PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION

Senator BARBARA POCOCK (South Australia) (19:03): Lucky last. Well, we have a kind of tradition in our party room. If someone else has said something and you agree with it, then you really should just shut up, make space and not make the meeting longer.

I agree with everything that my colleagues have said, Pete. You have been an amazing colleague. We've done two specific things together which really exemplify you for me.

The way in which you make space for women is very powerful. We did a hearing in Renmark with the wine growers. Not only are you incredibly comfortable with people who grow things and who are in the world of farming and agriculture—you have such respect for them, and they respond to you—but you pushed me forward to do my job.

Not everyone shares in this place. Some people find sharing really, really challenging. You are a sharer, and you are a generous sharer who makes space for women to lead.

And the other place you did exactly the same thing was in the CSIRO work recently, around the shocking cuts to our scientists. Once again, you are held in such respect, as others have said, in the world of science, and not every senator has that experience and the smarts and knowledge to bring to that table. Those scientists really love you, and they love what you do.

You can see it in the room when you're there. But once again, you said, 'No, Barb, you go; you're out front,' blah, blah. So you pushed and worked with me in a way that was incredibly generous.

I think we can all see that also in relation to your staff. We show who we are in the way we work with our staff and the way we lead our staff. Your love and appreciation of your staff, who are clearly amazing—to have the same chief of staff for 14 years!

That is incredible. It's incredible that anyone lasts as a chief of staff for 14 years, to me, personally. That is an amazing feat.

But to have them at your back means you have also been at their back, and that is leadership, and not everyone can do that. Leadership under pressure in this institution is a really hard thing to pull off. But to be loved by your staff—I know you have had your moments of tension, because who hasn't?

But to have taken them with you and to be thanking them and to have had meaningful relationships with them is a huge achievement. So thank you for modelling the way in which to be a decent boss in a place where decent bosses aren't always to the fore. The other thing I really love about you is the connection between the heart and the head, and we saw it tonight.

That was a powerful speech you gave tonight. It was a powerful speech—a political speech, but it was a speech also full of love. And your politics are motivated by two things: knowledge in the head and the facts and all of that experience, but also the gut, in here—the heart and the gut together.

That authenticity that others have spoken about is very real, but it joins those two things. It's a real reminder to all of us that, to last in this place—I don't love this room every day, I've got to be honest. It isn't a place where you always feel that people are authentically themselves and able to speak who they are and be the person they are.

But you show us that. You have shown us that. You've shown me that over and over again.

I'm not going to list your amazing achievements. They're impressive. You've done things that matter.

You haven't just done the bits. You haven't just turned up to the committee—'your turn to do X or Y'. You have chosen things that actually matter out there in the world, to the planet more broadly and to politics internationally.

There's obviously the work of whistleblowers generally, and your most recent act around drawing our attention to dis- and misinformation and that toxic body of effort to undermine and wreck our democracy. It is hard to leave at this moment because it's a new moment in our politics. You feel it deeply because you've engaged with it.

But I want to thank you for your courage in exposing that cesspool and handing it to us, in a written piece of work, to pick up and do what we will with it. Your support for me, your humour—you make me laugh often. I feel you at my back.

I've never felt that there was a knife in your hand, which is a fine thing in a colleague—to not have the knife! You are there for us. I've watched you say things in the party room, for example.

As we all do in our party rooms, we don't always agree with each other. Sometimes disagreeing is hard. You have disagreed in a very respectful way when that needed to happen, and I really appreciated seeing you do that, because it's important for all of us to have better politics that allow disagreement.

I'm going to find it really hard to acknowledge Nat, Finn and Bronte, because you have lent us this beautiful man for 14 years. It's not nothing. It's a lot.

And we have really benefited. This chamber has benefited from you lending him to us. We thank you for your sacrifice and for keeping him on the road and keeping him grounded, because that's what our families do.

Thank you also for bringing your love of animals, the ocean and our planet to us. Thanks, Pete. I've really loved working with you.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Marielle Smith ): Senator Canavan also has a contribution.