Last week, NSW Parliament sat for the final time before the 2015 election, which meant it was time for one of the more entertaining stanzas of Hansard's term of service: valedictory speeches.
There are three kinds of valedictorian in NSW politics. The first, and most common, is the MP who has faithfully served his or her community for several years, and is retiring gracefully after a distinguished career of public service. The second, the bitter MP who has been denied preselection or dumped from the Upper House ticket and feels deeply betrayed and full of bile. The third is the MP who is probably going to lose their seat, or is switching houses, and doesn't know whether they'll be coming back next year or not, which makes for an interesting farewell.
Valedictories involve singing, funny stories, copious thank-yous to staff and attendants, and many forays into the long distant past.
So here's a little nerdy highlights reel of the week that was.
The Faithful Servants
First prize in this category must surely go to Greg Smith, Liberal MP for Epping, who announced that 'he has long been known in this place as the singing MP', and entertained anyone who was privileged/bored enough to be listening by singing a little ditty to end his career. He also reflected on his first long hot summer of doorknocking the electorate as a keen new candidate, complete with tales of angry dogs and nudity (something every doorknocker can empathise with).
Then of course there was the great National Andrew Stoner, the longest-serving party leader in the history of NSW politics (shame nobody really knew who he was until he retired). His Faithful Servant speech was just that - he resigned while he was at the top of his game, so that his wife didn't have to battle her mental illness alone.
Another gracious Nationals retirement speech came from Jenny Gardiner MLC, the long-suffering and much appreciated Chair of Committees, who's had more than her fair share of reform - she was in the trial groups for email, laptops and iPads as each of them arrived in the legislature - and Chamber anecdotes to share - dingo pups, getting a flu jab from Kristina Keneally's mum, singing the Sydney Swans anthem during a 1996 adjournment debate (which was reproduced in Hansard as sheet music!) and many more which I'm sure Jenny ran out of time to mention. See you later Jenny, ya did good, and you've earned the position of runner-up in this category.
Proving that curiosities never cease in Macquarie Street, Barry Collier, the Labor MP for Miranda, loved his first valedictory in 2011 so much he came back for a second one. Re-emerging from retirement with a thumping 27% swing in Miranda's 2013 by-election was no mean feat, but Collier prefers the quiet life, it would seem. He stopped short of saying "… and this really is my last valedictory speech." He was one of many to pay tribute to Gough Whitlam as the inspiration behind his political career.
Disgraced Central Coast Liberal Chris Hartcher took the opportunity to shoot the breeze with a few electoral office anecdotes, like the lady who rang because there was a black snake in her barbecue, or the public housing tenant who wanted him to sort out her broken washing machine. Another victim of ICAC, Marie Ficarra MLC, proclaimed her admiration for the South Sydney Rabbitohs and Fred Nile (in that order). Robyn Parker, Liberal MP for Maitland, had done the switcheroo from the Upper House some years earlier and told us the story of how one constituent, on seeing her "MLC" badge, congratulated her on knowing so much about politics for someone who worked in finance and insurance
Liberal MLC Charlie Lynn gave one of the more heartfelt speeches, paying tribute to those who've served in the armed forces. Not many MPs can lay claim to having jumped out of a plane at 20,000 feet, and Lynn's determination to ensure that support for the armed forces remained even after he had left the Parliament was admirable.
Nathan Rees, the former Premier, chose to deliver his valedictory on Dismissal Day (November 11) in honour of Whitlam's influence on his life. Rees regretted the fact that two of his favourite colleagues, Luke Foley and Tania Mihailuk, were such magnificent fighters that together they could probably sort out Ebola and ISIS singlehandedly, however their factional allegiances meant that in real life they hate each other's guts. Take a bow, Labor! Rees thanked the personal security staff he'd had during his time as Premier: …leaving aside the day when a couple of dogs attacked a cat over the road from my house and one of them drew his pistol. The cat was not that valuable.
Also adding their voices to the melancholy were
- Carmel Tebbutt, the Labor MP for Marrickville who was leader-in-waiting even longer than her husband, Anthony Albanese;
- Don Page, Nationals MP for Ballina and grandson of Australia's 11th Prime Minister, Earle Page;
- George Souris, also of the Nationals;
- veteran of 31 years, Richard Amery from Mount Druitt;
- Labor's Andrew McDonald, the Doctor in the House;
- Kogarah's Cherie Burton, one of my local MPs, who counted as one of her proudest moments the return of the St George Illawarra Dragons to the local footy oval (yay!).
I've Had the Boot
Helen Westwood and Amanda Fazio, both Labor MLCs, were the standout contributors to this category. Both have been dumped from the LC ticket by Labor, with little or no support from their faction, and weren't afraid to say so. However first place must go to Fazio, who got through her valedictory with forced politeness and then used her actual last speech - during the adjournment debate - to deliver this kicker:
I am quite aware that some members may expect me to use this speech to attack people—and there are a number of people in this world whom I intensely dislike—but I do not want to give such a pack of talentless, useless non-entities any publicity… I only wish them anything but well in the future.
Ouch.
Westwood was not quite so angry about it, but her disappointment still showed through. She is at the almost unelectable position of 9 on Labor's ticket, and while she may be returned, it would require a minor miracle (like if everybody reading this voted below the line and ranked Westwood higher than the other Labor people - hint hint). For lefties like me who despair at the current state of NSW Labor, Helen Westwood has been a welcome source of humanity, principle and progressive values. She used her valedictory to tell her version of events, 7 years after her exposé of a would-be Minister's domestic violence put a black mark next to her name on the ALP's ledger. In her own words. Like Charlie Lynn, she was determined to make sure that even if she does not return, the awareness she had raised for her pet cause - in this case, deafness - remains, and in the spirit of bipartisanship, John Ajaka promised that he won't let it slip off the radar.
John Williams, the Nationals Whip, had his own take on the I've Had the Boot theme. His electorate of Murray-Darling had been abolished in the redistribution:
It was probably about 12 years ago that the late Dave Bennett fell over in a bunker at the Broken Hill golf course and broke his leg. The club had to get an ambulance to come and get Dave and take him to hospital. One of the wags at the golf club, Ernie Carol, said to me, "That's a new way of getting out of a bunker; I never thought of that before". Anyway about 12 years later something similar happened to me—I lost my seat. I thought to myself, "Well, that's a new way of losing your seat."
I can't help but like the Nationals - they have to travel a helluva long way to get here, and you can really hear their genuineness and passion for rural Australians coming through in their speeches. I rather wish the Nationals played the prominent role that they did as the Country Party back in Whitlam's day (whether you agreed with it or not, you can't deny that they got their voice heard), but these days they've faded into the background and get downtrodden by their Coalition partners. Anyway, moving on…
The Future is Uncertain
In the Legislative Council, Steve Whan and Penny Sharpe of Labor and Melinda Pavey of the Nationals were all attempting the two-term somersault with pike and come March will be hoping to land safely with their feet on the green carpet. For switcheroos such as these, valedictory speeches come in handy as a kind of pseudo-campaign launch speech, where you can extol the virtues of your chosen electorate and brag about how passionate you are about your local voters that you'd give up your cosy job and fight to represent them - and neither Whan (Monaro), Pavey (Oxley - replacing Andrew Stoner) or Sharpe (Newtown) disappointed on this front, sticking to the script tightly. Sharpe's oratory, while uninspiring, was notable for the eye-rolls it must surely have caused over at the King Street campaign office of the Greens' Jenny Leong. Maybe once upon a time it would have been strange for a Labor candidate to announce that they were going to be running on the issues of marriage equality, reproductive rights and grassroots democracy, but in this age of Twilight Zone politics I don't even know anymore.
Bonus! Felicitations Funtimes
If you don't want to admit that you're probably going to lose your seat, but you still want to hop on board the valedictory train, you do your speech in Felicitations - a time set aside for MPs to wish everyone a Happy Christmas and get some thank yous and farewells off their chest, just in case. Such is politics, and to quote Labor MP David Elliott, anyone who stands here in the fourth year of a term to give felicitations without thinking that it might be a valedictory speech is very arrogant.
The opportunity wasn't lost on Barbara Perry, the Labor member for Auburn, who bluntly asked Hansard to reclassify her Felicitations as a valedictory should she lose her seat in (or before) March, before proceeding with a melancholy I've Had the Boot speech. It remains to be seen whether former mayor Hicham Zraika will branch-stack her out of Auburn, or whether Labor will do anything about it.
In contrast to Perry, Jamie Parker, the Green whose seat of Balmain is under threat from Labor, took the opportunity during Felicitations to declare confidently that this was NOT a valedictory (however, critics may have drawn a different conclusion after he thanked 96 individual people in 5 minutes, the parliamentary equivalent of talking at chipmunk-speed during your last 30 seconds in a public phone box when you've run out of 20 cent coins).
Meanwhile, in the slightly more convivial felicitations going on in the Upper House, Duncan Gay crowed that he'd answered 440 questions this year. "And you've answered none," came the interjection. Robert Borsak informed us that he had a few good hunting stories from the year, but (thank goodness) he wasn't going to share any of them with us. Fred Nile gave a short Christmas sermon, and the President came out of the closet (bit awkward for old Nile).
Fred lovingly handcrafted and installed these one by one in the dead of night.
So, what's a nerd to do between digesting all this valedictory material, and analysing seats in preparation for the March 28 election? Well, in the words of Greens MLC Mehreen Faruqi - celebrate a "Happy Festivus", "turn off your phones", and "enjoy the summer cricket". Good advice, Mehreen. See you next year.
