Mr Drum

Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) (By leave) — In saying goodbye to Mr Drum from this place, I do not want to try to define him politically or pass judgement on his political achievements because it would not be my place to do so. Instead I will just talk about what sort of person he is from the way that I know him.

First of all, he is one of the most unstintingly friendly people in this Parliament. The first day on the job for three Greens: in order of seniority, of course, they sat us on the back bench of the crossbench, so we were staring at the backs of the heads of these two National Party MPs who we thought were the great Satan! We had no idea who they were. Were they country gents? Were they a couple of rednecks? A couple of footy players? They could have been Batman and Robin in their secret identities for all we knew of what to expect from these two people. Well, they were incredibly welcoming and friendly to us and helpful to us in that naturally friendly country way, taking everybody as they are in the first instance rather than seeking to form some kind of judgement about them. And that is the way it has continued the whole way through — that unrelenting friendliness that you get from Mr Drum every time you see him.

With that, and I think it is related in the same way, I think he is one of the most open people that you deal with around here. He is never about hiding his true intent behind some front or guile. What you see is what you get. It must absolutely drive his own party mad, because if you ask him a question, you will get a straight answer. You will have straight dealings with him. I have dealt with him on many, many issues many, many times, either opposing each other or even on quite a few occasions actually cooperating on a bunch of matters, because they were not in fact in coalition when we first arrived here in 2006. That coalition with the Liberal party came a bit later.

With that, I think, you might be able to say, at least from what I have seen of him in 10 of those 14 years, that perhaps he is one of the people who is least changed as a result of having been in this place. He is probably very much the same person now as he was when he first arrived, and that could very well be to do with those close links with his local community that everybody has talked about.

He has given us some of the greatest renditions of some of the worst jokes, I think, in history, either inside or outside of the parliamentary arena, but as we have heard, he is absolutely preoccupied with his people. Based on what I have seen of him and the times I have spent talking to him, the conversations have always been overwhelmingly about helping people rather than fighting people. His people, as he calls them, and his party must love him for it. On behalf of my Greens colleagues I would like to say we value greatly the time we have had with him.


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