As I was saying, Mr Speaker, seems like the only fitting way to begin my First Speech to the House some three years after leaving the Senate. But as most Members of the House would readily admit, they don’t pay much attention to what goes on in the other place, so it is quite appropriate that I introduce myself all over again now that I’m standing on green carpet.
Politics is a contact sport, and in making the decision to campaign for a return to Canberra, many people asked why I wanted to join the fray once more – and aside from feeling like I might be just the right amount of mad for this business, the Australians I feel compelled to stand up and fight for need champions now as much as they ever have.
Some 15 years ago, I was on duty as a volunteer ambulance officer in Bunbury when my partner and I were dispatched to transfer a dying cancer patient from home to the palliative unit at the local hospital. It wasn’t one of the countless lights-and-sirens adrenaline-pumping medical emergencies that I was tasked with during my time in green, but little did I know that the next hour or so would shape my outlook on life more than most.
Arriving at the house, we discovered that the patient was from a large migrant Italian family – we’ll call him Giuseppe – and that he was in a bedroom by himself. Lumbering down a long corridor with heavy bags of medical equipment, I was shocked to enter the darkened room and discover a mere shadow of a man lying on the bed.
Keeping my game face on despite the confronting scene, I breezily introduced myself and informed Giuseppe that we were going to whizz him onto our stretcher and then pop him up to the hospital – at which point, the emaciated figure quietly said “no, you won’t”.
Trying to hide my surprise, I enquired as to how Giuseppe fancied getting to hospital if it wasn’t with our help.
“Son” he said, “I came to this country before you were born. I built this house myself and spent 25 years raising my family here – so I will walk out of here for the last time”.
For what seemed an eternity, and was in fact something like 45 agonising minutes, this incredibly frail figure slowly hauled himself out of bed and then dragged himself down the corridor, using only the wall for support, one foot in front of the other, in front of the other.
Giuseppe collapsed on the front porch, having walked out of his house for the very last time.
I recount this story to the House, as I did to the Senate, for a simple reason – Giuseppe’s story has in aggregate made our nation what it is.
We are here today, standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before us, those who weren’t afraid to work hard, take risks, care for their families, embrace their communities and who were resilient in the face of adversities that my generation can barely comprehend.
These are the people I have come here to fight for – those Australians who are prepared to have a little less today, such that their kids might have a little more tomorrow. Those Australians who put it all on the line to start a business, to create something and to provide employment opportunities to others.
Those Australians who are optimistic that their hard work will be rewarded, but stoic when it doesn’t quite pan out, getting straight back up off the mat to have another go. Those Australians who without second thought nor notion of personal gain, pull on a uniform and volunteer to serve our fellow countrymen in whatever their hour of need.
Those Australians who would sooner join the committee, become the secretary or roll up their sleeves at a busy bee, than see the death of yet another community organisation.
These are my people – and I am lucky enough to stand in this House representing a corner of Australia where they abound.
Loss has forced me to look at life a little differently than perhaps I once did. I’ve experienced loss in political terms, so my place will never be with Teddy Roosevelt’s cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat! My 18 months in the Senate was just long enough to see how Government could work for Australians, but so often doesn’t.
More profoundly though, the sudden death of my younger sister at the age of just 30 has taken me years to process fully. I’ve seen so many grieving families on their worst days, but on mine, seeing my mum holding my dead sister’s babies in her arms is an image seared in my mind.
For me, this perspective anchors the political struggles that play out each day in this building, against what really matters in life – especially the value of those incredible people who share our journey in life, and to whom in our busy lives we often don’t pay enough care and attention. I couldn’t possibly rise in the House today without acknowledging the people that have supported me, shaped me, and challenged me in the many chapters of my story so far.
You all know who you are, and I want you to know how much you mean to me, even if I don’t say it often enough!
Today, Australia is brought to you by the word “can’t” – you can’t do it and you certainly can’t say it.
Almost every business has input costs associated with its people, the power it uses and compliance. Of course, we want highly paid employees, but business is drowning in stifling red tape and regulation while also being crippled by higher and higher energy prices.
We are slowly sleepwalking into decline as a country, as investment capital flees our shores whilst we become less and less competitive with lower and lower productivity.
Yet I see limitless potential for an Australia that is a bolder, braver and more bountiful nation, and I am convinced that deep within our communities is the pride and passion to achieve more for our country. For each Australian to achieve their potential, to maintain a safety net for those deserving a hand up and to again become a country of can.
In realising such a vision, I hold one thing to be self-evident – that to change the Australia of tomorrow, we must first understand the Australia of today and accept the Australia of yesterday.
As it is, as it was, and not as we might have wanted it.
The more that we obsess over symbolism as a way to alter the past, the less that is said about changing lives in Australia today, and the more deafening the silence about affording all Australians greater opportunity tomorrow.
Matters of employment are of great personal interest to me – not only as a compassionate person who believes in the dignity of meaningful work, but also as a small business owner who has had direct experience of hiring hard working Australians and seeing firsthand the social and economic benefits that work can provide.
The false caricature of aristocratic bosses rapaciously exploiting the down-trodden, the vulnerable and the weak in a relentless pursuit of ill-gotten gains is, frankly, centuries out of date. Such a view denies a fundamental premise of modern Australia - most Aussies are fair-minded and hardworking, whether they be employees or employers.
Like millions of Australians, I had a dream of building my own small business which grew to employ more than 30 people, including a number who were registered with a disability services agency. I know what it means when we speak of the best form of welfare being a job and I am particularly proud that one of my former workers has even gone on to start his own small business which continues to grow today.
Indeed, almost 1 in 2 employees in Australia work in a small business of less than 20 staff, meaning most bosses are tradies, restauranteurs, retailers or farmers. Working side by side, day after day, starting early, staying late, these are the employment relationships that have built modern Australia.
Businesses in the modern economy have their interests best served by engaged, agile, free-thinking and committed employees. Those same staff benefit in turn from the superior business performance of an organisation that has the flexibility to change, adapt, trade and prosper.
The idea that we need more Government red tape between an employer and employee too often stops employers hiring people at all, whereas simplicity, certainty and flexibility create opportunity for all Australians.
Every dollar we take off a person or a business reduces the incentive to strive for all, and we must remember that the taxpayer is not an imaginary money-tree. Taxpayers are real people, and I particularly shudder at the thought of taking money from a tradie, a nurse or a teacher and giving it to for-profit companies in the name of some fashionable cause.
Whenever we speak of subsidy, commission, plan or initiative in this place, we must have the courage to look those tradies, teachers and nurses in the eye and explain why we are taking more of their money that they have earned for their themselves and their families.
These hard-working Australians don’t live on Twitter, don’t always read the paper, almost certainly aren’t members of a political party and would never march through the streets of a city with superglue and snorkels – but they do value honesty in political leadership, and quietly nod their heads in the loungeroom when a politician on TV actually talks some sense.
I am convinced that political leadership, at its best, is capable of making the tough decisions whilst carrying the day with reasoned, rational and respectful argument. Australians are no longer listening to political leaders who simply parrot popular sentiment back to the public at large. Indeed, many yearn for leaders who will take a stance, even when its a stance with which they disagree.
Australians - especially in regional areas like my electorate - are crying out for leadership that will truly lift our country and again enliven our communities. They do not send us here to simply argue over the latest way to dole out more and more borrowed money, adding to a debt that will be paid for by our children and our grandchildren.
Nobody seems inclined to remind Australians that just as our forebears learned, we simply cannot turn to Government to solve all of our problems – I hope to lend my voice to this timeless principle.
Government should not compete with an efficient and wealth creating private sector, nor pick winners with taxpayer money, because it isn’t fair that a business should have to compete against a government-backed entity that faces no pressure to be profitable, and no risk of bankruptcy whilst backed by your tax dollar.
Government must enable private enterprise, not shackle it, for it is business, small and large, that pays wages and generates wealth in this country. It is business that creates jobs. Fundamentally, this is why it is imperative that government create the right conditions for businesses to grow, employ and prosper, and why we must enhance personal responsibility, reward for effort and the incentive to strive in the Australian economy.
I started my professional career on the deck of an oil tanker, becoming a Ship’s Captain by trade. I’ve followed an icebreaker from the Russian port of Murmansk into the pack ice of the White Sea, felt more than faint terror at the sight of breaking waves higher than five storey buildings in the North Atlantic and toiled in the searing heat of the Arabian Gulf.
From having worked in and with many countries around the world, I have seen the full political spectrum of public economic control, and its impacts in the lived experience of ordinary people under those regimes. This has given me a deep appreciation of why Australia is as successful as it is.
A significant part of my career has been in the energy industry, and accordingly, I am very cognisant of the fact that energy affects all aspects of life. Households know too well the apprehension of opening a power bill after a hot summer, but less widely understood is the impact of energy prices on business – business that exists today, and businesses that can exist tomorrow.
From the vegetable farmer I’ve met who is today considering selling up the family farm because his energy bills are sending them broke, to the possibilities for tomorrow unlocked by energy-intense artificial intelligence, our prosperity as a nation depends on affordable and reliable energy.
I believe that to deliver good government, we should appeal to the pride of Australians, not just to their wallets.
We should promise only the dignity of hard work, not the spoils of hard work done by others.
Every time the bells ring in this place, opportunity and incentive can be crushed by regulation, restriction or red tape – we are the only guardians against that.
Having bold policy ambition is easy – delivering meaningful change is a different matter altogether, but I will strive never to mistake activity for actual progress toward outcomes.
To represent my special part of Australia in this place is a deep honour, and one that I do not take for granted. My great-grandfather was a 10th Light Horseman who was granted the family’s first dairy farm near Boyanup for his service in World War I.
My mother, who is here today, grew up on the farm next door, which remains in the family today, and so it is particularly special to represent a region indelibly linked to my family’s history, as well as where I grew up, went to school, messed about in boats as a Sea Scout, started my first business, bought my first property and served as a volunteer ambo.
Even in this era of outrage, I think there is still room in our political discourse for a bit of the humour that has long-characterised the Australian temperament and is still the quality for which our best-remembered parliamentarians – on all sides – are most often recalled. This might get me into trouble occasionally, but at least nobody will say I’m a bore!
Like Guiseppe, when I walk out of this place for the last time, I want it to be standing tall with a deep sense of pride and satisfaction that in some way, our nation is at least a little bolder, braver and more bountiful for my contribution here.
I thank the House.