Dr CHALMERS (Rankin) (15:14): on indulgence—I thank the Acting Prime Minister for his genuine and kind words about our friend Duncan Pegg and also for mentioning those little cards that the kids from our community wrote to Duncan; they meant a lot to him. It's very nice of you to provide this opportunity, Mr Speaker, to talk about Duncan on behalf of the Labor Party, to which he dedicated his entire adult life. I also want to thank the Leader of the Opposition for giving me the chance to say a few words about him. Duncan is known to many of us on this side of the House—by the Queensland contingent, of course, but by other members as well. He counted as friends the member for Grayndler, the member for Maribyrnong, and former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. So many people on this side of the House knew Duncan for a really long time. His state electorate of Stretton straddled the borders of my electorate and the electorate of the member for Moreton as well. We spent many a Friday or Saturday night at the Landmark Restaurant doing community events with Duncan, as his Mandarin got progressively better and Graham's and mine got progressively worse over the years. Of course it was our honour to serve the same people with Duncan Pegg. He was our mate and he was like a brother—not that he needed more brothers! His parents, Graham and Lindsey, had five boys in six years—if you can believe it. The first was Duncan—he was the oldest; then there were the triplets, Cameron, Grant and Graham; and then there was Lachlan. Five boys in six years—amazing. I know how much that truly wonderful family is hurting right now. I know how much they have to arrange. I know how proud they are of Duncan, and how warranted their pride in Duncan is. I want to thank Grant in particular for the time we were able to spend on the phone today talking about Duncan's life and Duncan's passing. The truth is that, in one sense, Duncan's passing has been a long time coming. We've known it was coming for some time now. But when it did come, around three o'clock last Thursday morning, it didn't sting any less because we were expecting it. He was diagnosed with bowel cancer in October 2019. At the same time, they discovered that the cancer had already spread to his liver and his lungs as well. It was a truly devastating prognosis for Duncan. By the time he got that most devastating prognosis in April this year, having spoken to the doctor, he decided in the hospital, more or less on the spot, that he was going to announce almost immediately that he would be retiring from the Queensland parliament. As the Acting Prime Minister said, around the end of April there was a big community farewell for Duncan. It was my honour, along with about a dozen others, to say a few words there about Duncan's contribution to our community. The member for Moreton and Kevin Rudd and the Premier of Queensland also got that chance—and, most importantly, the heads of our local P&Cs and some of our community groups. But the story that really stuck with me from that remarkable community farewell event was that on the day Duncan found out that his cancer was terminal—that was in the morning—he kept all his appointments in the afternoon. One of the local music teachers in our area, who was known to us, said it didn't occur to her until some months down the track that the day Duncan came to help open a music school for little kids in our area was the day he found out that he wouldn't be surviving the cancer he had been diagnosed with. He didn't say a word that day. And he didn't say much about his illness for most of the subsequent 18 months or so. He didn't want anybody to pity him. He didn't want anybody to suffer unnecessarily what he was going through. That was just part of his selflessness, his kindness and his compassion. Only occasionally would you get a glimpse of how difficult things were for Duncan. For me, there were three occasions. On election night last year I spoke to him after he got quite a stunning result in Stretton. It was an enviable result in Stretton, Graham. Duncan said, 'It's nice to run up the score in the last time I run.' I said, 'You'd be mad not to run again.' He said, 'I don't think you understand, mate.' That was one time. At Christmas I said to him, 'What are you doing for Christmas?' We talked about what our plans were. He said that he would be spending a big chunk of it being treated. Also, a couple of Fridays ago, a great school in our community, Stretton State College, named their performing arts centre after him, because he was the instrumental figure in getting the centre funded. He went to all the performances and he knew all the kids and what instruments they played. It was really amazing. They put that on as quickly as they could, in the hope that Duncan could attend. He wasn't there. I knew that he would have done almost anything to get there. His four brothers attended instead of him. That was when I realised the time was getting really close. Duncan would have turned 41 on the 27th of this month. Instead, the funeral will be on the 26th. He was a son of regional Queensland. He was born in Townsville but grew up in Rocky. He came to Brisbane in the late nineties and studied at Griffith University, at the Nathan campus. That's where I met him 23 years ago. I met him around the time he first joined the Labor Party. He joined the party for one reason: he saw, with the rise of Hansonism, the damage that racism could do to our state and to our country. That enlivened him to get involved in politics, so he joined the Australian Labor Party. In all of that time, all of those 23 years that I knew him, he was always kind, gregarious, humble and generous. He became more of each of those things as the years went on, and more idealistic. Because he's such a nice guy, people forget, and I don't want people to forget, that he was also a warrior: for students, in the first instance, when I met him; for workers, when he was an industrial lawyer, when he worked for Sciaccas and others in the industrial law system; and for multiculturalism. He was a warrior for his schools and for his sporting groups, and he was a warrior against injustice and discrimination. The first time he tried to win his state seat, in 2012, like many others he was unsuccessful. He got elected in 2015 and increased his margin in 2017, and by the time of his last victory it was a 65 per cent Labor seat. The more our community saw of Duncan, the more they loved him, the more they appreciated him. He was never in a rush, like so many of us are, to get from one thing to the next. He always had time for people. He always remembered people's names. In our area, most importantly, he always remembered how to pronounce people's names, and we know how difficult that can be from time to time. They appreciated that he took the time to learn Mandarin because his electorate had the biggest proportion of people born overseas in all of Queensland. He wanted to make sure, to the extent it was possible, that he could speak to people in their original language. I think they appreciated too that as soon as he got the last prognosis he made sure that he went to the parliament and said he was retiring, because he didn't want his community to go any longer than was necessary with a member who was dedicating their time to fighting cancer rather than fighting for them. I think Duncan was in on the secret that in the final analysis only two things matter: being surrounded by people you love and who love you back, and being engaged in the cause of elevating others. The last time I spoke with him, we spoke about a few things. We spoke about our friends James Martin and Linus Power. We talked about whether his great friend Usman Khawaja could fight his way back into the test team. Usman and Duncan had become great friends, and I want to acknowledge and thank Usman for that. Ussie's a great guy; I hope he gets back into the side. We talked about the Broncos. We talked about a whole range of things. But the thing I remember most was that he said, 'I have been dealt a difficult hand, at the end, but I've been dealt a magnificent hand for all of the other 40 years before that.' He said that he had a great family, great friends and a great community, and he'd got to do something that he loved doing. He was prepared for the end, and he was at peace with it. We will never, ever forget him and what he meant to us. The SPEAKER: As a mark of respect, I would ask all present to rise in their places. Honourable members having stood in their places— The SPEAKER: I thank the House.