Senator HUTCHINS (10:10 AM) —Senator Macdonald said a number of things in his contribution in this address-in-reply debate that I take issue with. One thing, of course, with which I would not take issue is his description of the Greens. While the major parties are often accused of being opportunistic and cynical, those of us who have observed the Greens in action here in the Senate and publicly, particularly in New South Wales, would have to say that the Greens are high up in both of those categories. Another point I want to make is the cynicism and the absolute political opportunism of the Green parties, but not at this stage because I do want to make sure that I do not miss them one bit. The one thing that I think we should remind Australians about is the day that Senator Hanson-Young brought her child in here, which caused a kerfuffle. You may recall that, Madam Acting Deputy President, because it was the same day, as I recall, that the Greens were being asked to explain a half-million-dollar donation—I think it was in cash—that they were having difficulty explaining. But only the major political parties get accused of being cynical, not the white knights in the Greens.

Senator Macdonald also talked about our Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government, Simon Crean. Senator Macdonald has been around a long time. He would recall that in the dying days of the Gorton government Billy McMahon was made Minister for Primary Industry. Billy McMahon was a member for an area around Sydney that covered Strathfield, Homebush, a bit of Ashfield and other places that I cannot recall at the moment. Prime Minister McMahon did not live in his electorate when he was a minister. He lived in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. He would have been an elector of Malcolm Turnbull. So it is not without precedent that we have had people who have lived in the inner city. Your party, Senator Macdonald, set the precedent by making Billy McMahon the Minister for Primary Industry.

Senator Ian Macdonald —Yeah, but I think he had a farm.

Senator HUTCHINS —He might have had a farm, but it might have been a tax dodge. Being a solicitor, you might be able to assist us in finding out where that tax dodge could be best used.

In this address-in-reply I want to talk about a few things. The first is the last election. It must be galling to you, Madam Acting Deputy President Boyce, and members of the Liberal Party that your leader from New South Wales, Tony Abbott, a member of the New South Wales division, as you call it, performed so poorly in the last federal election. Labor lost one seat. We lost one person who was holding that seat, Maxine McKew. Some might say that is not a bad thing; I will not comment. We also did not pick up a seat that we had held, which was Macquarie. But there were seats that the coalition could have, should have and would have picked up if their New South Wales division and Tony Abbott, being one of the leaders of that division, had performed much better. In the seat of Macquarie there was Louise Markus, whose campaign in 2004 in Greenway was marked by racist and anti-religious comments by people who were against our candidate, a fellow called Eddie Husic, by background a Bosnian Muslim. He was subjected to a lot of racist and anti-religious mail, anonymous of course.

Louise Markus had won the seat of Greenway and when the redistribution occurred after the last election Mrs Markus decided to run for Macquarie. The Liberals endorsed in Greenway a young fellow who had very little connection with the area, who was not known and who was in fact more seen by the people in that area as a puppet of his father. He was selected as the Liberal candidate. If I recall, and maybe my coalition colleagues will correct me when they have an opportunity to make a contribution, we won that seat by a handful of votes. If you were a Liberal from other states, you might wonder why the Liberals did not ask Louise Markus to stay and contest Greenway. You might ask that. It was intriguing to us in the Labor Party that someone who had been the member for that area for nearly six years was so gutless that she moved on to another seat, which she won narrowly, but we won Greenway narrowly.

Then you go to Tony Abbott’s favourite seat, Lindsay, where the Liberal candidate was selected I think six weeks before the federal election. I am being generous here—I think it was four weeks but let us say it was six. Fiona Scott, whose family is involved in business in the area, I understand won the preselection from the Liberal Party preselectors because she said she would spend a quarter of a million dollars of her own money in winning the seat. As soon as Ms Scott became the candidate, they could not wheel her out anywhere because Ms Scott had not been trained to be a candidate. She had not been prepared for the job that she was going to do. The lady who was defeated in the preselection was in Toastmasters, was a very articulate woman and probably would have given us a run for our money. I know I speak on behalf of not only the New South Wales Labor Party but the government when I say I am grateful that the New South Wales Liberal division endorsed Fiona Scott, because we might not have held that seat. Lindsay was one of Tony Abbott’s signature seats. In fact, on election day he had his daughters handing out cards there and he spent a lot of time out there during the campaign. As you may recall, Madam Acting Deputy President, so did the Prime Minister. We won that seat. We had a swing against us but we retained the seat with a one per cent margin due to the great work of the sitting member, David Bradbury.

I notice there are no New South Wales Liberals in here today but that there is a National Party senator. They did deliver for the coalition in the bush, unfortunately for us.

Senator Mason —We will in Queensland.

Senator HUTCHINS —I am talking about New South Wales Liberals, Senator Mason. Then you go ahead and you have a choice between three New South Wales Liberals to run your party. Crikey. You have Mr Abbott, Mr Hockey and Mr Turnbull, all of them out of the New South Wales division, where you only picked up one seat overall in the federal election, the seat of Macquarie, which was not contested by a sitting member. How is it that you can go back to your party room and look at any of these New South Wales Liberals and expect them to deliver for you? Tony Abbott had his fingerprints all over the Lindsay preselection and in the end you could not win that seat with all that we had at the time going against us. I am very grateful to the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party. It is important that they be recognised for their contribution to the federal Labor government. It may be that we should strike a coin or a medal to Tony Abbott and the New South Wales Liberals. And if you saw or listened to the debate between Barry O’Farrell and Kristina Keneally the other day you would think that they are at it again. They do not know what they are about to do and all they are doing is being against. I am concerned that we might see a Liberal government in New South Wales and we do not know what they would do.

In the time left to me I wanted to speak about the people who advocate the decriminalisation of drugs. I do not think I am going to have the opportunity to make the contribution that I want to at the moment and I will have to leave that for another time.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Boyce)—Senator Hutchins, for your information, the speaking list has been changed, so you have your full time available.

Senator HUTCHINS —I understand that, but what I need to say is going to take longer than eight minutes and 47 seconds. I feel passionate about the issue of people who advocate the decriminalisation of drugs. We have seen an instance of that very publicly in New South Wales in the last few weeks where again the Greens have immediately jumped on the bandwagon and said they should be decriminalised.

In the few minutes I have left I want to talk about two things. The first is that I want to compliment the retiring chief executive of the Australian Rail Track Corporation, David Marchant. I am not sure how many years David has been the chief executive of the Australian Rail Track Corporation but in that time thousands of kilometres of rail lines have been changed from having timber sleepers to having concrete sleepers. That does not get a tick in terms of how sexy things are in the national economy, but it has meant that trains have been able to travel the 50 or 60 kilometres and not worry about the heat as they previously had to. That has contributed magnificently to the economy of this country. This program was started under the Howard government and has been continued by Labor. David has now retired from that position. I am not sure what he is going to do, and I forget the name of the chap who is taking over. I think that we should acknowledge grand public servants of the nation who have made such a significant contribution. I am sure my colleague Senator Williams, affectionately known as ‘Wacka’, would have seen the amount of rail track that has been replaced with concrete sleepers and the impact that it has had on the economy of our state. So I want to make sure that in my contribution today Mr Marchant is suitably recognised for his contribution.

Finally, I want to compliment a young lady who made her maiden speech in the Victorian parliament last night—my wife. I was listening to Natalie Hutchins make her contribution to parliament, and in fact I voted in the national executive of the Labor Party for Natalie to be the candidate for Keilor. At a pub named Taylors Lakes Hotel, which is not far from where Nat lives and where I will also be living shortly—it is one of the few places in Victoria where you can get a schooner, and Steve, Ann and Jessie look after us there—Nat has been affectionately christened by the locals as ‘the sheila from Keilor’. In her contribution last night she made a very considered and passionate speech on behalf of her electorate of Keilor. I think it is important that we acknowledge the contribution of activists. My wife is a former union official and a former small business woman and she is now a member of the Victorian parliament. She is very dedicated to her electorate and she of course mentioned her husband in her maiden speech, which I thought was very important! One of the interesting things is that my wife decided to run under her married name, Hutchins, rather than under her maiden name, which was Sykes. The reason for that is that her brother said to her, ‘What would you rather be known as, ‘Hutcho’ or ‘Syko’? So she chose the former.

I have a significant contribution to make on opposition to the legalisation of drugs and I will have to do that at another time. But I do want to just reiterate in my final comments that we in the Labor Party do owe a great deal of debt to the New South Wales division of the Liberals. Without their assistance, we probably would not be in power today. Without Louise Markus running away from Greenway and running in Macquarie, we probably would not have won Greenway. Without their poor selection of candidates in Lindsay, we possibly would not have held Lindsay. So it is left to me, a former president of the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party, to make sure that the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party is suitably acknowledged for their woeful efforts in the last campaign. Look at the magnificent contribution that you, Senator Mason, and you, Madam Acting Deputy President Boyce, must feel that you made as Queens-landers to the coalition effort, and then look at the contribution of New South Wales Liberals. Again, all you have got is three New South Welshmen to choose from, and, again, Tony Abbott does run the New South Wales division. So once more on behalf of a grateful Labor government we thank the New South Wales division of the Liberals for their magnificent effort in making sure that we are on this side of the chamber and you are on that side.