to action, it is not their failing; it is ours. We must find that spark and spirit it, nurture it and feed it into a flame. As Harvey Milk once said, 'The only thing they have to look forward to is hope,' because liberalism does not live in the words we say but in the aspirations Australians live. Liberalism lives when Australians sets their sights one angle higher and with a range one step farther to the horizon. The Australian Liberal project is built from a spiritual belief in our shared success and calls for people to not just vote for us today but vote for us tomorrow, because hope is inevitably tempered by the weight of history. Take it from me that history is there to be made. To quote one of my heroes, 'It can be done.' It can be done because it has been done, because it must be done.

At our local campaign launch I said Goldstein was ground zero for the fight for our future. Goldstein found its voice, and the people of Goldstein sent me here to lead, to build, to mobilise and to storm. Our choice now is clear. Will we be the Liberals that honour generations past by handing on a better future than our own? Will we be the Liberals that inspire Australians to turn to each other and see a shared destiny? Will we be the Liberals that strengthen our nation to be sovereign, confident and secure? Will we be the Liberals that build a clean industrial future so prosperity is on our horizon. Will we be the Liberals that side with the young and new Australians who live our daily aspiration? Will we be the Liberals that turn on the lights in a nation for all of us that delivers hope, reward and opportunity to be bold again, to build again, to believe again and to lead again?

As I said to the people of Goldstein, I'm not quite done yet. There are a fair number of people I need to thank. First, I need to thank my campaign team, led by my campaign directors, Ed Davis and Rob Sayer. I still remember the first campaign meeting where we held and mapped out the scale of the plan and what was required. There was a nervousness about the scale of the task, but you both stepped up with Stav Personis, Conan Daley, David Morris, Jase Garbosa, James Loveluck, Roy Rose, Milly Edwards, James O'Collins and Andrew Galway, as well as our regional champions Richard Codran, Judith Eronovitch, Rob Etelling, Jennifer O'Brien, John Gilbert, Deb Gilbert and Peaches the pug, supported by Ben Tialen, Jake Lowry and Billy Allsopp.

To the Goldstein electorate team, including Carson Mumford, Olivia Brooks, Shane Small, Lisa Bond, Hanife Bushby and Gab Street: thank you. But there is no-one I should thank more than my electorate chair, Maree Kidd, who not only willed me to recontest but put her money where her mouth is and stepped up to take on the task of chairing the membership and mobilisation effort.

There are too many volunteers to name, and, without taking anything away from anyone, I particularly want to thank Michael Savva and Robin Savva, Janet Aberdy, Karen Cohen, Helen Rolfe, Linda Mellon, Peter Hirusidanis, Otan Otesha, Janice Cook, Judith Pratt, Fraser Hearst, Tony Armstrong, Galen Sullivan, Maddy Hamilton, Ken Marshall, Suzanne Rumble and Jim Colombo. Thank you to those who helped in their unique ways, from Peter Cantwell and Katia Gidley to Ray Johansen, George Goring, Jacqueline Pascal, Danny Rubrie and Faye Barrow. Thank you to Professor Chris Berg and Professor Sinclair Davidson for their support, as well as to Will Dempsey and Paul Ritchie, who ensured I never put a word wrong.

On such occasions the memory of absent friends is also not far. Nine years ago Jeannette Rawlinson and John Rudden couldn't have foretold the events to come, but their support was important because they supported me regardless of the test yet to be revealed. Thank you also to Mike and Anne for their love. I hope I've made you proud.

To the friends who stuck by me in difficult times, to Blake Kimpthorn and Michael MacNamara; Claire Tobin and Hugh Tobin; Phil Starkins, Emma Duffy and Ryan Lewis; Adrian Barrett and Pat Miller; Jane Starkins and Shaun Levin; Cathy Baker, Susan Craw, Jared Parks, Marty Barr and Jimmy Roche; Henry Gawatillit and John Gawatillit; and Pete Thorn, Kevin Foster, their son Will and their son and my godson, Patrick: thank you for your enduring friendship and love—and, most importantly, thank you for taking care of Ryan.

To the member for Moncrieff: thank you for your friendship in the out years and, particularly, for storing all my stuff in this place. To Senator Andrew Bragg: Braggy, during my interregnum, whenever I got the itch and abstention to probe public servants or to call out recalcitrant super funds or the corruption of corporate housing, you were there to channel my spirit, so thank you.

To Senators James Paterson and Jane Hume: thank you both for being supporters during the down days. While I suspect you both had your private doubts—and that's fine, by the way—you never let it show. To the members for Monash and Berowra: you don't know this, but when I spoke to both of you, to congratulate both of you on your pre-selections seven years apart, you had the kindness to respond with exactly the same set of words, 'I hope to share this journey with you.' And you're sitting right in front of each other. I didn't lose in 2022 just so you could both have this experience. However, I am glad to fulfil your wishes. Specifically to you, Mary—this is such a huge day for you: we have come a long way from level 2 of S block at Monash Caulfield together. I know your family is proud of your achievements, and Ryan and I, as your political family, are cheering you on. I've got a warning for everybody else: get ready; it's Mary time.

To the Leader of the Opposition, Sussan Ley: thank you for being a willing supporter. I still remember when you came to the Hampton bowls club shortly after the 2022 election. I remember your surprise that defeat wasn't in my eyes. I think some of the members opposite are starting to realise that, no matter what they do, that's not going to change. I am sanguine about our moment, but I am excited about your promise.

To my dear friends Trevor Evans and Jason Falinski—I know Jason has eventually found his way to the right spot in the gallery today: we all remember the Monday week after the last election when we sat in my former office amongst boxed memories. We toasted with what could have been our last shared G&T. Since then, we have shared a different journey. There were days I was touched you trusted me to carry your grief in a rant down a phone line, a joke on WhatsApp or an education on woodpeckers; that's specific to Trev. Yes—woodpeckers. You'll never appreciate what it meant to me to be able to pick up the phone and talk through stories, strategy and sadness. Mostly it was Trev talking Jason off the ledge, but that's same old, same old. Thank you for your friendship.

My mother, Linda Morris, stood on Hampton early voting for two weeks straight, and I know she did it because so many people said to me in the community, 'I've met your mum.' And they still do, including Raf Epstein. David Morris capably aided the campaign team every step of the way and continues to do so. To my father, Robert, and to Janet Wilson, who both wished us well and helped in their way from afar: thank you.

But, of course, there is no-one I need to thank more than my husband, Ryan. Every time you walk into this chamber, you end up leading the news. Sorry about that. We were the change that needed to be at a time in times past. And that is the greatest gift that anybody could ever give. Now, I know you have been prepared, somewhat willingly, to give us over again to the community and to the nation, so all I can do is promise that I'll do everything I can to protect our summers on the peninsula, keep our Melbourne and Bayside pads clean and make time for roast pub lunches on Sundays. And, when there is something to celebrate, I'll do my level best to make sure that we do it together. In public life, you never feel as lonely as when you are in defeat. Yet, despite having lived it, in the 17 years we have been together I have never been alone. So thank you for your sacrifice once more, and for sacrificing our time for our country's future. But you also know that, for me to be myself, we need to go through this.

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