Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This must be an important speech because I have actually made a few written notes and somebody just said to me that I have actually combed my hair! Today I make my farewell speech to the Senate—a fond farewell after 17 years—a farewell with few regrets and no complaints. It has certainly been a privilege to have served in the parliament of this great nation. I am also extremely fortunate. I am leaving on my own terms with new challenges and opportunities ahead.

There are families today who are not so fortunate. There are families and friends grieving at the loss of their loved ones who recently died tragically in Afghanistan in the service of their country. We noted their passing today. They have paid the ultimate price and made the ultimate sacrifice for the democratic values and life that we enjoy and that we here in this parliament are sworn to uphold. I honour them for their courage and I extend my sincere condolences to their families.

When I made my first speech on 29 June 1994, I stated:

… it is our primary task in the parliament to ensure that people enjoy a free, peaceful, democratic society; that they live in a clean, safe environment; that they have access to adequate health care, education, employment opportunities, security in retirement and a decent standard of living. I am pleased to be part of a government and of a party that continues to pursue and deliver these objectives.

I said those words 17 years ago and I still believe them to be true. I came into this place when the Labor government was in power and Paul Keating was Prime Minister. I leave at the end of this month with Labor again in government and Julia Gillard as Prime Minister. The years in between have certainly never been dull, I have seen the highs and lows of political fortune. I was here for the last two years of the Keating government, from May 1994 until that devastating defeat in March 1996. I was here during the long years of opposition, from March 1996 until our return to government in November 2007, led by former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.

Each of these Labor governments can claim credit for substantial achievements. In my first speech I made mention of the Hawke and Keating governments' great advance in extending superannuation to the entire Australian workforce. I am pleased and proud to have been a part of that development during my days with the Australian Workers Union. This is a lasting achievement as the level of accumulated funds today approaches $2 trillion, guaranteeing that all Australians and their families will in the future have a decent retirement income. It has grown from $200 billion when I entered the Senate in 1994. I also note that the most successful funds, particularly those who have succeeded during the recent financial crisis, have been the industry based funds, those funds developed by the union movement and industry over 20 years ago. I urge the government to work towards increasing the current superannuation guarantee from nine per cent to the target figure of 15 per cent.

Another achievement of the Hawke and then Keating government was the establishment of APEC and the increasing engagement with Asia. Those governments drove it and today we enjoy the continuing economic benefits of that relationship particularly with the major economies of China, India and Korea.

Almost 12 years of my time in this place was spent in opposition. At times, quite often, they were dispiriting days when we spent many hours in this chamber endeavouring to hold the government to account. The Senate in those days, I believe, performed exceptionally well and I think the opposition particularly held the government to account. I recall not long after I arrived meeting the great Fred Daly as he escorted visitors on a tour of Parliament House. Fred would stop when he saw me and say to the people that he was showing around the building, 'Ladies and gentlemen, meet an example of life after death—meet a senator.' I have been friends with the Daly family for many years and I know that Fred said that in jest—or maybe—because, as we all know, Fred had a long career in the other place. With the events of 1975, he certainly took a dim view of the Senate, a view that is often reflected in the other place. But we were a constructive opposition here in the Senate. We were effective, we were united and we held the Howard government to account. We fought for the principles that we believed in. We supported legislation that we believed was appropriate and we opposed that which we believed was not.

I want to pay particular tribute here today to the leadership, firstly, of John Faulkner and then Chris Evans during those long years in opposition. My major disappointment in all that time in opposition is that Kim Beazley never achieved the election victory I believe he deserved. Kim was an excellent parliamentarian, minister and Deputy Prime Minister. He was a wonderful person with a great passion for Australia. I firmly believe he would have made a great Prime Minister. He almost achieved that in 1998 against huge odds, achieving a majority of the votes but, unfortunately, not a majority of the seats. And in 2001 he was thwarted by, firstly, the Tampa crisis and the misleading campaign which surrounded that incident, and, subsequently, by the impact of the terrorist attacks on New York on September 11.

The hardest decision I ever made in the parliament was in 2006 when I supported a change in the leadership of the Australian Labor Party from Kim Beazley to Kevin Rudd. It was the right decision for the party at the time, but it is a decision I made with great sadness because Kim was a good friend. I hope he has forgiven me. He is doing us proud as Ambassador to the United States.

In the years to come the Rudd gov­ern­ment's achievements will be remembered—in particular, the economic stimulus package, the establishment of the G20, the apology to the stolen generations and the expansion of the East Asia Summit. These are some of the great achievements and I believe there will be more recognised in time to come. I thank Kevin Rudd for leading us out of the political wilderness—and I spent 12 years in this building in it. I think Kevin Rudd's leadership in the 2007 campaign, along with Julia Gillard, was exceptional.

Australia is the only advanced country that avoided a recession during the global financial crisis. Indeed, we were so successful that many people now doubt that the situation was as serious as first thought. Well, it was. You only have to look at the problems that confront the United States and countries in Europe such as Ireland, Greece and Portugal to see just how serious the crisis was, and still is, for much of the Western world.

A major component of the economic stimulus package of the Rudd government was the Building the Education Revolution program. It has been attacked constantly by the media shock jocks and indeed the coalition. I have had the honour of visiting many schools both in Sydney and in regional and rural New South Wales to open BER facilities. Government schools, nongovern­ment schools, schools in the Catholic system, independent schools, small schools, large schools—in every case the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. Principals and parents groups say to me that they would have waited 20 or 30 years for these facilities. They may have even waited forever to receive the new classrooms, the assembly halls, the toilet blocks, the covered outdoor learning areas, the smart boards, the canteens and so on. Teachers, students and community representatives are absolutely delighted by the new facilities at their schools. They have nothing but praise for the BER. I do not deny that there have been problems. After all, has anyone ever built a house and not had some problem with the architect or the builder? Well, we have been building 24,000 projects against across 9,000 schools. The BER is a fantastic program that will have lasting benefits for our education system for generations to come. And what could be a more important objective than the education of our young Australians?

I should admit that I have one other regret in my time in the Senate, and that is that I did not make it onto the frontbench except as a shadow parliamentary secretary. Actually, I was selected for the opposition frontbench after the 1996 election—there were not many of us around so the competition was not so great. I was selected by my colleagues in the New South Wales Right, but then I agreed to give up my spot for someone else and in the interests of affirmative action. In hindsight it was not my smartest-ever decision. But I was rewarded—I became caucus returning officer! And I still am. By the time we came to office in 2007, the opportunity to serve on the frontbench had passed, and I had decided by that time that this was going to be my last term.

Not everyone can be a minister—some of us have to fill up the back seats here—but we all do important work. Over the past 17 years I have worked on many committees of the Senate and joint committees. In fact, there are not many committees that I have not been a member of at some stage. When I first arrived in the building—I was a casual replacement at the time—the whip at the time, Gerry Jones, asked me what I was interested in. I replied, 'Industrial relations, education, foreign affairs, health—any of those will do.' And he put me on Scrutiny of Bills! Don't get me wrong, the Scrutiny of Bills Committee is a very important committee, and I learnt much about the legislative process in the three years that I was a member of it. It was where I began a great friendship with the one and only Senator Barney Cooney, one of the true gentlemen of this chamber. Since then I have been privileged to be the chair of a number of Senate committees—the Senate foreign affairs committee, the Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee and the Senate select committee on the Lucas Heights reactor. I think I got that one because I live very close to it. I have lost count of the number of inquiries I have participated in—there are so many—but I mention in particular the inquiries into mental health, Medicare, consular services, the F111, dairy deregulation and the Regional Partnerships program as being some of the more important and most memorable. I am particularly proud of the fact that, following the report of the Select Committee on Mental Health, the Howard government and more recently the Gillard government substantially increased funding to mental health services. I know firsthand the impact that mental illness can have on people and their families and I urge this government and all future governments to continue to increase funding for those people most in need.

Since we returned to government in 2007 it has been my special privilege to have chaired the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and also to have been a member of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, both extremely important committees of the parliament. The Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade is the largest committee of the parliament and is the one that most members of parliament aspire to be a member of.

Australia has had a major role to play in international affairs, both in the Asia Pacific region and also more broadly. We can be proud of our role over many years, particularly since World War II when the Labor governments of Curtin and Chifley did so much to defend democracy and subsequently to promote peace, security and development. The world has changed substantially since I arrived in 1994. Some of it has been for the better, such as the economic development in Asia and the growing movement we now see towards democracy in north Africa. However much of it has been for the worse, particularly the increased threat of terrorism, increased poverty, the denial of human rights, the genocide that continues unfortunately in a number of states and is sponsored by those states, and the continuing failure to resolve longstanding disputes in the Middle East and Africa.

In this parliament we will not always agree on foreign policy—Iraq was a stark example of that—but we must all have a common objective to promote Australia's interests internationally. That is why I strongly support our campaign for membership of the United Nations Security Council. If we want to be in the game, if we want our voice to be heard internationally, if we want to promote reform of the United Nations rather than just criticise it or talk about it or complain about it, we should aim for the First 15: the UN Security Council. As I leave the parliament, the government faces major economic and environmental challenges. I wish everyone, on all sides, well in the debates and in the decisions they will make on these important issues in the coming months and years.

There are so many people to thank and so little time. Firstly, I thank my party for having given me the opportunity to serve in the Senate and I thank the people of New South Wales for re-electing me on two occasions, from the No. 3 spot. It is not always easy, but I had some smart people working out the preference arrangements.

The Senate staff are some of the most professional people I have ever met in my long career. I thank particularly clerks Harry Evans, Rosemary Laing and Cleaver Elliot. They were always instantly available to provide advice. I also thank Peter and Angie and the team in the Table Office. My office is located directly opposite the Table Office. I moved there 10 to 12 years ago and every time they offered me a new office I refused to go because the Table Office is one of the places in this building that we have come to rely on so much. I also thank Brett and the IT staff—like John Faulkner, I am hopeless at computers so I relied on them a lot as well. Thanks also to the attendants and security staff.

Thank you particularly to all the staff of the committees I have worked on and been a member of over the years. There are so many that I cannot mention them all, but I do particularly want to acknowledge a former secretary of a committee, Alistair Sands. I worked closely with Alistair Sands on the Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee for a long time and he was one of the best. I particularly mention Anne Lynch and Neil Bessel, two wonderful people, two great servants of the Senate, who sadly passed away far too early. To my mate, Ian, in the Senate Transport Office: thanks, mate, particularly for sending those cars late at night when I was busy working on my speeches. Hopefully, Ian, we will get a round of golf soon.

When I arrived in this building I was fortunate to have many friends who were already here and I have made many new ones along the way; I cannot mention them all. Many of them have been on the other side of the chamber. I do want to particularly single out Senator Alan Ferguson. He and I have worked together on many committees—foreign affairs, public works and public accounts—and we have travelled together on delegations. Neither of us will forget the night we spent in Budapest solving the problems of the world, fortified by a couple of bottles of Jim Beam. We were staying in the guesthouse supplied by the government. We found out later that it had been the security headquarters of the former communist government and the listening devices were probably still in the walls. Good luck, Alan, for the future. I have really enjoyed your company on many occasions.

Best wishes to Senator Judith Troeth and Senator Russell Trood, whom I worked with particularly closely on committees. I think it is a shame, Russell, that you are leaving so soon. You have a great contribution to make, particularly in your area of foreign affairs. Hopefully, you will get back here. Best wishes to Senator Nick Minchin, whom I did not have a lot to do with on committees because he was always on the front bench and then was Leader of the Government and then in opposition, but I did enjoy some time with him on a visit to Taiwan. And best wishes to Senator Julian McGauran, who always kept us busy and entertained in the chair, and to Senator Guy Barnett. Good luck to Senator Steve Fielding as well, the senator for Family First, who is now the senator for the first and only, I suppose.

On my own side, I am going to miss the 'Hoggarama' group: Senator John Hogg, Senator Jacinta Collins, Senator Mark Bishop, Senator Glenn Sterle, countless staffers and those who came and went down at La Capanna. I am going to miss the Hoggarama, but my wife suggested I should have probably missed the pasta instead!

I thank my New South Wales colleagues and friends here in the Senate, Ursula Stephens, Mark Arbib, John Faulkner and Doug Cameron. I also thank all my other Senate colleagues. I cannot name you all individually, because I am running out of time, but I thank you for your support and your friendship, and there will be other occasions when I can thank you all personally. I note that some of my colleagues from the House are here, and I thank you all for coming across. I will also get to thank you personally over the coming days.

I extend my best wishes to Steve Hutchins, Annette Hurley, Kerry O'Brien and Dana Wortley, from this side of the chamber, who are also leaving the Senate. Steve Hutchins and I go back a long way—back to the 1960s, when we attended De La Salle colleges in Caringbah and Cronulla and became members of the Cronulla branch of the Labor Party. De La Salle college at Cronulla is a small school, but it has the great achievement of having six ex-students all at the one time as members of state and federal parliaments—and all of them were Labor. We have shared a lot of history, Steve. We have had a few disagreements and a few Senate preselection battles, but we have never forgotten where we came from or why we joined the ALP.

I have had many hardworking electorate staff, beginning with Tony Burke, who is now a cabinet minister. I particularly thank Wendy Pymont, John Lee, Troy Bramston, John Degen, and my current staff Ken Long, Nicole Long, Lawrie Daly, Peter Scaysbrook and Ann Holland. They, like all of your staff, have helped literally hundreds and hundreds of constituents find their way through the maze of the bureaucracy when they come to us with problems They are often serious problems and they need the help of their local member or their local senator.

I was fortunate to grow up in a family where my mother and father believed in three things: faith, family and the Labor Party. There were many tough times, as in all working-class families of that day, but they never lost sight of those beliefs. My parents were here the day that I was sworn in and the day that I made my first speech. They were both life members of the Labor Party. They have since passed away, but I know that I would never have got here if not for their inspiration and their support. To my brothers, Paul, Jim and Danny, and my sister, Clare, who is here tonight, and their families I say thank you all for your support and encouragement and also for all of you joining the branch!

In 1971 I met Jan Fowler, her parents, Ron and Shirley, and their family. At the time I was in the process of trying to wrest control of the Sutherland Shire Young Labor Association from the Left. Jan's father, Ron, worked with my father at the Kurnell oil refinery. He and Shirley, and Jan, were active in the local ALP. Ron telephoned me one afternoon. He thought I might need a few extra votes, and he said that his daughter would be coming along to the meeting that night. That, as they say in the classics, was the start of a beautiful friendship. I should say that we got the numbers as well, as Steve Hutchins will recall! Shirley, my mother-in-law, is here tonight. Sadly, Ron has passed away. I thank you, Shirley, for your many years of support and for all those regular political discussions, as I will call them, that we conducted in the true Irish tradition.

Jan and I have been married for over 35 years. Jan has been my greatest supporter throughout my career both in the union and in the parliament. Many of you know Jan. What you may not know is that Jan gave up the opportunity on at least two occasions to have a career in the New South Wales and the federal parliament. She did that to support me and to look after the family while I was constantly travelling. Jan would have been an excellent MP. Her warmth, her personality and her ability to relate to people far outshines mine. She now serves our community as a councillor in the Sutherland Shire and has achieved the highest vote in each election that she has contested. Thanks, darling, for your love and your unyielding support. Thanks also to my children, Simon, Martin and Jeremy, and Simon's fiancee, Carolyn, who are all with us tonight. They have had to put up with the long absences over many years and the countless branch meetings in our lounge room. They are all members too. We meet at my house, usually with a bottle of red and some cheese on a Sunday afternoon.

My family and friends know that I am an obsessive fan of Bob Dylan, Mark Twain and the Sharks Rugby League team. My great mate Greg Holland, who is on the board of the Sharks, is here today, as is Tony Iffland, another son of the shire. I am going to continue to wait for the Sharks to win that elusive premiership. I hope the Blues win tomorrow night, because I think I owe Jan McLucas about a dozen bottles of red wine!