Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

Just take a look around! He understood the importance of this chamber and its role in our democracy, particularly ensuring that there wasn't a rubber stamp for the executive, a place where legislation was scrutinised, contested, amended and, at times, defeated. That is all of our job. Graham knew the power structures, the evolving nature of the Senate, the delicate balance between government and crossbench that defines this place. Even when his own prime minister was dismissing the Senate as 'unrepresentative swill', Richardson defended its—our—purpose. He understood, perhaps better than most, that this chamber's authority is a shared endeavour.

Please be in no doubt that, had Senator Richardson and I been contemporaries, we would have been fierce and passionate adversaries in this chamber. As a daughter of a timber worker, I would have fought him every step of the way on his portrayal of forestry communities. Indeed, Graham Richardson's most controversial and enduring political legacy was to deal with the Greens in Tasmania in 1989. This was the agreement that brought the Greens formally into the fold, to secure support for the minority Labor government in Hobart, a decision that reshaped Australian politics well beyond Tasmania's borders. Inside the Labor Party, it was bitterly contested. Then the finance minister Peter Walsh warned that Labor would become hostage to sectional interests rather than governing in the national interest. Whether history proves Walsh or Richardson right is a matter I'll leave for others on this day—although, I obviously have my own view.

In reflecting on his ministerial legacy, it's impossible to ignore Graham Richardson's decisive role in the aftermath of the Helsham inquiry into Tasmania's forests. The inquiry's majority report had recommended keeping much of the contested southern forests open to forestry, an outcome that placed the Hawke government in an awkward political position which guaranteed continued opposition from environmental activists. Richardson, the then serving environment minister, believed the findings of the inquiry were inadequate both scientifically and politically, and he refused to accept what he viewed as an untenable compromise, telling Hawke, in characteristic Richo style, that the answer is, 'No, you'—insert expletive.

In one of the most assertive interventions of his career, Richardson persuaded cabinet—and overruled his own prime minister—to adopt the minority report instead, expanding World Heritage protections far beyond what the inquiry had recommended. The decision was, for many Tasmanians, a deep betrayal of the regional communities, and a precursor to the forestry politics that have evolved and often escalated ever since. What we now know today is that Richardson's win was the activists success in their onward quest of moving the goalposts. But it also showed Richardson's unmistakable style, a tough-minded minister prepared to use ministerial discretion and an instinctive understanding of seizing the key moments of politics when they arrive.

That Tasmanian settlement had profound consequences for rural and regional Australia. His engagement with forestry debates, particularly the fights over old-growth forest, wilderness protection and also the Daintree and Kakadu decisions, placed him squarely in the centre of the environmental conflicts of the era. I now think of how the nation finds itself in the midst of yet another environmental battle, one in which the government is trying to save the environment by destroying it.

Graham Richardson was many things: partisan warrior, factional head kicker, bon vivant and later an insightful media commentator on a variety of channels. But he was also a parliamentarian who believed in the contest of ideas, in the importance of debate and in the value of a robust Senate and a robust cabinet. He believed, too, that politics was a human enterprise run by flawed humans, of whom even Richo himself would concede he had flaws—and, yes, he had a few. Yet his encouragement of younger senators, even those from the other side, his disarming ability to charm and destroy in one fell swoop reminds one of the often forgotten verse from Peter in the Bible, that charity covers a multitude of sins.

On behalf of the National Party, on behalf of those who respected him across the aisle and on behalf of my own personal relationship, I extend all of our condolences to his family, his colleagues and his many friends.

Question agreed to, honourable senators joining in a moment of silence.