Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

In thinking about what I might say tonight I reflected on the fact that I had, I guess, the rare privilege of spending the whole 11½ years of our government in the ministerial wing. I have spent only 3½ years of my 15 here actually living on the Senate side. But the very high price you pay for that, as I think new Labor ministers will discover, is that you really do not have the opportunity to get to know senators from the other parties nearly as well as your backbench colleagues do. It is a problem in this building that ministers are off in that Versailles over in the corner and do not relate. As Labor ministers will soon discover, being in the ministerial wing can make you feel terribly important, but you do find that you are denied the opportunity, by not being able to participate in committees and go on delegations, to develop the friendships across the chamber that your backbench colleagues can. I suffered that, and regrettably the price I have paid is that I have not been able to get to know the likes of George Campbell, Linda Kirk and Ruth Webber as well as some of my coalition colleagues have. I appreciate the fact that Linda and George reflected on the friendships they have formed across the chamber. It is one of the things that particularly distinguishes the Senate from the House of Representatives, and I think we as senators know that it is a great privilege to be here.

I would like, on behalf of the coalition, to make a few observations. I do note at the outset, as others have, that we are dealing tonight with three Labor retirees who are doing so involuntarily. You could say that about three of our six but in the case of Labor it is all three, and therefore I genuinely extend on the coalition’s behalf our commiserations to all three. To have your Senate terms cut short by your party is pretty tough, and it is pretty tough to be denied the opportunity to retire of your own volition, which is something I guess that all of us aspire to but not everybody achieves. Certainly, George Campbell, Linda Kirk and Ruth Webber are well known and well liked by everybody on our side of the parliament and will genuinely be missed.

In the case of George, we all really liked having Senator Campbell in here. We had to keep saying ‘Senator George Campbell’ so as not to confuse him with our good friend Ian, who also departed involuntarily you would have to say. His presence was a constant reminder of the wonderful clashes that he used to have with former Prime Minister Paul Keating. What we would regularly do as ministers in question time here would be to quote Paul back at George. What was it—‘100,000 workers round his mantel’? It was wonderful stuff. George was—and I remember it because I am old enough to—one of the most high-profile trade union leaders we have ever seen in this country through the seventies and eighties, with his fierce and fearsome leadership of his union. He was regarded, quite unfairly and inappropriately, on our side of politics as ‘a Pommy union bastard’. Of course, he is not actually a Pommy; he is a good Irishman. My antecedents were from Ireland too, George. I always defended you on that basis, mate.

It really is very hard for many of us on this side to think that the Labor Party has seen fit to replace George with none other than the much more infamous Doug Cameron, an even more outrageous old union firebrand. I thought he would have retired by now, but he is apparently coming into this Senate, which is going to make this a very interesting place. I had many a run-in with Doug when I had three years as industry minister in the late nineties, so I am looking forward to resuming hostilities with said Senator elect Cameron. We do note that George has mellowed considerably in this wonderful institution that is the Senate. He is now, I think, a pretty considered and balanced sort of chap.