Tony Burke
Watson · Australian Labor Party · Australia
“People smugglers want there to be footage of Australian voices claiming that people smuggling will work, and those opposite are providing it. The second thing that people smugglers want is access to information.”
“I think it's fair to say that that sort of respect is ordinarily there regardless—it's nothing to do with the gravity of the issue. It's just an acknowledgement that each of us is one out of 150, to make sure that we are conscious that, if everybody acted the way we might want to act in a particular moment, the House could itself become u…”
“on indulgence—When the government seeks to have a debate management motion, there's always discussion in the House as to whether or not that is reasonable. In order for us to make sure that we can respect all 150 members of the parliament, there are a number of things that members ordinarily do.”
“Let me start with this: anyone who saw last night on the news that a number of people had tried to enter our country without a visa should know that, by the time they woke up this morning, every single one of them had been removed from Australia—every single one.”
“I thank the member for Leichhardt. I acknowledge the strong role that the member for Leichhardt has had in combating foreign fishing and, in particular, in calling for the work of Border Force that's up there now in Operation BROADSTAFF.”
“This is an amendment about who the deputy chair should be and whether they should be a member of the opposition. The deputy chair of the committee is a member of the opposition; it's Senator Dean Smith.”
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“This procedure is in two parts. First of all, this is a procedure I hadn't expected to have to come back here and update. I move: That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the House from moving the following motion immediately—That sessional order 65A be amended to read as follows: 65A Opportunities for crossbench Members Consistent with the principle that the call should alternate between government and non-government Members and to enable crossbench Members to receive the call in accordance with the crossbench proportion of the non-government membership of the House: (a) During Question Time, priority shall be given to: (i) a crossbench Member seeking the call on the third, seventh, eleventh, fifteenth, seventeenth, twenty-first, twenty-fifth and twenty-ninth questions; and (ii) an opposition Member seeking the call on the first, fifth, ninth, thirteenth, nineteenth, twenty-third, twenty-seventh and thirty-first questions.”
“The person was announced as the AFP's No. 1 priority in October and was locked up in Iraq by January. Iraqi officials made an independent decision to arrest the alleged offender, following their own criminal investigation, after they'd received information from Australia. He thought he was out of reach and he was not. He's now in custody in Iraq. I've been repeatedly asked: does Australia have an intention to extradite him to make him face the full force of the law here in Australia? I'll be frank. He was deported because we don't want him here. We want him locked up. If the outcome is that he is out of Australia and behind bars, I view that as the best outcome we could have.”
“This person has come up in investigations with respect to the illicit tobacco trade, violent and dangerous crimes, and other crimes in Australia, and he came up during investigations as having suspected links to the firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue. After announcing him as Person No. 1 of priority for the Australian Federal Police, the AFP worked with a number of agencies to investigate the offender. The commissioner had one-on-one conversations with law enforcement and principals about the alleged offender. Late last year, the Australian Federal Police provided information to law enforcement officials around the world, specifically in Iraq, about this alleged offender. The Australian Federal Police has been using all its capability, partnerships and networks to help ensure that this person faces the justice system.”
“I thank the member for Macnamara for the question. The answer goes, quite specifically, to issues around the arson attack against the Adass Israel Synagogue in his electorate. In October, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett announced who the Australian Federal Police's No. 1 priority was. She has not given him a name—nor have I—but his name has appeared in the media. He is an alleged offshore offender, who Australia had rightly deported, who posed a national security threat to our country. Referred to as Person No. 1, he was living offshore. Having been deported, he thought he was out of reach. But he was not out of reach and is now locked up in Iraq.”
“All of these things result in one very simple question: do you believe those two people should have been allowed to have those guns? Every member on this side today voted to say, 'No they should not.'”
“There's been a lot of discussion. We heard the New South Wales debate. Should there be six? Should recreational shooters be able to have six firearms, four or five? How many firearms would those individuals, those two people, be permitted to have under the laws that the government supported and the opposition opposed today? The answer is zero. Under those laws, those two people would have been able to access zero firearms. What are the reasons? Only citizens would be able to get a licence. The firearms licence holder was not an Australian citizen. The firearms they were using would not have been available to them. Had the son, who didn't have a firearms licence in any event, sought one, or had the father sought one, AusCheck and the intelligence information we had would have been cross-checked before a licence could be issued.”
“Our laws will not stop Australian athletes from competing or accessing the equipment they need. Our laws will not stop pest controllers or sporting shooters—those with genuine need. Our laws will not stop farmers and primary producers from performing their daily tasks. The question that is right to ask is what the reforms will do when you reduce the number of guns in the community, when you strengthen the National Firearms Agreement, when you strengthen background checks, when you improve intelligence-sharing and when you restrict licences, as far as practical, to Australian citizens. The critical question that came to a head in a vote today—those opposite did not distinguish and did not seek to amend; they opposed the lot in the way they voted on the gun laws today—is: what would these laws have meant for those two men?”
“I thank the member for Werriwa for the question. In responding to the antisemitic terror attack, we need to deal with the motivation and we need to deal with the method. We are dealing with two people there who had horrific antisemitic bigotry in their minds and in their hearts. They had weapons they should not have had, as those individuals—I don't think anyone argues those individuals should have been able to have weapons. We need to be able to respond to the method that they used as well. The vast majority of gun licence holders in Australia take their licences seriously and are responsible individuals. I say to those people that these changes are not targeted at you. There are claims that have been made by some of those opposite which are simply not true. Our laws will not be a blanket ban on firearms.”
“You'll have someone, for example, whose ideology will be a mixture of Nazism, the sort of radicalisation that you've just described, and environmentalism. This will all be mixed up where the only common theme is violence. That does mean that, for our agencies, the threat now is more complex. People are radicalising younger and faster and predominantly online.”
“Thanks, Prime Minister. The counterterrorism and violent extremism strategy was released again last year, where we reviewed the different programs that we run. They're important programs, and there is regular measuring of them. The challenge we have is that terrorism itself is changing as well. If I give, simply, these statistics: as of a couple of days ago, since 2014, we've had 189 people charged as a result of counterterrorism operations. Right now we have 35 people who are currently before the courts. Eighteen of the 35 are children. So what we used to have to monitor in terms of organised cells of people, often in their 20s and 30s, is very different now. In terms of the ideology, we are getting mixed ideologies. We're getting seriously mixed ideologies.”
“Mr Speaker, just a suggestion on arrangements if I may. First of all, because the resolution of the House says that there would be a suspension if we finish before two o'clock, I might suggest that shortly it might suit the convenience of the House if you vacate the chair and caused the ringing of the bells to happen at five past two, and then we'd have question time. Secondly, the resolution of the House has us suspending following question time. For the information of members, we now have a fair idea of the timing for the Senate tonight, and I know people have planes to get away. So the intention would be that we would reconvene tomorrow morning. So we'll suspend now, have question time and then suspend, and the bells will ring for us to return at eight o'clock tomorrow morning.”
“I will advise the House that, in terms of speeches, I've got a procedure, which I'm hoping to not move, that we deal with all remaining amendments without debate. If we can get through this relatively quickly, then we'll be able to make sure that everybody gets to present their amendments properly, but I'm just flagging that, if people could be conscious of the time, that'd be great.”
“I thank the member for Mackellar for raising the issue. While the government doesn't support the amendments and the form of doing this, we are in support of establishing a national firearms safety council. A similar conversation has been happening with the Greens in the Senate as we've been dealing with these issues over recent days, and earlier today I put in writing to Senator Waters that we will be establishing a national firearms safety council.”
“I can't put into the AusCheck process information that we don't hold, but it does come into the second hurdle, which is when licensing is happening from the states. For that reason, whilst I agree completely that this issue must be taken into account, it's not something that we can do in the federal part of the process. Question negatived.”
“I thank the member for Warringah for bringing the issue to the attention of the House. The member for Warringah is exactly right that these issues should be taken into account in the issuing of a firearms licence, but they have to be taken into account at the state level. There are two different hurdles under what's being proposed. AusCheck, which is what's in the bill, is the federal hurdle. It doesn't exist at the moment, but, by putting that in place, it effectively allows all of the information that we hold to be used in the firearms licensing process. That means the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and ASIO. It then goes to the states to determine the fit-and-proper-person test. The states are the holders of information on family and domestic violence. The states are the holders of information on AVOs.”
“This bill is a critical step towards addressing their methods. I extend my thanks to staff across my portfolio for their incredible work in developing this bill. I also extend my thanks to the members of the public, advocates, community representatives and industry groups who have engaged in consultation to inform the measures I am introducing today. I commend the bill to the chamber.”
“Other c ustoms amendments The bill also strengthens regulations that prohibit the import or export of goods that contribute to the spread of hate and extremism and promote the use of violence against persons and groups. National Firearms Agreement The measures in this bill complement the government's ongoing work with states and territories to modernise and strengthen Australia's firearms laws. This includes the agreement by National Cabinet to develop options to: Conclusion In the wake of the tragedy at Bondi on 14 December, we as a parliament have a responsibility to act decisively to make sure Australians can be safe and feel safe. We must do everything we can to counter both the motivation and the method of the attackers. We must deal with both the hatred they had in their hearts, and the guns they had in their hands.”
“The bill will create new offences for using a carriage service to send electronic materials, like 3D-printing blueprints, used to manufacture firearms and explosives, or possessing or controlling this material through a carriage service. These measures respond to feedback from the firearms community, including defences to ensure it does not capture those who seek to share material that assists with firearms maintenance, safety training and information on ammunition packing, and provides narrow defences for possession and use of 3D printing blueprints by those who are licenced to manufacture and modify firearms and firearms parts.”
“Customs restrictions While states and territories predominantly regulate firearms, the Commonwealth regulates the importation of them at the border. There will be a range of measures introduced through customs regulations. These tougher, more robust regulations will protect the safety of the Australian community by ensuring only those with legitimate needs can import restricted firearms. The regulations dealing with wearable ammunition equipment such as vests will not be dealt with today. There will be further consultation on this measure. Criminal Code offences At the time of Port Arthur, and the original National Firearms Agreement, there was no such thing as 3D printing, let alone 3D printed guns. The bill updates Australia's Criminal Code to deal with this new technology.”
“With these changes, the licensing system will combine with AusCheck and the National Firearms Register to make sure we're using the best information we have. When someone seeks a licence or renewal, AusCheck will make sure that our intelligence holdings are utilised. When new persons of interest come to light for our intelligence agencies, they will be able to readily check if the person of interest is also a firearms holder. This means our intelligence agencies will get the best information they need. And states and territories, when deciding if someone is a fit and proper person to hold a licence, will have the best possible process before a licence is issued. Details of the regime's operation, and how assessments are used in licensing, will be negotiated with states and territories.”
“The fewer legal firearms in the community, the less opportunity there is for them to fall into the wrong hands, including potential violent extremists and serious organised criminals. The National Gun Buyback Scheme will help get firearms off our streets. Commonwealth i ntelligence s haring The bill, importantly, will also lay the foundation for a new Commonwealth background checking framework to inform decisions to issue or renew firearms licences by the states and territories. The model would leverage AusCheck's existing role in providing background checks to other sensitive licensing frameworks. Intelligence held by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission would be shared securely and underpin firearms licensing decisions.”
“Buyback s cheme The bill will establish a framework for a National Gun Buyback Scheme to support proposed reforms to national gun laws. The buyback would purchase surplus and newly restricted firearms, and reduce the now more than four million registered firearms in Australia. A buyback is essential to compensate state and territory firearms owners for surplus or newly restricted firearms, and ensure that restricted guns don't end up in the hands of criminals and organised crime groups. The sheer number of firearms currently circulating within the Australian community is unsustainable. Research last year highlights over 2,000 firearms are stolen or diverted to the illicit market every year—that's roughly one firearm every four hours.”
“A critical question that I've often been asked during this debate is if this national reform package had already been in place, how many firearms would the Bondi gunmen have held. Would it be six? Would it be five? Would it be four? The answer is zero. The father would have been ineligible because he was not a citizen. The firearms that they were using would not have been available to them. And the son, who didn't have a firearms licence in any event—had he tried, any intelligence holdings with respect to him would have formed part of the licensing decisions. No-one is pretending that dealing with guns deals with everything that happened at Bondi. But it does deal with the method, and we must deal with the method.”
“The bill forms part of a comprehensive package of reforms, including the renegotiation of the National Firearms Agreement led by National Cabinet, and the bill brought forward by the Attorney-General to further criminalise hateful and extremist conduct, and ensure that those who seek to spread hate, division and radicalisation are met with appropriate penalties. It comes as a shock to most Australians that Australia has more firearms now than we had before Port Arthur, nearly 30 years ago. Many people are also surprised to see that it was possible for a visa holder to have a licence, and that the information held by our intelligence agencies was not integrated into the firearms licensing decisions.”
“I move: That this bill be now read a second time. The terrorists who killed 15 people on that horrible day had hate in their hearts, and guns in their hands. The tragic events at Bondi demand a comprehensive response from government. As a government we must do everything we can to counter both the motivation and the method. We must deal with the motivation of hatred, and the method—the firearms—that the attackers used to devastate so many lives. This bill delivers on the government's commitment to address the methods of the attack. The bill provides a framework for ensuring Commonwealth intelligence can inform firearms licence decision-making in states and territories. It provides the foundations for the largest buyback of firearms since Port Arthur, nearly 30 years ago, and it strengthens laws for the importation of firearms.”
“But, in this moment, Australia has a chance to respond more loudly than the evil of the terrorists and to simply say they don't speak for us. Our voice is you are welcome here forever. We will make it safe.”
“Geffen Bitton, who joined Ahmed al Ahmed, who rushed to the exact same scene, had only been awake for a day when Rabbi Mendel made sure that I was there to conduct the ceremony. The ceremony is a very weird one. We have to cancel someone's visa and put them in detention, and that gives me the right to give them whatever visa I want, to give them permanent residency, which made people smile in different ways. Krystal joked about whether she would have to be put in handcuffs. Geffen, who'd only been awake for a day, had the slightest smile about it. The Levitans, for everything they were going through, still insisted on putting berries on the table as a sign of hospitality, as though they had to offer more.”
“I acknowledge the member for Wentworth, who has also been arguing on hate speech laws for a very long time. But I just want the parliament to know there is no greater response to people being told they don't belong than for Australia to say, 'You are welcome here forever.' Dan's partner, Krystal, made contact with Senator Duniam and said, 'I want to stay in your beautiful country,' but she had applied for a spouse visa, a partner visa, and no longer had a partner. She's now a permanent resident of Australia. Rabbi Yaakov Levitan's parents didn't realise that they were going to be asked to come from South Africa to be constantly helping with the grandchildren. They thought they'd only visit. They're now permanent residents of Australia.”
“But Mendel has been a pathway through to any family that has needed help effectively in a moment like this, to make sure that people weren't having to deal with government and that they could deal with a trusted friend. Mendel has very much been the pathway, and I want to acknowledge that. In fact, the kosher pantry had been established at St Vincent's Hospital only weeks before—not realising the extent to which it was going to be so immediately needed. The message from those who hate is to tell people that they don't belong. The message from Australia needs to be that we are all here together. We need to respond to hatred with the ferocity of laws that are carefully targeted. I must say, in terms of hate speech, that I wish we were going harder than we are able to go tomorrow, but we deal with the parliament we have.”
“At the first opportunity, both the police commissioner and Rabbi Zalman Kastel were good enough to join me laying wreaths at Bondi when I was back in the country. The days that have followed have very often involved a man who will not be known to many members of parliament here but who is in the public gallery: Rabbi Mendel Kastel. I first came into contact with him after the horrific antisemitic comments that came out of Bankstown hospital. I reached out to him straight away—we'd done the condemnation; the response had happened immediately—to talk through how we could provide better safety for Jewish patients. I wish it hadn't been that that started the relationship or 14 December that deepened it.”
“When I visited him in hospital, his explanation of what he did was very much about the hand of God—a story that you could have heard from somebody of almost any faith. I just think this is important: as we work through the horror, the hatred and the evil—the unspeakable evil of those gunmen—we need to not lose what's best about Australia and not assign it on the way through to the wrong people. I was asleep. My wife and I were celebrating our anniversary, and the phone rang. It was the secretary of my department to say that gunshots were being fired in Bondi. We didn't yet know the cause, but there was a Jewish celebration and we thought it might be connected. Thanks to some quick conversations with Qantas, Skye and I were able to get on the next plane home.”
“He was invited by the rabbi to be part of the celebration of Hanukkah. He walked around the different stalls. He enjoyed himself a bit. He still couldn't find the coffee that he wanted, and he started to walk off into the car park. And then the shots were fired. A lot is said about faith, and there have been some different lines dropped in different speeches so far. I simply say this: no-one is going to tell me that Ahmed al-Ahmed was of the same religion as the gunmen. He was there on the invitation of a rabbi. And then, the moment the Jewish people of Bondi were under threat, he did not care about his own safety. He went forward in the line of fire, and we know what followed.”
“On a hot Sunday afternoon, someone living a couple of kilometres from my place had a call from his friend and said, 'Let's go to the beach.' It's a fair way to the beach from my part of Sydney, so they weren't sure which beach to go to. Their options were to go to either Brighton or Bondi. They tossed it up and Ahmed said: 'I haven't been to Bondi for ages. Let's go there.' They went there for a coffee. The first coffee shop said, 'No, we're closing down, about to shut shop.' The second coffee shop—the same story. The third—the same story. He noticed that there was something going on in the park. As he walked across the road, a rabbi issued the most beautiful Australian invitation. He said, 'Yes, this is a Hanukkah celebration that we're having here, but you are welcome to join us.' That's why Ahmed al-Ahmed was there.”
“I move: That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent: (1) the arrangement of business for Monday, 19 January 2026 being as follows: (a) the Prime Minister moving a motion of condolence in relation to the Bondi antisemitic terror attack, the Speaker inviting Members to signify their respect and sympathy by rising in their places, after which the Prime Minister immediately speaking to the motion for no longer than ten minutes; (b) the Leader of the Opposition seconding the motion and speaking for no longer than ten minutes; (c) no amendment to the motion of condolence being permitted; (d) the House immediately continuing debate on the condolence motion moved by the Prime Minister this sitting, with each Member speaking for no longer than five minutes; and (e) when no further Members rise to speak and the motion is agreed to, as a mark of respect, the House immediately standing adjourned until 9 am Tuesday, 20 January; (2) the House sitting on Tuesday, 20 January, with the arrangement of business being as follows: (a) the report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security on the exposure draft of the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026 being presented; (b) a Minister immediately presenting the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Firearms and Customs Laws) Bill 2026 and the explanatory memorandum and moving that the bill be now read a second time, and the bill proceeding through all stages without interruption and: (i) debate on the motion to proceed immediately, with the first Opposition Member able to speak for an equal amount of time as the Minister and all other Members speaking for no longer than five minutes; (ii) the second reading debate concluding no later than 10.30 am, and questions being immediately put on any amendments moved to the motion for the second reading and on the second reading of the bill, and any message from the Governor-General under standing order 147 being announced; (iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail with the bill being considered as a whole; and (iv) when the bill has been agreed to, the question being put immediately on the third reading of the bill; (c) a Minister immediately presenting the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026 and the explanatory memorandum and moving that the bill be now read a second time, and the bill proceeding through all stages without interruption and: (i) debate on the motion to proceed immediately, with the first Opposition Member able to speak for an equal amount of time as the Minister and all other Members speaking for no longer than five minutes; (ii) the second reading debate concluding no later than 1 pm, and questions being immediately put on any amendments moved to the motion for the second reading and on the second reading of the bill; (iii) if required, the bill being considered in detail with the bill being considered as a whole; and (iv) when the bill has been agreed to, the question being put immediately on the third reading of the bill; (d) if required, the House suspending until the ringing of the bells at 2 pm; (e) at 2 pm the Speaker calling on questions without notice; (f) following questions without notice, any messages from the Senate in relation to the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Firearms and Customs Laws) Bill 2026 or the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026 being considered, otherwise the House immediately suspending until the ringing of the bells; (g) upon resumption of the sitting after a suspension, any messages from the Senate relating to the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Firearms and Customs Laws) Bill 2026 or the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026 being considered; and (h) no further business except leave of absence motions being considered, after which the House immediately adjourning until 12 noon on Tuesday, 3 February 2026; (3) the only business being conducted during these sittings being as provided in this motion; (4) standing orders 31, 33 and 43 being suspended for the sitting on Monday, 19 January; (5) standing orders 31, 33, 43 and 133 being suspended for the sitting on Tuesday, 20 January; (6) the Federation Chamber not meeting; and (7) any variation to this arrangement being made only on a motion moved by a Minister.”
“Graham would be the first to acknowledge he wasn't perfect, but I'm so glad we had him and I'm so glad that his family were willing to share him with Australia. God bless Richo. We miss you. All the best.”
“I saw the moments of frailty and working issues through. I also saw the moments where he knew but wasn't telling us that he was going to leave, and he decided the best thing he could do as health minister—while he still had the authority and all his colleagues and the expenditure review people putting the budget together thought he was staying—was to use all his political capital to try to get the best possible outcome for Indigenous health. And he did that. He waited for it to get through and, once the cabinet decision had been made on that, decided it was time to tap the mat. Australia is a better place because Graham Richardson decided to engage in politics, and the Labor Party has had a mentor who we have deeply valued and who was a strong character, a tough character and at times an uncompromising character.”
“But Amanda said that Graham was committed. No matter how much pain he was in—he wasn't living comfortably—he was determined to stay alive to see D'Arcy finish school. D'Arcy finished his final exam the day before, and Graham was able to deliver on that commitment. The friendships of the people who were around the table at Graham's lunches will all continue. My personal friendship with Amanda, and, I hope, her growing friendship with D'arcy, is something that I hope to carry for all of my life. The advice and the understanding of what can be achieved in this place was often achieved with Graham always wanting to maintain the facade of the tough, no-compromises politician, with the title of his book Whatever It Takes . But I've got to say that's not the person I saw. I saw the moments of deep disappointment.”
“When it was my birthday, I got a message that night from Richo, saying, 'We need to have lunch again.' And the next day he said who he was going to invite to the lunch, and, of course, it was the same group of us, where he pretended that we were the only lunch group that would get together. My birthday was on the Tuesday, the message about having lunch was on the Wednesday, and on the Saturday my phone lit up with 'Graham Richardson'. But it wasn't Graham on the phone; it was Amanda. And Amanda—it was only hours after they'd lost Graham—explained how suddenly everything had come on. The day before, for the first time—even though Richo had had, as I said, last rites back when he was 16; he'd had some terrible moments of health—he'd acknowledged he was dying. He died in the very early hours of that morning.”
“Every group probably thought they were the inner circle because once he'd settled on a group, that would be the group that would meet for the regular lunches. And he'd always be there. He'd choose the restaurant, he'd order the wine and he'd hold court and then listen and try to get his best sense as to where people were up to and where they were at. His dear friends Leo McLeay and Peter Baron were the inner circle, and it would have meant the world to Graham that, at the moment that he passed, two of the people in the room there with him were Leo McLeay and Peter Baron. I've known Graham's family for almost as long as I knew Graham. You all knew when my birthday was because I announced it to parliament.”
“Of course, the other time Graham would always be on the phone—and sometimes you'd get him more than once a day—was whenever there was leadership instability, because Graham always had a view on what he thought the future of the party should be, and he was not backward in giving his views on that. Of course, he ended up post-politics with a wide variety of friendships, including on the other side of politics as well. Because of his work in recent years, I know that it's not just the Labor Party family that's grieving the loss of Graham. It's also people around the chamber and in the press gallery—in particular, his friends at Sky News. Graham had a knack of getting different groups of people together for lunches.”
“Some people on staff wanted books signed—one person asked for Machiavelli's The Prince to be signed—and I asked for a reference. Graham wrote me a reference. It said: 'Reference for Anthony Stephen Burke. Tony is a mate. Graham Richardson.' He assured me it was all I would ever need. After politics, Graham kept in touch with his staff. There were annual gatherings for some time. Once I got into parliament, on the toughest days, the phone would ring and it would be Graham. It'd be Graham taking you through the different challenges and how he thought you might be able to find a way forward.”
“One of us has to take the first step, and I'm taking that now.' That method of engagement—of just owning exactly where he disagreed with people, being crystal clear about it, of not taking a backward step but also saying, 'If we care about Australia, we have to find a way to work together'—was something that was a real shift. I have to say in an extraordinary way I really learnt from Graham. I was devastated the day it was announced that he was resigning. For ministerial staff and electorate staff, as well, there is a real sense of 'what happens to me next?' on the day that the person you work for decides that they're leaving. Graham hit the phones and made sure that every single member of his staff was still going to be employed. He didn't have to do it but continued to do it.”
“Every time Brett Gale wrote a version of the speech, Graham said to him: 'Not tough enough'—they were the biggest donor to the Liberal campaign—'You need to go harder.' It went through four or five revisions until it was a blistering attack—that he was there as the first Labor minister to turn up to their conference in years. Graham then, having distributed the speech to the media, embargoed against delivery, said his usual thing about how he wasn't going to use the speech. But, instead of bagging it, he said: 'There's a speech that I've prepared. You've got copies of it. You deserve it. But at some point we need to start working together.”
“Every time a speech was being prepared for him—and Brett Gale, the speechwriter, and before him Morris Iemma, just had to put up with this—Graham would insist that every word of a speech be written out. The fully written speech would be there, and he would have approved the speech. He'd then wait until he got there and say to the audience: 'Well, I've been given a speech. You are not all good people, but you do not deserve this speech.' He'd bag the speech, put it to one side and then go. The AMA one was a little bit different.”
“Prior to 1993 and in terms of engagement with different organisations—and this is something that sounds difficult to believe—the then Labor government had got to the point where the health minister and the head of the Australian Medical Association, the AMA, didn't talk and hadn't talked for years. There was no communication at all. The Australian Medical Association would run ads against Medicare and against the government at every election campaign. In response, the approach of the then ministers was to simply say, 'Well, we don't need to talk to you; there's no point.' Richo decided that that wasn't the way to get things done and that if you wanted to have serious reform you needed to engage. But he had a technique.”
“His description of what he expected of the delegates was always, 'You know who your friends are when they vote for you even when you are wrong.' There were a couple of occasions, including some resolutions—one in particular—that were fairly directly designed to stop someone from ever getting into the federal parliament. That fact that that's wrong is shown by the fact that that person is now Prime Minister of Australia. When Graham came back to the ministry in 1993 after the Keating victory he became health minister, and I had the privilege of being the most junior member of his staff. In working for Graham I saw that capacity to engage with everybody, whether you agreed or disagreed, and to find a way of getting your agenda through.”
“I haven't seen the speaking list, but every time I've spoken in the last 10 years Graham Richardson has followed me.' And he would. We even had conferences that would get boring. When the conference got particularly boring, Graham and John would manufacture a fight just to keep the delegates interested and engaged. He had a way of expressing himself with absolute confidence and a way of asserting authority and power that he'd learnt from John Ducker and always attributed to John Ducker. It gave Richo a capacity to really be able to carry a majority.”
“But of course while that was the issue that in many ways had got me active when I first joined the Labor Party—and Graham was such a champion of it—the speeches at the New South Wales state conference were something different. Most people have never been to a New South Wales Labor conference. It is a gathering of more than a thousand people in the Sydney Town Hall. To give a sense of it: the seats are not facing the stage; they're facing each other. It is a conference designed for conflict. There would be the champion of the Left. Speeches would be given by John Faulkner, and he would say some terrible things about the group that I was part of. In fact, from time to time John Faulkner would conclude his speech by saying: 'And the next thing that will happen in this debate will be that Graham Richardson will follow me.”
“Graham, rather than being intimidated by it, the moment he got into the car to leave, with the shouting and what most people would have thought had been a disaster, he turned—I think it was to David Tierney who was the one in the car with him—and said, 'Well, we've just won that debate in the public', knowing exactly how it would look on the TV screens. It wasn't just the Daintree but the lemonthyme forest in Tasmania, the southern forests and the work with Kakadu with respect to Coronation Hill. These are all legacies that will outlive Graham, are still there now and, as he would say, would even outlive his memory. These are conservation decisions that are around forever.”
“It's sort of a lesson in the culture of protest that in that legendary visit—Graham was always willing to confront people he disagreed with and give them his view; he would often, in speeches, acknowledge that not everybody in the room voted Labor, but he believed they had a right to be wrong, and he would defend that right—when he turned up at Ravenshoe, it looked to the TV cameras like an absolute riot against him. There were people shouting. It had that apprehension of the possibility of violence.”