Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I rise today, I note that tomorrow is the last day of my first 12 months, my first season, down here.

Honourable senators: Happy birthday!

I'd like to thank the people of New South Wales for giving me the opportunity and the people of the National Party for giving me a chance. Upon reflection, some of the values we have in the office are 'continual improvement' and 'be inquisitive'. I think they said it on an episode of Ted Lasso, when Ted Lasso was throwing darts at the board in the Crown & Anchor. I want to talk about where we're at and what we're at.

I'd never worked in a government office before, I'd never worked in parliament before and I'd never worked in the Public Service before I came here. Potentially—or definitely—my aspirations have outmatched my ability in this place so far. I raised this in a few different speeches on the Voice last week and also when taking note yesterday. I think that there are many things we're looking at here and there are things we could always be better at. There's 'he said, she said'. I'd like to thank the people in this chamber. So many of them are good people, really have this country's interests at heart and want good things. But forget which government; over the last 15 or 20 years, we haven't been doing as much as we could be or should be. I note that only one prime minister has served term to term in the 15 years since John Howard, and I think that's indicative of where we are.

It is time that we looked at our democracy. It's time we looked at these institutions. I think it's time we had a good look at what we're doing here. It has been 120 years that this place existed in one form or another, and change is constant. In those last 15 years that I'm talking about, with 24-hour media, Facebook and all these social media things, it has never been easier for misinformation or disinformation. It has never been easier to scare. It has never been easier for things to go around—

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To bully.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Or to bully—exactly that thing. I think it's as a result of that that governments over this period are governing more and more to stay elected, not governing to make a better Australia. We do not argue about the size of the pie. We argue about who gets the pie, who gets what slice and how we carve it up, but we're not talking about a bigger pie. We're not talking about a better pie. We're talking about how much we can take and give to other people. My reflection is that it isn't the fault of the people in this place that want good things; it is an understandable part of human nature to want to survive—or, in this place, to win. I think it is time we had a really good look at how we do things.

Nothing I will say is endorsed by my party today. Nothing I say is endorsed by the parliament. It may be subsequently.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is that why you're laughing?

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes. I haven't got a preselection for another couple of years! But is it not time we looked at the length of our term of parliament and having fewer elections? I know people say four years; I'm thinking five. I know England isn't a great example of that at the moment, but—

Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Six years.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Six across the road! Any advance on six? If we had a government elected for a five-year term, they'd have the ability to come in and make decisions in the long-term interest of our country, without the fear of being voted out in two years or 18 months. They'd have the ability to do some things that hurt a bit to make our nation better, where we don't judge success or failure based on the polls but we judge it based on fairness, we judge it by our GDP or we judge it by the happiness of our nation. Like kids—I always like to include a thingfrom Mary Poppins or another movie!—a spoonful of sugar is what we're giving the nation at the moment. We fix the squeaky wheel. We say what we're doing is better is better than it actually is. It's human nature. This government's not our government; it is people. And I know this: you cannot virtue-signal your way to a better nation. You have to do the work. You can't spin your way to success. You have to do the work.

I have been disappointed in my first 12 months here about the ability I've had to impact that as a senator in this place. I have six years. We work in these committees. We work in this area. I said in my Voice speech the other night that I am going to see a psychologist for the first time since my divorce because I am disappointed about my abilities to deliver here.

But the game has changed. It is everything. It is reaching down through the separation of powers in our Constitution and doing things that are meant to be the responsibility of the states because they are popular and they win us votes on these sugar hits. So many things have changed over the 122 years since this federal government has been here, and it is time to look at that. I am counting the number of senators here and working out if I can run faster than them and say, 'Is this place still relevant to that document?'

We have the NACC and all these other accountabilities coming in. But I love the fact—and from the other side, from the government, I thank the offices and the people of Senator Farrell and Senator Ayres, who have been great taking on the consultancy—that we ourselves talk in the hallways and fix problems, and in our committees we talk and fix problems. At the risk of saying something improper, which I normally do, we come into question time and half the time act like unmedicated patients in a facility. It's not good enough, because that is the fear of what we put in.

So I want to do more to make Australia better. I know most people here do. I think we are hamstrung by the rules. There is a great business that talks about the theory of cohesiveness. It looks at management. It looks at sporting bodies. It looks at these things and at the longevity of time working together, of self-promotion and of having the ability to influence stuff. This parliament and this government are hamstrung by this. Let's face it: you get in, and in year 1 you put in your election agendas; in year 2 you fix up the mistakes that were in your election agendas; and in year 3 you govern to get elected again. Where is the time to make the hard decisions?

It's part of the media. We do not fund our media enough. We don't value it enough to do investigative things. What is now journalism is that we cut and paste press releases, and that makes news. The value we put on print media and investigative journalism is gone. It is not acting as a barrier to this misinformation that is so pervasive. People don't go on the net to look for news to be informed. They go to be emboldened and validated in their views, no matter what they are. So our society has changed but we have stayed the same.

All this time there is a bureaucracy and a civil service—people working hard who are always there. They have career progression. They start off at the bottom and they work through, and they have increasing power, as they are the knowledge base that continues no matter who wins in each election. I look at the efforts—as I said, not having been in office before—of my staff, my EOAs, and I look at what they do in this job. If anyone is listening at home, you get four staff—soon to be five staff—in an office, and they are almost regulated in where they are and how they go. There is almost no career progression for them if they're working in this space. I think they're underpaid by 15 to 20 per cent compared to what they would get in the corporate world. I think they are desperately undervalued for the abuse they sometimes get on the phone and for the efforts they put in. I think there needs to be better remuneration. We're talking about Fair Work and flexibility and these things. I think we as a parliament are cashing in on the belief of these people in what we do in not paying them a fair wage. I think it is potentially wrong. Because they have no career progression, they are there and we lose them. This is part of the cohesiveness, the longevity and the way forward that we don't have in this parliament.

I don't know what the way forward is. In my first 12 months I have loved the learning. There is so much information here. We are looked after, from this chamber with the attendants and the clerks to the drivers and the Parliamentary Library.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The cleaners.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The cleaners. Everyone is great to us, and I thank you for that. I have loved my time. But we can't do what we need to do for this nation, and it is not the fault of the people here. I describe this as 'never working longer to achieve so little in my life'. I went to the conference for the National Party on the weekend and I was asked, 'How are you finding it?' I said to many of the farmers there: 'Imagine getting up in the morning, getting in your tractor and driving up and down the fields for 14 hours every day but not ploughing, not planting and not fertilising. A lot of it is like that.' So I will continue to learn, continue to do my very best and continue to try to do what I can for Australia, but I think overall we need to look at the game.