PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION
Senator WATERS (Queensland—Leader of the Australian Greens) (17:53): Well, Senator Pete Whish-Wilson had some pretty big shoes to fill when he entered the Senate to replace Bob Brown as a Greens senator for Tasmania in 2012. Big shoes, but, as our resident surfer, Pete always seemed more comfortable barefoot. Nevertheless, over the last 14 years I have been proud to watch him fill those shoes.
He's brought to this place a rare combination: the analytical mind of an economist, the instincts of a campaigner, a huge heart and care for people, and a deep and abiding love of the ocean. Pete's path to parliament didn't begin as a staffer or a bureaucrat but in Tasmania's pristine environment and alongside hundreds of thousands of people fighting for a better world.
Standing among more than 200,000 people marching against the Iraq War, Pete realised that caring deeply wasn't enough; he had to be prepared to act. He was moved to fight for our common future, both for people and for the planet, and he had the courage to turn that conviction into action. Back home in Tassie, that determination drew him into the community campaign to protect the Tamar Valley from the proposed pulp mill, and it ultimately brought him into this chamber.
During his time in parliament, he's been a relentless advocate for nature, the climate, ecosystems and wildlife, and fairness. That commitment has shaped much of Pete's work in this place. In 2012, he was the first-ever senator to raise in the Australian parliament the scourge of plastic pollution choking our oceans.
He has since led the charge in parliament by establishing three landmark Senate inquiries into marine plastic pollution and Australia's recycling crisis. When it came to commercial whaling in 2013, Pete gatecrashed a diplomatic function in Canberra and gave the Japanese prime minister a handwritten letter from Sea Shepherd captain Paul Watson urging Japan to cease its commercial whaling in the Antarctic.
He's the only Australian politician to visit Japan and lobby its politicians and parliament directly to end this cruel and unnecessary practice. He was also the first MP in the Australian parliament to oppose the introduction of industrial supertrawlers, leading the parliamentary campaign to have them banned from Australian waters. His work included establishing a historic Senate inquiry in March 2014 into the Southern Ocean and Antarctic waters, including illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, after which the government agreed to carry out two 40-day customs patrols in the Southern Ocean.
Whether the threat came from plastic pollution, industrial fishing or commercial whaling, Pete brought the same qualities to the fight: deep knowledge, persistence and an absolute unwillingness to accept that protecting our oceans was too difficult. Pete brought that same persistence to his work in the Treasury portfolio. Drawing on his own experience in economics and finance, he challenged concentrated corporate power from a position of real authority.
He secured the effects test in competition law reform. His work was fundamental in pushing for and establishing the banking royal commission, which led to more than 70 pieces of legislation, including tightening the screws on banks and insurance companies; a levy on big banks to pay for schools and hospitals; multinational anti-tax-avoidance laws; new, sweeping anti-money-laundering laws; and multiple tax-transparency measures.
He's also been a prominent, longstanding critic of investor-state dispute settlement clauses in trade agreements, which give big corporates control over domestic laws that might seek to protect the environment ahead of corporate profits. He introduced a private member's bill to ban these ISDS clauses in 2014, and his advocacy has had an impact. These clauses are now tainted, and they're used less frequently.
Pete understood that markets are created by political choices and that governments can choose whether they serve entrenched corporate interests or the public good. And he brought that same determination to causes that were difficult, unfashionable or too easily ignored. He's been a strong voice on medicinal cannabis for pain management, and he never shied away from sharing his own personal experiences to help reduce the stigma for others.
There are, in fact, few challenges that Pete has ever shied away from. He's been calling out the manosphere—and I love that 'real man tears' tissue box!—and he's been calling out the toxic stereotypes that rob men of the full experience of human emotion and often drive violence against women. Just a few weeks ago, he stood in this place and demanded that we 'wake the eff up' to the avalanche of AI slop and foreign bots in our social media feeds.
His work on the Senate select committee inquiry into information integrity on climate change and energy showed just how strong the denial machine of conservative think tanks, PR firms, consultancies, third-party campaign groups and some conservative media outlets was working to throw sand in the gears of climate and energy policy in this country. And now we're seeing that same denial machine invading every area of our democracy.
Pete was also a vocal opponent of the detention and potential extradition of Julian Assange and a founding member of the Parliamentary Friends of the Bring Julian Assange Home campaign, along with our former colleague Senator Scott Ludlam, up there in the gallery. In December 2019, Pete tabled a petition with more than 200,000 signatures, one of the largest petitions ever presented to the Senate, calling on the government to intervene and to ensure Julian's safe passage home.
For Pete, this was never an abstract argument about diplomacy or process. It was about an Australian citizen whose freedom and wellbeing had been left hanging in the balance. I too would like to acknowledge that we had Julian's dad, John, and his brother, Gabriel, in the gallery just before for his speech.
That willingness to take up a cause before others were ready to act is just as evident in his work back home in Tasmania. Pete was campaigning against salmon farming and in defence of the Maugean skate well before most others. At his 2015 Senate inquiry into this issue, another Tasmanian senator stormed out halfway through the first day, calling it a witch-hunt.
Last year, that same senator joined Pete in demanding an end to salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour. That kind of advocacy is rarely comfortable. It means being dismissed, attacked and sometimes standing almost alone.
Pete has never let that deter him. And that story captures something essential about Pete. He's never needed an issue to be fashionable, easy or immediately winnable.
He does the work, he builds the case and he keeps going until others catch up. And, when they do catch up, the debate has often shifted because Pete has refused to let it disappear. Pete's connection to the ocean has been evident throughout his work in the Senate.
In fact, he might be the only senator whose policy toolkit has ranged from establishing landmark inquiries to encouraging Australians to eat more sea urchins. That perspective has been especially evident in the debate over shark mitigation. He's rejected the fear driven calls for culls and lethal control programs, without ever dismissing the anxiety and trauma experienced by coastal communities.
Instead, he's championed practical, evidence based measures that better protect people without indiscriminately killing marine life, including shark-spotting drones, personal deterrent devices and improved public education. He led a Senate inquiry into shark mitigation and, right up to his final weeks in parliament, continued calling for the federal leadership needed to make our beaches safer for ocean users and wildlife alike.
But, beyond the inquiries and the campaigns and the reforms, I will miss the person behind them—his conviction, his humour, his passion and clarity—and the certainty that, when Pete took up a cause, he would see it through. Our oceans need defending, and I will miss having Pete here to fight for them. I will particularly miss having him here just behind me, with a ready, warm smile, the support of a friend and the humanity that he always brings to his work.
He is a good man, and the Greens have been lucky to have him, and the Senate has been lucky to have him. His duty to help the world is not done, but he will do it in a way that ensures that the other pulls on his heart—his family and the wild places of Lutruwita—have more of him than we do. Pete entered this chamber with Bob Brown's very big shoes to fill, and 14 years later he leaves with a legacy entirely his own.
Our oceans still need defending. Corporate power still needs challenging. Governments still need reminding that justice is not optional.
But every one of those fights is stronger because Peter Whish-Wilson has been part of it. Pete, thank you for your courage, your tenacity and your friendship, and for showing what can be achieved when conviction is matched by persistence. Tasmania and the parliament are better for your service.
We will all deeply miss our senator surfer, but the tide has shifted because you were here.