Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12:15): I will start, Madam Speaker, by thanking you for all of your hard work this year. I know that question time is not always much fun for you. We certainly appreciate the dedication and strength of character that you bring to your position. The SPEAKER: Thank you very much. Ms PLIBERSEK: I think the Minister for Agriculture might recognise this quote: Self-reflection is the school of wisdom. It is a quote that comes from Jesuit scholar and philosopher Baltasar Gracian. I think it is a time of year when self-reflection comes naturally to all of us. We look back on the year and our achievements and what we could have done better and what we still have to achieve for the year to come. This year in particular for the opposition has been a year of some self-reflection because we saw the passing of three Labor giants this year—Gough Whitlam, Neville Wran and Wayne Goss. Amongst all of the sadness that we experienced at the loss of these three great men, we also had the opportunity to think about what Labor at its best can deliver for the Australian community and what, at our most optimistic, we can deliver for the people who we represent. So, amongst all of the sadness that we faced this year, we also faced this opportunity of reaching into our history and into our character and pulling out the threads of strength that have guided us in the past. We also fought several state elections. We saw, for us, the sad loss of government in Tasmania. In South Australia we retained government despite all expectations. We won Victoria after just one term in opposition—a magnificent victory by Daniel Andrews. We saw the first ever Senate by-election in Western Australia. We also fought a by-election in the seat of Brisbane, and are now joined by the magnificent Terri Butler. This is a time of reflection not just on the year's events. We also think about why it is that we are here. I believe that all of us here in this place are motivated by the sincerest desire to do good for the Australian community. I have very seldom felt any doubt about the motivation of the people who serve. I do not always agree with the way that they think the Australian community should progress or the way they think we should change our nation, but I do respect the fact that we have in this chamber and in the other place, too, members of parliament and senators who are motivated by sincere goodwill, who have a vision for our nation, who work very hard and who spend a lot of time away from their families and their communities, seeking to serve the people who they represent. I also think about the people who serve our community not in the House of Representatives and the Senate but in many, many ways we see throughout our community. We see teachers, nurses, doctors, health professionals, emergency services workers, members of our defence forces, research scientists and medical research specialists—people who choose their line of work and their life's work not on the basis of the dollar that it will earn them or the public acclamation that they will receive but in the sincerest possible way to do good for their communities and to do good for people who, in many cases, they will never meet or see. They dedicate their lives to their community, to this Australian community. In considering our work here this year, I want to think also of those people, who most often go unremarked, who very seldom attract the notice of the Australian community, but without whom we could not function as a society. While we are relaxing on Christmas Day, we will see many of those people continue about their work—staff in our hospitals, police on the beat, our defence forces overseas and emergency services workers available to be called out. I want to think about and give credit today to the work they will be doing on Christmas Day and during this holiday season, particularly, as summer comes, our bushfire firefighters, who are often called out in dangerous circumstances at this time of year. I also want to mention not just the people who are in the course of their daily work called on to contribute even more at Christmas time but also those many, many thousands of volunteers who on Christmas Day will be seeking to make Christmas a gentler day, a day of companionship and a day of joy instead of a day of loneliness for the many Australians who do not have a family, who do not have the financial means to celebrate in the way that they would wish to, who do not have the ability to give Christmas presents to their children or who do not have the finances to join their families on the other side of the country or the other side of the world. I hope that on Christmas Day, if we are not volunteering ourselves in this way, we are able to think about those many, many thousands of Australians who are doing so—people who will serve lunch at the Wayside Chapel, people who will serve lunch with Bill Crews at the Exodus Foundation or, in the community I grew up in, for the many hundreds of people now who go to St Patrick's at Sutherland for Christmas lunch to spend it together, the people who will serve lunch to make sure that people have a decent meal but, more importantly, some company on that very special day. At these times of reflection, we consider our responsibility to the Australian community and we ask ourselves: what have we achieved? One of the things that comes most strongly to mind for me and tinges this reflection with sadness is the idea that all civilised communities are judged not by what we do for our strongest, by giving more to those who already have much, but by what we do for our poorest, our weakest and our most needy members of the community. I noted that the previous government speakers were reflecting on their year of achievement, and I just add a few things that I have been reflecting on in this year: the $400 million cut from public dental services; the $44 million cut from the new build in homelessness services, so no new homelessness services built; increasing costs of medicines; decreasing pensions; and cuts to family payments. In the year of reflection, perhaps we need to reflect also on what we have done for Australia's neediest people. It is also a reflection that strikes me when I think of my own shadow portfolio of foreign affairs and international development. We have seen in this portfolio this year some real difficulties. I hear the Leader of the House saying that this is not the purpose of this discussion, and I would remind him that the Prime Minister covered all of these issues in his valedictory speech. Mr Pyne: Just concentrate on your speech and don't lecture me. The SPEAKER: We do not need banter across the table. Mr Pyne: I was not interjecting. The Deputy Leader decided to overhear my conversation. The SPEAKER: The Deputy Leader has the call. Ms PLIBERSEK: I think about the disappearance of MH370, the continued search for that plane and for the bodies lost and never recovered, for MH17 and the Australian lives lost in that terrible tragedy, the 300 souls who went down in that flight, and the crash site investigation that continues in the most difficult circumstances, where separatists continue to make it difficult for international investigation crews to have access to site. I think about the conflict in Syria with more than three million refugees now living in neighbouring countries and more than six million internally displaced facing winter with no food and no shelter. The World Food Program has had to stop giving vouchers for the month of December. That tiny amount of money that refugees were getting from the world food program was not able to be distributed this month. I think, of course, about the 200,000 people who have died in this conflict so far. I think about the rise of Islamic State and what it means for the Middle East and what it means for our world. When I speak of these conflicts in the Middle East, I want to think, particularly at this time of year, of our defence personnel who will be serving at this difficult time away from their families, missing their partners and children, but are there for the very good reason of protecting the lives of civilians in the most brutal circumstances. Of course, I refer not just the defence personnel who are serving in the Middle East but those who are serving around the world. I think of the rebuilding of Gaza, which continues now after the difficulties experienced there this year, and the terrible tragedy that you see in many African nations, the kidnapping of schoolgirls by Boko Haram in Nigeria, which really sparked something in the international community and yet is just one example of the terribly brutality that many people in Nigeria and neighbouring countries are facing, and the Ebola crisis, which has already claimed 5,500 lives. On the other hand, we have had some terrific successes internationally. I am proud, as the Prime Minister said, of the way that Australia showed itself during the G20 meeting to countries around the world as a developed, sophisticated nation with a developed, sophisticated Brisbane on show for all. I want to congratulate Prime Minister Gillard, Prime Minister Rudd, and Treasurer Wayne Swan for bringing the G20 meeting to Brisbane when they did and for elevating the G20 to the body that it is. At this time of year, I also want to say a few words about our press gallery friends—those who cover us so enthusiastically in good times and in bad, those at the ABC who have lost their jobs this year, and in particular spare a thought for Peter Greste and his family, a man jailed simply for doing his job, the job that so many in our press gallery do every day, so unjustly detained in Egypt. Previous speakers have gone through a very comprehensive list of those we should thank in the parliament. So I will do this very quickly: our Clerk, David Elder, and his staff; all of our parliamentary staff; the cleaners Anna, Joy, Maria, Lutzia; the gardeners; the library staff; the Serjeant-at-Arms, Bronwyn Notzon, and her staff; all of our attendants led so ably by Luch; our Hansard staff; parliamentary security staff; the AFP; our wonderful friends at Aussies, who know all our names—incredible; the staff cafeteria; Comcar drivers and travel booking staff—I think I probably spend more time talking to Comcar drivers than I do my own family some weeks, and I always enjoy their company very much. To my colleagues on this side, I want to say that it has been a year of remarkable discipline, cohesion, goodwill and friendship. I want to thank all of you for the support that you have shown Bill Shorten and me. I want to thank Bill for being such a wonderful leader to work with, and his family, Chloe, Georgette, Rupert and Clementine. I wish them a wonderful Christmas, and I am sure that they will be happy to have Bill home a little bit more often than usual. Tony Burke, Penny Wong, Stephen Conroy and the other members of the leadership team, it has been wonderful to work with them, and I wish them and their families a very merry Christmas. I also want to say that all of us rely phenomenally on our staff. This year I am losing a longstanding staff member in Jill Lay, but I have been served exceptionally well by my staff, all of them in the shadow ministerial office and the electorate office. I know that all members of parliament join me in wishing a happy Christmas to their staff and thanking them for their work this year. All of us are here because we get permission from two groups of people. We get permission from our electorate and they vote for us every three years. They put their faith in us to come and represent their best interests in this parliament. I want to thank all of the community organisations and individual constituents of my electorate who care so passionately about their nation and who contact me a lot to tell me about how they believe we should change our nation for the better. I thank them for their ongoing faith and trust in me—my Labor Party branch members, community groups, schools and others who make that work possible. I want also to thank my family and our families. We choose public life, and we are very lucky if we have partners who support that choice. It is often harder on families than it is on us. They bear the criticisms much more acutely than we do and, for those of us who have kids, I hope our kids miss us as much as we miss them—it is not an easy life for a family to choose. Again, on behalf of all of us, I want to thank our families and wish all on this side and on that side a happy Christmas and New Year.