Hansard debates

Mr JENNINGS (South Eastern Metropolitan—Leader of the Government, Special Minister of State, Minister for Priority Precincts, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) (15:54): Thank you, President. The day I was elected to the Victorian Parliament was a very bad day. The reason it was a bad day is that Essendon lost to Carlton by one point at the MCG in front of 80 519 people. My first day in the Parliament was a bad day. It was like a cauldron in the Legislative Council, where it seemed most of those 80 000 people had gathered for the opening of the 54th Parliament. I felt faint because the cabinet that I was secretary to had meandered in and out of the north library, uncertain of the need for or the purpose of meeting the Governor before public proceedings commenced.

The day of my inaugural speech was a bad day. The speech had four beginnings, a tortured middle and six alternative endings. When I sat down the then President, Bruce Chamberlain, leaned over to me and told me that I had attributed one of my quotes to the wrong author.

Yet even on those bad days good things have happened. On 18 September 1999 the people of Victoria chose to elect enough Labor members to allow us to start afresh and govern Victoria, which we have done for all but four years since. From that opening day of the Parliament I have a photo of my son, Huw, standing with me in front of the Presiding Officer’s chair. It is a snap-frozen, cherished moment in time from that otherwise stifling day.

From my first speech until now, my last, no-one has really bothered to mess with me whilst I have been on my feet in the Legislative Council, although some usurpers took the opportunity to exclude me from the chamber for six months during the 58th Parliament. But clearly all that is forgotten now, and I will be forgotten soon, as this is my last day in the Victorian Parliament.

This speech has one beginning, and that was it. This speech will have one ending, and it will be final. I want you to know that it will finish in half an hour, and I warn you that it does not end with thanks and the credits. For me it is a Once in a Lifetime speech, and that is the first song title in the soundtrack to mark our way towards the exit.

And you may ask yourself, how did I get here?

From my mother I learned to sing; love football, films and theatre; read to children; care for and be respectful of others; argue logically; be offended by injustice; and organise to change things for the better. From my father I derived the value of labour, endless endurance, an enormous work ethic, creativity, reflexes and instinct, and an appreciation for those who suffer misfortune and addictive and destructive behaviour and who ultimately find redemption. From my education I became numerate, literate, got the taste of science, economics, planning and the law. I knew how to research things and how to distil information. I adored learning and loved the intellectual challenge, and I still do.

The hardest and most challenging job I ever had forced me to confront life-and-death issues every day within the Aboriginal Health Service in Fitzroy, led by Alma Thorpe. Through this time and ever since I have worked with many great friends—Jim Berg, Kevin Coombs, Linda, Eleanor Burke, Muriel Bamblett, Rodney Carter, Paul Briggs and Damien Bell—who taught me so much about life and overcoming adversity. I love them most dearly and thank them for being here today.

I had been well hardened before I even joined the Labor Party. That came a decade after I was reprimanded for wearing an ‘It’s time’ badge at Beaufort High School. It was in the early days of the Cain government. My ALP activism was accelerated because of two people—Jenny Beacham and Pat Power. I am extremely grateful to both of them. It was a time when the policy committees of the party and the government were free-flowing interchanges of ideas and implementation. I joined the arts policy committee because it had a glaring vacancy on the ballot paper for state conference. With Jenny’s support from head office and Pat’s at the Australian Railways Union, I was quickly co-opted to the social justice committee, the policy coordination committee and the budget committee.

The crossover into government occurred when Kay Setches recruited me on becoming Minister for Conservation, Forests and Land. It was not easy for Kay, because she was and still is a feminist social justice warrior without any natural environment experience, and she followed Joan Kirner, who had established such a high-water mark for environmental stewardship. These two women continue to be the most courageous politicians I have ever known. They fought for affirmative action, sustainable outcomes, educational opportunity, social justice and equality. They were flag-bearers for perseverance and determination. Joan deserved so much better from her time as being Premier as she steered the dying days of a government over two long years. Few people are the deadset right people for the worst of times, and Joan was one of them. My personal political life has been coloured very much by those times, and I am forever mindful of the lessons learned from those painful days.

‘Hey boys, we’ve got a lot of dirty work to do’, by Mark Seymour and Paul Kelly, could have been my song from 1992 to 1999. I became a machine person within the Labor Party. I became a factional person within the Labor Party. I did what was required to get the job done and for us to return to office. So whilst the song is Hey Boys, most of my friends at that time were women. You will be amazed to know in the industrial movement I was very, very grateful for the collaboration and support of Helen Casey and Michele O’Neil. Their support and support of me meant so much at the time and still does. Without me ever working for them in any fashion whatsoever, the ASU, Ingrid Stitt and Linda White have been loyal and true friends to me.

Now, Peter Bourke is a bloke. He is my longstanding friend, a union leader and an impatient Essendon supporter, who was crucially important for me finding my pathway to Parliament. Although he continues to this very day—and I spoke to him this morning—he is still unhappy that I did not replace his great friend Barney Cooney in the Senate. He has not forgiven me since. And on this theme of my preselection and entry point to the Parliament, the day that Andrew Giles endeared himself to me was when he made it very clear to me he was going to oppose me in the preselection. I found that somebody having the gumption to actually tell you that was quite an endearing quality.

When the Bracks government came to office I was asked to take responsibility for community cabinets, the cabinet coordination process, agenda setting and managing the legislative program. Around this time my favourite film was released. It was the Cohen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and from there came my theme song, which will make sense to most of you, I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow, by the Soggy Bottom Boys.

In the Parliament I was expected to lead our debates on major legislation and play the first, and sometimes last, line of defence in general business debates. We were only a small minority, 14 out of 44, among angry men who had seen the coalition government unexpectedly snatched away from right in front of their vaulting ambitions. It was a very brutal term and our ministers were under siege every day. My talking was meant to give them respite.

However, my defensive, never-ending Wednesday speeches were not appreciated by the media. Jonathan Green harshly reported in the Age that I droned on, whilst according to a front page exposé in the Herald Sun, I was a snoozer who did not talk much at all. My world record talking stats are all long distance.

It was the Bracks government that used its majority to introduce constitutional reform to deliver proportional representation into this chamber. It was a principled act, it led to a cross-section of smaller parties in this place—and it has been very hard to manage over the journey. Democracy won, but making and getting legislation passed was sometimes long and tortuous.

In the Bracks-Brumby government years the reforms that I remember driving through cabinet and the Parliament include the Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006; the Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010, which gave control over cultural heritage to the right people who speak for country and provided an opportunity to reach land agreements more successfully than under the native title framework; the Climate Change Bill; and legislation that established national parks along the Murray River protecting river red gums and cultural heritage. It was a huge challenge to pass the decriminalisation of abortion bill, the stem cell legislation and assisted reproductive treatment acts. The management of those committees held me in good stead for what was going to come later. As environment and climate change minister, I saw disastrous impacts due to global warming and the cumulative effect of the bushfires in 2003, 2006–07 and 2009. The recovery effort took its toll on all of us by the end of 2009, and there was still so much to do.

On the day before I was due to go to Copenhagen for a climate change summit in December 2009 I had a near-death experience that could easily have been fatal had it occurred on that 24-hour flight 24 hours later. I had politely sat through a meeting in my office in 50 Lonsdale Street for over half an hour when, clearly, I was having a significant heart attack. I was polite because the people had come down from Sydney and I had cancelled their previous appointment. To those who say politeness cannot kill you, I say, ‘Stop saying that; you’re putting my life at risk!’. I asked Harri Sidiropoulos, my executive assistant and great protector, to contact medical assistance. However, I did not specify she call 000 or an ambulance, so Harri ran down to health minister Daniel Andrews’s office down the hall to raise the alarm. He was about to meet the head of the AMA, Harry Hemley, who was then co-opted into becoming my physician. Harry ordered the ambulance and the health minister followed up by administering virtual life support. Proximity matters.

Daniel and I had been in close proximity for many years prior to this. We went to see John Brumby about him becoming health minister the day that John constructed his cabinet after Steve Bracks resigned in 2007. We had been in close proximity earlier when I had reassured Steve that Daniel and Richard Wynne would be left nominees to fill cabinet vacancies in 2006. Daniel and I have been in close proximity since his days as a young Labor left convener—I reckon temperamentally he was the oldest young bloke I have ever met—and again when he sought to be ALP assistant secretary and then when he joined the Parliament in 2002. As you see, we go a long way back.

In 2010 we were coming up the lift together in 50 Lonsdale Street. We were speculating that John Brumby would retire in 2012 following our then intended re-election in 2010. I was not so sure that we were going to win. But for me there was one thing that was certain: I was certain that Daniel would be the next leader, yet he assumed it would be Tim Holding, given that the right had greater numerical strength in the caucus. I told him he was wrong and that he should concentrate on keeping the backbench happy and the baton would be passed to him. It was. We narrowly lost the 2010 election, but we stayed focused, capable and hungry to win. Daniel led us to victory in 2014, and we have done so many great things since.

I am so thankful for the kindness and appreciation shown to me by Daniel’s mum, Jan, and his dad, Bob, over the years. At every ceremony to mark Daniel’s progression they sought me out and thanked me for being in his corner. From our last election party I have a picture of Jan and me on my phone. That memory will always remain important to me.

And you may ask yourself, where does this highway lead to?

This government has not stopped running flat out to deliver infrastructure and to catch up and get ahead. Level crossings designed and constructed to reduce congestion and open up neighbourhoods right across the metropolitan area have been key infrastructure delivered by this government to date, and there is more to come. What also is to come is the biggest cross-city train connection, the Metro Tunnel. Ultimately the great vision of the Suburban Rail Loop will be realised.

And you may ask yourself, am I right or am I wrong?

And you may say to yourself, my God, what have I done?

The past five years have seen rapid infrastructure delivery and huge social reform on the watch of this government. Huge social reform is complex, it is really hard and rarely can it be rapid. There is no fast track to equitable outcomes and opportunity, for greater respect leading to women and children’s safety.

Some people may ask: why did someone like me spend so much time and effort negotiating the lease of the port bill? Well, because it provided certainty. It maximised public value. It was underpinned by the legislation. Maximising the commercial return meant more of our infrastructure program could get away. No-one needs to ask why I managed bills as diverse as the first treaty bill, the major restructure of Environment Protection Authority Victoria, supervised injecting facilities and the fire services reform—big issues, many hurdles, long and arduous passages through this place.

None of those ultimately had the same legislative order of magnitude as the voluntary assisted dying legislation. If you are interested in what kind of Parliament we are, who we are and what we can sometimes be, go back and read what happened. See if you can stay up all night and day twice. Read it in real time the way we lived it in real time.

That bill finally passed this place on my son Huw’s birthday in 2017. He came in with his mum, Trish, late the night before and watched the day tick over, worried that I was going to keel over. Over my career Huw, who has been so close to me continually over that time, has rarely made it to this place and has been shielded from most of my parliamentary career. I was struck by that thought when the voluntary assisted dying bill passed. I am not sure that my conscious shielding worked, because probably he has seen the consequences of the toll of political life on me better than most. It does not mean though that he has not channelled a sense of radical progressive thought in the form of an ageing political warrior. He and Trish have been grieving at the demise of Bernie Sanders in the presidential primaries. Obviously they saw him as my stretch target, but unfortunately he was a stretch too far.

In my inaugural speech I talked about being conflicted in that I wanted to stay at home with Huw and help him learn. Thanks to being in opposition in 2011, I was able to stay more and help him in his VCE studies and to help him through the period of losing his great mate, Trish’s dad, Bill Rogers. Trish had been so keen to help him too that she returned to teaching and supporting children with particular learning needs after our own experience. Then and now I worry that our education system does not provide personalised learning or account for the wide range of talents and attributes that just one student may have within them, let alone across an entire classroom. So I worry for the welfare of Stella and Jimmy, for Ben and Tommy, for Rondelle, for Hugo and for Sam—beautiful children, wonderful mothers. I am so lucky to know them.

When I was in grade 2 I confidently told my teacher that I was going to university. We were so poor. We lived in the middle of nowhere. I do not know how she was so confident, but my mother told me that it was going to happen, and I believed. Every Day My Mother’s Voice, Paul Kelly and Dan Sultan:

She taught me to be strong

I guess I got lucky

Now I’ve got a dance and I’ve got a song

They can’t take that away from me

If this building was a habitat under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988, it would be recognised as the home of a rare and threatened species known as the Victorian parliamentary political class. Fortunately it is also home to human beings that provide selfless and enduring contributions to parliamentary democracy.

Sometimes the politicians and the human beings cross over and connect in a meaningful way that provides comfort and support to one another. Such an occasion was the funeral of our beloved attendant Nick, who passed away in 2017. I pay respects to the heartfelt, beautiful contribution of Greg Mills, who brought us together as one at Nick’s funeral. Greg spoke so briefly and eloquently. His quiet ongoing commitment to Russel Bowman is also apparent to a keen observer in this place. To every attendant, Hansard reporters, table officers, all parliamentary staff and the clerks, I sincerely thank each and every one of you who have lived and worked in this place.

It is very difficult when you are constructing a one-and-three-quarter-hour speech that is meant to be delivered in half an hour to try to do justice to people. I wrote a speech for Joan Kirner for the 1992 election. We had all the punchlines worked out. We knew exactly what was supposed to be delivered so we could make ads from the direct feed. Every single grab she wrecked, every single one she destroyed, because she was making eye contact with people in the audience and saying goodbye to them. It was hardly the right way to evoke the spirit that Victoria was going forward under the Kirner government.

I have a bit of a difficulty about that at this moment, President—let us leave you to last—because I have made eye contact with a couple of very significant people who I have loved to spend time with in this place who are in the gallery today. It is a demonstration of who they are that they are here, my appreciation for them and the very different nature of our encounters, although maybe we might have been able to reconcile it.

I have placed Mr Scheffer and Mr Madden together to ask them, as one classical student and one extremely lateral thinker, whether the form of expression of the classics can best be replicated in this place. I remember that Mr Scheffer was an expert in what I am clearly inexpert in—knowing the number of words in a speech. His attention to detail, his care, his thoughtfulness—this was a demonstration of everything about the man who had a very organised mind, a deep knowledge and an extraordinary resolve in terms of bringing the values of decency to life in everything that he did.

That is not to say that Mr Madden is an indecent person. Mr Madden and I used to look at one another when he made contributions at the cabinet table and he was skirting around, going around, saying, ‘Is there anyone in this room that understood what I just said?’, and it was always me. Mr Madden was a fantastic contributor to our government, a fantastic lateral-thinking person who understands how you bring life to fruition, and he tried so very hard to deliver that in the planning portfolio. But in my life in this place I derive lots of joy from the times we spent together.

President, in that vein you are even more lateral. You are a bizarre thinker. I think sometimes of the flights of fantasy that we embarked upon last sitting week when we were sitting here until 3 o’clock in the morning, when we were discussing musical clips and were blown away by Prince’s performance of While My Guitar Gently Weeps. These are the sorts of things that apparently you do not pick up in the chamber, but these are the moments we share which are unbelievably endearing to me—unbelievably endearing to me. Okay, that has extended the speech by 20 minutes.

It is impossible in a speech like this to do justice to the depth of professional, political and personal thanks that I would like to convey to those who have supported me over the years. The people of the south-east of course, who have not seen me much, have elected me on four occasions. And I have had the unswerving support of Alan Griffin, Lee Tarlamis, Pat Gibson, Ray De Witt and Ali Riza Akal. I thank you. Endless tasks have been performed in my absence yet on my behalf by Barb Kuhl, Helen Constas, Emma Vulin and many others.

I thank my parliamentary colleagues over six terms and members of five Labor cabinets that I have had the privilege to serve alongside, and the great team of spartans who sit here in the Legislative Council that have gone into battle over the years greatly outnumbered and under siege in all but one term of government. I appreciate the awful predicament of being the opposition. I genuinely like the challenge of the committee, and it has been a privilege to spar with Mr Rich-Phillips over the years. To Mr Davis: I acknowledge that I derive far too much pleasure from answering your questions, and I apologise to you for saying something cruel about you one day when your children were in the gallery.

I also apologise to all my ministerial staff before 2010, who will not be singled out here but will always be thought of as part of our team. The exception to that is Harri Sidiropoulos. I have already referred to her in this speech as my great protector, but she was also my great friend and biggest promoter.

Rebecca Hughes has managed my diary and backed me up every step of the way for half of that decade. Her diary distribution is as immaculate as Patrick Cripps out of the centre. Three votes to the Blue Bagger.

Nic Wishart is a completely conflicted football supporter. He barracks for Carlton and for Liverpool—total polar opposites in relation to my affections.

Lindsay Rayner cannot kick and barracks for Essendon. No votes, but if you want somebody thoughtful on your side to get on top of a successful game plan for infrastructure, precincts or even a forest policy that provides for a respectful industry transition, he is your guy.

Dennis Kalakathis—Collingwood, Newcastle, everything in black and white—I was proud to be there to support you when your dad died during the course of the last 12 months.

Sarah Broadbent is a loyal and caring woman, a policy-loving, evidence-based and process-driven professional who has worked here and in Canberra on big things like the national disability insurance scheme, housing, social justice and system reform. Like Vicki Setches, she knows a good public benefit ad when she sees one and when she does not. Both have been instrumental in refining and improving communications across government agencies. Vicki has a great understanding of the effects of our infrastructure programs upon communities across the state, as she is very aware of grassroots sentiment in the suburbs. Vicki is so direct and so focused on just outcomes that her honesty and advocacy make my heart swell but make many violets shrink.

I am going to start talking off the cuff, as you would expect, at this point in time. There are a number of people that have joined the staff that currently my notes immediately before me do not address, so if I miss anybody out, I am very sorry about that.

What I can say is that Regan Richards joined the team to do unfinished business in relation to the accountability framework in terms of important integrity measures that were not carried out previously. Those measures included giving IBAC the appropriate threshold of scrutiny and investigation. They also involved introducing the field of misconduct in public office. They also involved the Auditor-General’s follow-the-dollar powers that followed this. They also included improving protected disclosures. It also involved giving independence to the Ombudsman and other integrity bodies of the Parliament. There is always more work to do, but they stack up as significant and substantial pieces of work.

If you look, as I can, just down the line, Lee Tarlamis had an extraordinary term in relation to reform—electoral reform, donation reform, the independent remuneration tribunal. Parties and MPs into the future may not know him by name, may not recognise the value of his contribution, but I can tell you it was amazing—absolutely amazing—to deliver on the complexity of this when politicians and parties go out of their way to get themselves into strife. We wanted to shut that down for all time. I thank him for that.

On the way through, Carla Drakeford joined the team and was there for the clutch moment in relation to the NDIS—in relation to closing the industrial conditions that made that transition work. Kate Grieve joined the staff in relation to trying to keep capability and performance up in the public service at the time of crisis that the state has actually been confronted with in the last few months in relation to bushfires and in relation to the pandemic.

We rely on the public service. We rely on them each and every day. They make an outstanding contribution. I am so pleased that Chris Eccles is here, as the leader of the Victorian public service at this moment, for the partnership that we have undertaken, for the capability and determination and professionalism of the public service. I have enjoyed the company of public servants and relied on them for all of my career.

It is very hard to actually indicate again to the chamber—people possibly had an appreciation of the work that Lee Tarlamis did in relation to those issues that affect us—and it is almost impossible for anyone to understand the contribution that Onagh Bishop made in the last term of the government. There is no-one who knew more about the recommendations of the royal commission. She worked assiduously to work through the ways in which those recommendations would be implemented. We worked in great partnership with not only extraordinary leaders such as Rosie Batty but also emerging leaders such as Natasha Anderson and Nicole Lee, who from their own experience provided leadership and guidance to us about how we reconfigure and design a system and then how we go about building it in a sector that had been fragmented, in a sector that was actually under-resourced for many decades and needed to build new pathways for service and care to keep women and children safe.

On that theme, in terms of children and safety, most people have no idea of the outstanding contribution that Prue Stewart has made and the way in which Prue has on two occasions been able to work within the government—for all of our vagaries, for all of the fogginess of our administrative practices, for the cumbersome nature of the way in which we make decisions—and go out of her way. We can make wrong decisions very quickly. When we make the right decisions it takes an inordinate amount of time. But to keep doing it and to stay the distance working with a community that has been traumatised, with ongoing trauma, disruption and lack of confidence in what governments do, and to be able to do it not once—she came back and did it again—but twice, I am very, very pleased that yesterday when we actually announced that we were dealing with, finally, something we should have dealt with a long time ago, the redress scheme for stolen generations members, Prue was singled out as a direct connection to the government and a direct connection to where the community is at.

We are heading home now. We are heading home because the last and important message is the message from Archie Roach’s Took the Children Away.

On 2 January I was walking despondently along the Yarra River. Our state had been burning and our community was still under great threat. I received an email from Tina Wright, a proud Gunditjmara woman, who was writing to me urging our government to finally introduce a redress scheme for Victorian members of the stolen generations. She reminded me of the failing health of her mother, Eunice Wright, who had suffered decades of despair and a profound sense of loss as one of those stolen children. With tears in my eyes I instantly responded to Tina’s email to say that from my perspective there would be no greater priority for me this year than to establish the redress scheme which may make a lasting contribution to the healing process for members of the stolen generations and their families. Well, this week our government did just that. On Monday, with tears in my eyes, I told my cabinet colleagues the tragic news that Eunice Wright had died in the early hours of last Friday, three days before the cabinet was set to consider this matter.

I am a resilient person who can sustain battles over a long period of time, yet I continue to be struck down at times by the thought that the elders of the Aboriginal community must feel that they carry so much pain and suffering from one generation to the next that when some justice and healing is offered it is so elusive and so hard to hold in their hands—like the red sand that passed from Gough Whitlam’s hand to Vincent Lingiari’s hand in 1975, which promised so much from the commonwealth government and gave the community so much pride, yet there has not been sustained commitment by governments, state and commonwealth, to improve the circumstances of our First People. Unfortunately this includes the follow-up to the landmark apology. But now addressing the needs of the stolen generations and commencing the treaty process in Victoria may help us get there. Self-determination—designing, implementing and measuring the success of Aboriginal community-led programs—has to be the way forward.

As I step away from parliamentary life I have no settled path other than to rest and heal myself before replenishing and throwing myself into new endeavours. At any time in the future, should the Victorian Aboriginal community or the government seek my assistance towards the realisation of treaty, then I will happily and fulsomely respond.

Finally, I want to correct the record. In my inaugural speech I said that ‘the past is a different country and they do things differently there’. That quote should have been attributed to LP Hartley. I have learned from my mistakes. I want us all to learn from the mistakes of the past and never go back there. I want us to celebrate the achievements, the talents, the strengths and the wonders of this land. I look forward to all of us contributing to building a progressive, compassionate, sustainable and safe future together. That will be the country where I want to live.

Members applauded.