George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I want to add a few remarks of my own of good wishes to Senator Arbib. It is a sad occasion when a very talented man, at the young age of only 40, brings down the curtain on a political career which has already been a very substantial career both in organisational affairs and as a senator and minister—and, had he chosen to stay, would no doubt one day have been a member of a Labor cabinet in the, I would hope, very distant future.

Senator Arbib came to this place less than four years ago with a ferocious—even demonic—reputation. When one encounters for the first time someone whose reputation precedes him like that, one feels almost cheated to discover that he actually turned out to be a very nice fellow. One wishes one's political opponents were as wicked as their reputation suggests—but I hasten to add that I am sure that was a reputation conferred upon you by some in the Labor Party, Senator Arbib—but, in my dealings with Senator Mark Arbib, I have always found him an extremely agreeable and pleasant person.

We have not had a lot to do with one another, although we are the two people in the Senate who share the joy of having held the best job in Australia. I did get to know him a little better when, earlier this year, we travelled to Israel. As is the nature of parliamentary visits overseas, the party barricades come down and one gets to talking, and we found ourselves in enthusiastic agreement about many things. We found ourselves in enthusiastic agreement about Israel. We found ourselves in enthusiastic agreement about the US alliance—although I suspect Senator Arbib was rather closer to the Americans than I was. But, in particular, we found ourselves in more than enthusiastic agreement about the Australian Greens.

When Senator Arbib made his astonishing announcement on Monday afternoon that he was going to resign shortly from the Senate and from the ministry, I could barely believe it. I could in particular barely believe that a minister for sport would choose to resign less than four months from the Olympic Games. Senator Arbib, you have made a very great sacrifice indeed for your family, which we all respect.

Inevitably, because of the disobliging names which some in the Labor Party have conferred upon him, Senator Arbib became almost emblematic of the 'faceless man'. But it had this benefit for you Senator Arbib: some political cartoonists took to drawing you without face. Indeed, at least the implication was that the person depicted in the political cartoon was you. But that had the benefit that, unlike the rest of us, the political cartoonists did not have the opportunity, through the self-denying ordinance, to dwell on the less than classical features which all of us in politics share.

Your role in the famous events of 23 and 24 June 2010 has become the stuff of legend and will no doubt be written about for as long as Australian political history is written about. The internal affairs of the Australian Labor Party are none of my business, but of you I am sure it can be said that you have always acted by your best lights and in the best interests, as you saw them, of the Australian Labor Party. When you were involved in those events I was reminded of a remark by Winston Churchill about leadership. It is a reasonably well-known remark but let me remind you of it. He said of a leader:

If he trips he must be sustained. If he make mistakes, they must be covered. If he sleeps, he must not be wantonly disturbed. If he is no good, he must be pole-axed.

That is the judgment that you came to about the former Prime Minister. I have no doubt that you did so because in good faith you had reached that sorry conclusion and that you acted as you did in what you saw—and those who collaborated with you acted as they did in what they saw—to be in the best interests of the Australian Labor Party.

Let me conclude on this note, Senator Arbib: you have been a fierce partisan, and I admire that. I am always deeply suspicious of those who, in a weasel-like way, implore us to be bipartisan, because what that is code for is that we pretend that legitimate differences do not exist. Our democratic process depends upon there being the free and robust expression of contending points of view. And when I see in a political opponent a fierce and committed partisan I admire that because our system depends upon people being partisans for the causes in which they believe. As a person who has served your cause, your party, in the effective and sincere way you have, you have contributed to that process in an important way, and for that I will always admire you. I have enjoyed our brief association and I wish you all the best for the future.