Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (12:23): I move: That the House record its deep regret at the death, on 28 March 2023, of the Honourable John Charles Kerin AO, a former Minister and Member of this House for the Division of Macarthur from 1972 to 1975 and for the Division of Werriwa from 1978 to 1993, place on record its appreciation of his long and meritorious public service, and tender its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement. In 1972, when John Kerin was on the cusp of being elected to parliament for the first time, he headed home to Canberra from Labor's campaign launch, only for his Volkswagen to break down in the dark. The culprit was a broken accelerator cable. John not only diagnosed the problem; he fixed it with a paper clip and then drove home. That was John Kerin to a T—resourceful, practical, effective and with humour to spare. Born in Bowral, in the New South Wales Southern Highlands, John grew up farming, gaining experience as an orchardist, forestry worker and brick setter—and, of course, as a poultry farmer, one who could not only design a chook shed but hypnotise the inhabitants as well. Then as an economist with the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and eventually as the member for Macarthur and subsequently Werriwa, he knew how to make a difference. While he cut his teeth in the Whitlam government, it was in the Hawke government that he truly bloomed. He held a number of portfolios, including a brief stint as Treasurer. But he made his main mark as one of our longest-serving ministers for primary industries, arguably our greatest so far. He took to his work with experience, pragmatism, courage and an endless willingness to consult, a scientific dedication to facts and an insatiable curiosity. His record is fitting for a minister in the reforming powerhouse that was the Hawke government, his impact captured by the headline in the Australian Financial Review when he moved on: 'Farmers sorry to see their popular minister go.' In 2008 he was made a distinguished life member of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society—a fitting recognition. Amid the sweep of his responsibilities, John didn't neglect his inner life. As he recorded in his memoir: I once told John Button that listening to classical music kept me sane. He sagely advised me I should play a lot more music. That was typical of the lens through which he viewed himself—a mixture of clear-eyed perception and self-deprecation, all underpinned by a sense of humour that Bob Hawke described as 'quirky' and described by John himself as 'the despair of my family and friends'. John, of course, remained an active ACT branch member until the end. We will always be proud, so very proud, of all that he did. As he once wrote: Politics is like farming; no-one is forced to do it, but someone has to. John did both, and it is to Australia's lasting benefit that he did. We miss him greatly but no-one misses him so much as his family, some members of whom are with us today. I say to them: you are very much in our thoughts and you are in our hearts. May John Kerin rest in peace.