Scott Ryan (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to order, I call Senator Antic to make his first speech. I ask honourable senators to extend the usual courtesies to him on this occasion.

Alex Antic (SA, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I'd like to start by letting you in on a little secret. This is strictly between you and me. Although I may very understandably give the impression of being cool, calm and collected standing here before you today, I can assure you that that's not the case. Standing in front of a group of family, friends, many of the coalition government's leadership group and one's political opponents, your words being indelibly transcribed into Hansard, is a fairly daunting process. But let me tell you: I've carried a similar burden once before. In 1982, at the age of seven, I stood before a crowd of a hundred or so family and friends during Burnside Primary School's talent night and performed what could only be described as a rousing rendition of the song 'Rockin' Robin', and I nailed it. With the benefit of that experience behind me, I feel that I am ready to go.

With that said, it would be remiss of me to start without first extending my congratulations to those senators elected in May this year, particularly those elected from my home state of South Australia. To serve in this place is a genuinely humbling experience and a tremendous honour. It is my hope that, even though I may not always agree with those of you across the chamber, our efforts will always be constructive and will always be made in the interests of a stronger Australia.

I stand before you today as the 608th senator elected to this place and the 106th from South Australia. But, as I understand it, I'm the first Australian senator of Serbian descent. I was born in Adelaide in 1974, the second child of Dr Ratomir Antic and Vicki Anderson. My mother was the only child of Sylvia Anderson, who we knew as Tup—a widow who raised my mother on her own following the death of my paternal grandfather in 1951. In addition to experiencing the trauma of losing her husband, Tup was left in a perilous financial position following his death. She was not the beneficiary of a life insurance payment or a significant bank balance, but, like so many of her generation, she drew upon the uniquely Australian postwar can-do mindset to enter the workforce, make sacrifices and raise my mother on her own terms. Her generation lived through hardship and war. They had stared down genuine annihilation a decade earlier and knew how to react to life's challenges with a stoic resolve. Today I'm the humble beneficiary of her fighting spirit, and for those homegrown heroics I'm tremendously grateful.

The homegrown heroics of my paternal grandmother have also been critical in the role they played in shaping me as a person and now as a politician. Grandma Seka, as we knew her, came to this country from the former Yugoslavia in 1957 with her husband, her sons and very little else. It's a tale of postwar immigration familiar to many Australian families. Theirs was a family of small-business people on a postwar collision course with the rise of communism in the Balkans. My grandmother's distrust of the communist regime, which had already stripped her family of its modest assets, led her to lecture my father about the importance of private ownership, entrepreneurship and basic freedoms. Inconveniently, my father was prone to repeating her views to his government-appointed schoolteachers, and before long that indiscreet young man had given away his mother's political leanings and raised the ire of party officials in the process. The Antic family's tenure under the red star of Yugoslavian communism was coming to a sharp end.

My father is a man who always tells it like it is. He is a man of immeasurable integrity. He is a man who served his community in his role as Director of Thoracic Medicine at the Royal Adelaide Hospital for more than 40 years with dignity and respect. He is a man who taught me the importance of treating those around you with the same dignity and respect. My mother is a woman who has put her own interests, her own pursuits and her own life behind those of her family. She is a woman who captures a crowd of people with her intellect and wit and who never shies away from a self-deprecating joke. The person who stands here before you today is as much a product of that backstory as of the love shown to me by my family throughout the course of my life. These experiences highlight that which drew me to the Liberal Party, a party which serves to uphold the principles of freedom of speech and freedom of religion; a party which is the friend of small enterprise and which is opposed to authoritarian regimes and tyranny.

I'm fortunate enough to have both my mother and my father in the gallery today, but it is with deep regret my older brother and only sibling, Professor Nick Antic, couldn't be here with us today, after losing a three-year battle with a brain tumour in November 2016. During my formative years at Burnside Primary and Pembroke schools in Adelaide, living in Nick's extraordinary academic shadow elicited in me as much pride as it did trepidation. In his adult years, Nick graduated from medical school, obtained his postgraduate specialist qualifications and developed a formidable reputation as an emerging world leader in sleep medicine, the very field in which our father had blazed a path of his own. He never lost his sense of humour, but ultimately he lost his battle with cancer, and I am extremely sad that he couldn't be here with us today. But he leaves behind my sister-in-law, Corinne; my niece, Holly; and my nephews, Lachlan and Charles Antic. And my niece, Holly, is also here in the gallery today. I'm as proud of them as their dad was and would have been if he could have been here today. In addition to a beautiful family, his legacy proves that much can be achieved in a short amount of time through leadership, collaboration and respect. That statement adorns his memorial in Centennial Park Cemetery and it lives with me every day.

It lives with me because my own path through life has been arguably less expeditious than his. In the 1990s, I studied a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in history and politics, and a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Adelaide. I enjoyed the opportunity to think and challenge the ideas around me, but I realised that my time in the university system was drawing to a close after a visit to my grandmother's house in the year 2000. While sitting in her living room, weighing up how I was to best use those university years and while passively smoking a portion of her eighth cigarette, which was incidentally lit from the tail end of her seventh cigarette, she looked at me, paused and said in a matter-of-fact manner, 'You know, even if you haven't still decided what you want to do with your life, I'm not worried about you.' The clear inference to be drawn from that statement was that other family members were less confident but that she was generous enough to buck the trend to so conclude it was time to hit the work force!

That Freudian slip, however, did highlight in me something about my personality which I knew to be a virtue rather than a vice, being that I preferred a considered approach to life—a conservative approach to life. In many respects, this moment was something of an epiphany regarding my political views. It might be best summed up by the great urban poet Ice Cube, who said, 'Life ain't a track meet; it's a marathon', which is really a modern incarnation of an old Serbian phrase: 'Triput meri, jednom seci', or, in English, 'Three times measure; one time cut'. A conservative approach must always inform our decision making and take precedence over the utopian propositions injected into the policy cycle by those who seek to impose rather than to improve. And it's regrettable that too many politicians seek to treat that which purports to be progressive as universally meritorious regardless of the consequences.

Too often our history and institutions are unnecessarily devalued. In life, actions should only be taken following a proper assessment of the ramifications, not simply to play to a crowd. This is not to say we should endorse stagnation but rather that we should practice consideration when making decisions which affect Australians. We must always embrace stability and structure and recognise that only cautious change honours our institutions and that only cautious change allows us to both preserve and improve.

In my time in this place I hope to play a part in preserving and improving that which makes South Australia great, which is why, despite having been fortunate enough to have had an opportunity to travel the world, I, to paraphrase the late Peter Allen, still call South Australia home. There may be no simpler way to light the fuse of debate in this place than to claim one's own state as the premier state in the federation. However, in this instance, I'm hopeful those in the chamber will forgive my parochialism.

My home state of South Australia was based on free settlement rather than on convict labour, a fact anyone who visits South Australia will be reminded of by a local several seconds after stepping off their flight! But nonetheless it's a fact of which South Australians are rightfully proud. Our great state, from the electorate of Grey in the state's north to the lush green surrounds of the electorate of Barker in the state's south-east, has natural resources and beauty which are the envy of the world. I have spent much time in regional South Australia, and my fondness for the country runs deeper than my admiration of its stunning scenery and fresh air alone. It goes to the heart of what it means to be Australian.

The commonsense, pragmatism and respectful interaction that one receives from regional Australians is something from which our city folk could learn a great deal. People from the regions have an unwavering grasp of the things which really matter. The basic tenets of family, faith, freedom and the flag are all alive and well in the country. In many respects there are elements of the regions which remind me of some of the best parts of the Australia of my childhood—an Australia in which we retained our sense of humour; an Australia unaffected by the tyranny of political correctness, a phenomenon favoured by those who have become so duplicitous that they seek to construct matters of concern as a method of attracting attention to serve their own political hubris; an Australia without corporations seeking to impart a confected political ethos upon their customers; an Australia in which sporting codes did not prioritise social justice causes over the core business of playing the sports which breathe life into the pay packets of their executives while, in the process, riding roughshod over the interests of grassroots supporters; an Australia without revisionist vandals who seek to rewrite history by defacing public monuments, such as statues of Captain Cook and Queen Victoria and, most appallingly, our Anzac memorials. Happily, that Australia, the commonsense Australia, is alive and well in the overwhelming majority of Australians. But we cannot allow it to be further hijacked by the destructive forces of fabricated outrage, lest it shall wither and die. We have much to celebrate and much to protect and much to preserve.

With the benefit of Liberal state and federal governments, I'm certain my state, South Australia, is on track to join Tasmania as the federation's next 'turnaround state'. If it isn't already, South Australia is on its way to becoming the defence industry capital of the country, and, with the defence and space sectors taking the place of manufacturing, South Australia can look to a bright future. But, in order to ensure our economic recovery continues, it is critical that South Australia retains all of those projects. To relocate them would come at a significant financial cost for this country. It would result in the loss of jobs in my home state and, importantly, it would erode the skill base and knowledge capabilities which ensure the country's defence sector remains world class. In addition to retaining those industries in which South Australia already excels, we need to encourage new industries and new investment, and, in one sense, everything old could be new again.

In 1906, South Australia's first uranium mine was opened in Radium Hill and, along with sites such as Olympic Dam, the world's fourth-largest uranium producer, South Australia has a sizeable share of this country's uranium reserves. Australia is now the third-largest uranium producer in the world, after Kazakhstan and Canada. The reckless rush into the unproven, uncosted world of renewable energy in my home state represents both the deceased canary down a renewable energy coalmine—to coin a phrase—and a masterclass of failed policy from a failed former Labor government. The curiosity of exporting uranium to the world—and, in so doing, supplying our neighbours with cheap and proven to be virtually emission free energy—while at home we are restricted from accessing the same benefits must be addressed.

In May 2016, the South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission determined that there was enough evidence of safety and technological improvements that, consequently, South Australia could safely increase its participation in nuclear activities, and that nuclear power should not be discounted. I welcome the news that the Morrison government has commissioned an inquiry to investigate the viability of nuclear power generation. New technology in the form of generation IV and small modular reactors will increase the safety and reduce the cost of nuclear power generation. Comparing the old tech generators to the future of nuclear power is like comparing a Motorola DynaTAC mobile phone from 1983 to a brand new iPhone 11.

The commission also determined that South Australia has the necessary attributes to develop a safe, world-class waste disposal facility, which could generate up to $100 billion of income in excess of expenditure over the 120-year life of the said facility alone. The French, who, by the way, have power prices approximately 17 per cent below the EU average, seem to have struck a balance, and I doubt that there are many in this chamber who would register concerns about knocking back a bottle of French champagne for fear of developing radiation sickness. At the very least, there is enough evidence before us to now have a proper debate, one which uses an evidence based approach devoid of emotion, devoid of obvious hyperbole and devoid of political pointscoring.

I come to this place determined to play a part in ensuring that the legacy of brain drain, industry closures and economic malaise imposed upon my state draws to a close. I would not be standing here today, however, without the love and support of my family. My family is the foundation upon which everything around me rests. Families allow us to learn from our mistakes, to grow and to balance our needs against the needs of those around us. To have been raised in a loving family has been critical to my life. The lessons taught regarding respect for authority and cooperation with those around us are lessons which we must continue to teach our children. I thank the membership of the Liberal Party of South Australia, its state councillors and the people of South Australia for the honour they've bestowed upon me, and I ask for their trust to use my judgement and work ethic to serve their interests.

I thank my parents for their tireless support and love, two people who have consistently put their own interests third and fourth behind those of my late brother and my own. I thank my late brother, Nick, for the love and support he showed me and the standard of excellence which he demonstrated to us all in his 45 years. His children, my niece and nephews, have so many of his admirable characteristics, including his sense of humour, his wit, his compassion and, most notably, his love of sport. It's a privilege to see them grow into outstanding young people.

I'd especially like to thank my fiancee, Edwina Storer, without whose love, support and friendship I wouldn't be standing here today. Edwina is also in the gallery today, I note. Her intelligence and her emotional maturity have been a critical plank in my journey to this place. She is a person who has been there through thick and thin and who provides reassurance, laughter, companionship and a sounding board for life's tricky issues. It takes a special kind of selflessness to indulge a partner's pursuit of his or her passion, and the manner in which she has invested herself in this role is nothing short of spectacular.

Thank you also to Edwina's parents, Nick and Trish Storer, for welcoming my family and me so warmly and graciously. And I thank Tony Pasin, the member for Barker, for his years of friendship and guidance. He is one of the most loyal, hardworking, trustworthy and honest people I know, and I thank him for that which he has done for me leading up to this day. I also thank Nicolle Flint, the member for Boothby, and my state parliamentary colleagues who have travelled here today from South Australia: Sam Duluk MP, the member for Waite; Steve Murray MP, the member for Davenport; and Fraser Ellis MP, the member for Narungga. I don't think I've missed anyone! I also thank state Liberal vice presidents Dr Nicola Centofanti and Morry Bailes, who are here today, as well as the partnership of Tindall Gask Bentley Lawyers for their support and those friends who have travelled here today as well.

Thank you also to the South Australian Young Liberal Movement for their tireless support. I note the presence today of former South Australian Young Liberal presidents Alexander Hyde, Sam Duluk MP and Jocelyn Sutcliffe and current Young Liberals President, James Porter. Thank you to our unsuccessful lower house candidates, alongside whom I campaigned in the May election, namely Laura Curran, Jake Hall-Evans, Shaun Osborn, Kathleen Bourne, Georgina Downer and Hemant Dave. Your outstanding efforts greatly assisted the party in securing the sixth Senate position in South Australia.

In conclusion, during my time in this place I undertake to discharge my duties in good faith, to work hard and to dutifully serve the people of South Australia to the best of my ability. As a person whose sense of irony has been known to get him into trouble from time to time, I hope to show that a sense of humour can still be the comfortable bedfellow of a strong policy agenda. Thank you.

Scott Ryan (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call you, Senator Davey, I would like to acknowledge in the gallery your predecessor, former senator John Williams, who has joined us this evening. Welcome back.

Pursuant to order, I will now call Senator Davey to make her first speech. I ask honourable senators to extend the usual courtesies to her on this occasion. Senator Davey.

Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

After taking up this position on 1 July, and in this, my fifth week of parliamentary business, it is a pleasure to finally be able to say that this is my first speech. What a pleasure it is to stand here to speak as a senator for New South Wales and for the Nationals. I am proud to be a National and proud of who we are and what we represent—proud of our values of equality of opportunity, regardless of geography, gender, race or religion. The Nationals are first and foremost pragmatists, committed to delivering for our communities, united one and all in our shared belief that, when regional Australia is strong, so too is our nation.

It is all the more important for me to be standing here today when the New South Wales Nationals are on the verge of celebrating their 100th year and as we head into 2020, when the federal National Party celebrates its centenary, making ours the second oldest party in the parliament. This, despite many soothsayers predicting our demise as a party and declaring the end is nigh for the Nationals, particularly at the last election, when many took great pleasure in questioning the relevance of the Nationals and our capacity to adapt.

I contend that there has never been a time when our relevance has been so important. Now, at a time when, despite technology giving us instant connection, the physical connections and understanding between the city and the bush seem to be diminishing; now, when nearly 40 per cent of children think cotton grows on cows and yoghurt grows on trees and when people don't realise that resource industries are about future technologies, that is when you need the Nationals. The Nationals are relevant at a time when our regional industries—agriculture, irrigation, mining and resources—are increasingly under attack. The Nationals achievements over time, including establishing entities we currently take for granted, such as Austrade and the CSIRO, and all of our achievements into the future, such as constructing the inland rail and future water infrastructure, show that, as a party, we have stood the test of time and we do adapt.

Originally stereotyped as a party of pastoralists, we also became the first party to ever have a female federal president, in the dynamic Shirley McKerrow OAM. We also had the first female director, in Cecile Ferguson, who I welcome here today. And where once for the Nationals these benches were full of stock agents and farmers, we are now a party represented by teachers, social workers, economists, vets, butchers, country editors and myself, a former student of the first high school in Canberra to declare itself a nuclear-free zone, saying, 'Yes, we need to talk about nuclear power.'

My colleagues and I represent the wealth of opportunity and experience that the regions can offer, and that is our binding force. Our values are inherently tied to the regions, and our reason for being is to give those regions a voice. We are bound today by the same values that our party held a hundred years ago, but we have different faces and we proudly represent regions that now have new industries and new opportunities.

The Nationals have had many successes over the years. We have delivered billions of dollars to improve regional telecommunications, services, roads, drought aid, education and health services. Some call this funding pork-barrelling. I call it doing our job—doing what we are elected to do, and that is to stand up for regional Australia and make sure regional Australia has equitable access.

Some call it pandering to vested interests, and I say yes, we are, because a vested interest is defined as a personal reason for involvement, especially in expectation of a gain. So I say we all have vested interests, and I'm prepared to declare mine. I am a mother, and therefore I have a vested interest in making sure my children, and all of our children, have access to quality education regardless of where they live. I want them to have education pathways, be it through vocational training or tertiary education, and I want them to have the best opportunities at their fingertips so that they have career pathways and job prospects—in the regions, if they so wish, so they don't feel obliged to move to the cities.

I've been an employee and an employer, so I have a vested interest in ensuring that businesses have access to adequate telecommunications and can operate without excessive red tape, and I have a vested interest in making sure our tax regime is fair. As a future retiree, I have a vested interest in protecting our superannuation. As a driver, I've got a vested interest in making sure regional roads are safe. As the wife of an irrigator and as someone who worked in the irrigation industry—although never as an irrigator myself, because I kill any plant I look at!—I have a vested interest in making sure we get stability back in our water policy so that irrigators and other water users, including industries, towns and the environment, understand the parameters under which they're operating and we get the balance right.

As the wife of a farmer, I have a vested interest in making sure both corporate and private agriculture have a strong future so anyone who wants to work in the business, not just those lucky enough to inherit or lucky enough to own shares, has a career pathway. And as someone living on the land, I have a vested interest in our environment, because I love looking out my kitchen window and seeing my pelican return every year to Billabong Creek. I love taking my children camping on the river amongst the red gums, and I love the fact that we, as farmers, want to leave the land and the soil in a better condition so Australia can continue to be sustainably productive.

I have a vested interest in making sure we get the economic, environmental and social balance right when we make public policy. As John 'Black Jack' McEwen said of the Nationals in the sixties:

… we conceive our role as a dual one of being at all times the specialist party with a sharp fighting edge, the specialists for rural industries and rural communities. At the same time we are the party which has the total co-ordinated concept of what is necessary for the growth and safety of the whole Australian nation.

It is important to me that our regional industries are supported by infrastructure, services and good government policy that encourages investment, because without investment we can't grow and we would fail to live up to the potential of our regions.

Importantly, our regional industries must not be demonised or vilified. Take agriculture—this $60 billion industry that employs over 300,000 people directly and more than 1.6 million people along the value chain, which has the potential to grow to a $100 billion industry by 2030 and supports hundreds of country towns and communities. It is increasingly having to defend itself against activism. We have livestock producers living in fear of having their properties stormed by activists, with sheds broken into and animals harassed and, in some cases, even stolen, all supposedly in the name of stopping animal cruelty. But we know the real agenda is actually to shut down these industries without concern or consideration about the impact on the farmers, on their families, on their communities and, most importantly, on our grocery bills.

Not all of the protesters are mischievous; some of them are just misinformed. But if you live in the regions and if you talk to these farmers you understand that mistreatment of animals is not good business sense, and Australia has strong animal welfare laws for that reason. In fact, Australia has a raft of rules that ensure our agricultural industries lead the world in best practice management.

In Australia, production of crops like cotton and rice is leading the world in terms of crop yield per megalitre of water used. Yet there are those in Australia, and indeed in this place, calling for us to stop producing these crops—these crops that are actually perfectly suited to the Australian variable environment, these crops that can be turned off and on, depending on water availability. Both of these commodity groups have long-term research and development programs in Australia, and now as a nation we are exporting our smarts as well as our products.

These commodity groups and others in our agricultural chain have farmgate value as well as value-add across the whole industry. In my area, for example, we have the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere and a company, SunRice, started by a cooperative of farmers that is now an international food conglomerate, still owned by Australian farmers. But, instead of championing these industries and the successes we as a nation have shown in developing high-quality, high-yielding crops using less water and less chemicals and leaving healthier soils than any other nation, we are demonising them to a point where our farmers are too scared to tell people what they grow. I am here to be a champion for them and for all of our agricultural industries, be it dairy, egg production, citrus—I support them all, and I support the businesses that rely on them.

We can't stop growing these crops or producing these commodities because, if we do, who will feed the 40 million-plus people around the world every day who eat Australian rice, who will produce the fresh milk that we enjoy on our cereals and who will produce the natural fibres that we like to wear? A ban on production does not equal a fall in demand. Markets just turn to another supplier to source similar produce without the same standards. So to export the problem of producing food and fibre will abrogate our responsibility as a nation to ensure they are produced in an ethical and sustainable way. Regardless of the commodity, when you buy Australian produce you know that you are buying a product that has been produced to the highest standards, without child labour, without using banned chemicals and at the same time as our farmers are endeavouring to improve their land and be good environmental stewards. So those calling for us to export our industries don't understand that doing so would just export a problem that Australia is well placed to be a solution for. And the same goes for our resource industries.

The debate about mining has people thinking only about coal, noting that Australia produces the cleanest-burning coal in the world and is supplying the continued international demand, but we as a nation can't just focus on coal when we talk about resources. Mining in Australia is so much more than that—a $285 billion industry employing almost a quarter of a million people nationally. From the traditional metals and minerals found at my favourite place in New South Wales, where once a jackeroo stood on a hilltop and noticed a weird-looking rock in Broken Hill, to the gas fields of Camden and the mineral sands mines of the west, increasingly we are progressing rare-earth mineral extraction to feed the demand for technological components. Without mining, we wouldn't have the lithium to power batteries for electric cars and we would not be able to make components for solar panels, iPhones or wind turbines. And, increasingly, rare-earth minerals are being used for new tech defence industries. The opportunities are endless, and we as a nation need to grasp them. And, of course, there's my favourite mining of all: gold and silver and opals and gemstones of Inverell, where Wacka used to come from.

All of this mining in New South Wales alone contributes $11 billion a year. But, just as the Nationals have adapted over time, so too has mining, and today it is far more environmentally sustainable, and rightly so. Today we must ensure that mining does not compromise other commodities, particularly agriculture. We cannot risk our prime agricultural land and we cannot risk our vulnerable aquifers or our fragile ecological assets. But there is a balance that can be found, and we should strive to do so, to provide a strong and diverse economy.

So I will support policies that promote our regions and encourage growth because, by doing so, I hope to increase regional populations and therefore increase regional representation in this place. But, to do this, we need to focus on ensuring infrastructure and services are in place to make the regions an attractive place to live. By providing the basic infrastructure and then implementing policies that encourage regional migration that supports regional industries, we can start to reverse the trend of population drift to the coast. And perhaps the best way to do that is to lead by example, to show people how good it is to live in the regions and to show them that living in the regions is not an impediment to success—because, as I mentioned before, I have not always lived in the regions. I did most of my schooling here in Canberra, but I was attracted to the regions long before I met my farming husband.

My pathway here has been long and varied. It has provided me with life experiences that have given me an understanding of our differences in society but also our commonalities. My pathway has not been planned or designed with this end goal in mind; rather, it has been a path of opportunities: 15-odd years in the Army Reserve; three years working on safaris in Botswana; a stint as a regional reporter for a country newspaper; and time in Queensland driving a school bus, cooking for station hands and running the Comet River trivia championship. I also spent some time back here in Canberra, working for an international PR firm—and some of my colleagues are here today. Through all of that, I had no idea that this is where I would end up. Rather, I have done all of that because I look for opportunities and I accept the risks and rewards that they present, and I have arrived here because I took advantage of an opportunity that now I have a massive responsibility to ensure I don't waste. I need to make the most of it so I don't let down the people who believed in me and those who supported me, and now those regions that need me to be their representative.

So there are many I have to thank. Firstly, to the National Party and the New South Wales Nationals Central Council: I thank you for giving me the opportunity and for selecting me to represent you in this place. I also thank the hundreds of Nationals members and supporters across the state who came out and supported me, supported our party and ultimately supported this government at the May election. Thank you to former Nationals senators Ron Boswell, Fiona Nash and John 'Wacka' Williams, who have all been so forthcoming with their support and their advice, especially to Wacka, who did reach out to me and who made sure my transition into this role was a smooth one. His name here in this building is synonymous with decency, diligence and bipartisanship. Wacka forged a reputation as an honest broker, ready and willing to reach across, and work across, the aisle to deliver positive outcomes for rural and regional Australia, and I aim to do the same. I say to my Nationals colleagues here in the Senate—Susan, Sam, Bridget and Matt: I hope we have many good times ahead. To my staff: thank you for your support to date. I'm confident we'll be a strong, successful and collegiate team, working together to deliver for New South Wales. To the staff in this place, the Clerk and the office of the Black Rod: I thank you in advance for the assistance I know you will provide to me, because I know I'll be asking! To the security and cleaning staff: I thank you for all you do to make sure this place is safe and clean. And to my new colleagues on all benches: I look forward to working with you. While we may not sit on the same side, I believe that each and every one of us has put our hand up to be here because we believe in our democracy and we believe in representing the people who put us here, and that is to be respected.

And then there are my personal thanks. To all my friends who helped me during the campaign, who answered my pleas for help to get children ferried around when I was in Cobar, Broken Hill, Moree or Narrabri trying to win votes, including those who are taking my daughter home tomorrow so she can be in her sixth-grade production: they say it takes a village to raise children, and that is especially true when you take on a role such as this. To the mad, bad, crazy McGregor clan: you couldn't have been a more vibrant rainbow of political views to grow up with. Our enthusiastic conversations around the Christmas dinner table have enabled me to debate the point, not the person, and to find respect and common ground across disparate views, and I'm sure that will stand me in good stead in this place. To my in-laws, Helen and Malcolm: Helen is a formidable role model who has shown me you don't need to be tall or male to get ahead in politics; you just need to be right. And Malcolm, you are a picture of patience and calm, with a magical charm.

To my parents: you have both instilled in me a sound work ethic and practicality. I know I wasn't easy, but your no-nonsense approach to parenting kept me in check. Mum, your independence and sense of adventure that saw you jumping on a plane to war-torn Vietnam just to see what it was like has defined me. You set a very high bar and you always encouraged me to have a go. You got me into everything, from school band and choir—and you even got me trying to play sport even when you knew full well I couldn't catch! Maybe in hindsight it was probably just an attempt to distract me from going off track—and it worked. I thank you, for you never doubted me. And Dad, you came to our shores as an 18-year-old with nothing but an open mind. Determined to give it a go, you worked your way through the media to the staff of the primary industries minister, Peter Nixon, and then into the engine room of our party, and now, as the party's resident historian as well as entertainer with your original songs and brilliant covers of Johnny Cash—at the time you put me right off both politics and country music! But now I thank you for the many lessons I've learnt from you just by being around.

And finally to my family: John, Kira and Matilda. John, when we met at Tamworth Country Music Festival—that's after I got over my youthful distaste of the genre!—when I was living in Canberra and you were in Berrigan, I had no idea that one day I would again be doing the commute backwards and forwards to you. The journey in between has been fantastic. We've shared so much, and the pathway ahead is going to be just as fun. I know I've always had your support, even though you were hoping that you'd see more of me after May. Sorry about that! I know the sacrifices you are now making so that I can be here, and I thank you every day.

To Kira and Matilda: I want you both to know that you make me so proud. Watching the two of you in your endeavours, to see you have a go, be it your debating, your netball, your singing or your dancing, you remind me about the importance of being humble and gracious, of supporting your friends and of being a kind spirit. I hope I in turn make you proud.

So 100 years ago the Nationals as we now know them were formed with the understanding that the future of rural and regional Australia was critical to the future of our nation. So now, as a modern National, I stand before you committed to being a strong voice for regional New South Wales and regional Australia, to represent their interests, which are also my interests: to build stronger, more secure and sustainable regional communities through which our nation will prosper. Thank you.