Wednesday, 23 September 2026

 The PRESIDENT (18:17): I thank the chamber for affording me this opportunity: I am going to call myself. I feel extremely fortunate to have been a member of Parliament of the great state of Victoria, which is part of a country that – something we should all boast about – has been occupied by the oldest living continuous culture in the world. It is something that as Victorians we should really boast more about to other countries. Victorians and Australians love coming first and love boasting, ‘We were the country that invented the lawnmower.’ A lawnmower is a fantastic piece of machinery and it is worth boasting about, but when you think about it, it is so much more worth boasting about that we live on a land that has been occupied by the oldest living culture in the world. We should brag about it more. We should go to other countries and we should thump our chests. When people get off at our airports, that should be the first thing they see. We should be so proud and we should brag about it. I know progress has been slow, but I take great heart that in this place while I have been here there has been progress in acknowledging that and there has been progress towards reconciliation. In saying that, I want to pay my respects to First Nations elders past and present. I want to say that I take great heart in believing there is going to be more progress. One of the reasons – just one of the reasons – I take great heart in that is because First Nations people have amazing champions and leaders like our friend Sheena Watt.

I feel so extremely fortunate to be a member of Parliament. I feel extremely fortunate in life in general, spending a lifetime with someone I love and adore and sharing the joys life brings – not necessarily but particularly fortunate in a job like this. It makes me feel like an extremely fortunate person. I listened to the words of an INXS song when I was in my gym on the Stairmaster 2000, and the lyrics were basically about how when you are with one particular person all your struggles seem to disappear. That is how I feel when I am with Paula. This includes times we could be doing nothing, but it includes some fantastic times when we get to 1980s bands concerts. We are still crossing our fingers that The Cure will tour Australia again; we are very prepared to travel to New Zealand if we have to. It includes the times we get to watch the mighty Melbourne City Football Club at AAMI Park, hopefully beating Victory – yes, I am looking at you, Michael Galea – and the times we get a chance to sit on the couch and catch up on episodes of The Bold and the Beautiful; yes, Ridge is a dick. Essentially I am a homebody, and home for me is wherever Paula is. Of course the best, most fantastic thing we share is our wonderful family. We are so fortunate. Our daughters Jackie and Moni, who we love dearly, are just such all-round wonderful people, and they always have been. The blokes they are with, Tim and Matthew, are just terrific people as well. They are all such fantastic parents to the four little rascals. Winnie, Jules, Sam and Ben bring us so much joy and laughter and sometimes the odd unintentional bruise. They are so adorable, and of course we must and we will spoil them. That is a grandparent’s duty. I want the rascals to always remember something: ‘You’re so groovy. Yeah!’

As far as being fortunate goes, as a member of Parliament I have mentioned a lot of people in the past few weeks by name that have really helped me be afforded the privilege. I feel fortunate as an MP, and we all should, that we have the opportunity to mention people that are important to us on and leave it on the public record. There are some others that I need to show appreciation to today. The support of the plumbers union has been invaluable to me. Earl Setches is an absolute champion. He is kind of like one of those mad genius guys, but he has always had my back. But it is not just Earl; it is Paddy, the Menzies brothers and so many men and women at the plumbers union: a union, in conjunction with the Master Plumbers, that supplies free quality training for not just their members but their members’ family members, which is an amazing thing. There is an employee at the plumbers union that has been such a great mate for so long, and he is such a great man: Paul Coffey. The time Paula and I spend with Paul and his wife Janelle so greatly enriches our lives. I also want to acknowledge the Electrical Trades Union. The ETU have been doing a great job in representing electrical workers. I know back when I was there I was annoying the bejesus out of the leadership and probably everyone else. I acknowledge that at the time it was suggested that maybe I should consider moving on and becoming a member of Parliament because of it. In the end it has been the best outcome for all concerned.

Of course I have to thank the leaders of my party and also the leaders of this chamber, who have afforded me so many great opportunities: the brilliant Steve Bracks and John Thwaites; John Brumby – I owe a lot to John Brumby, and if it was not for John, I would not have been an MP for as long as I have been; Rob Hulls, whom I always looked up to, not just because he could swear for Australia; Daniel Andrews, who afforded me so many opportunities and led the party to three elections; James Merlino, a person with a big heart who was always a great sounding board; likewise Jacinta Allan, whom I am also indebted to for the opportunities she afforded me; and of course Ben Carroll and Gabrielle Williams, whom I have worked together with over the years on a lot of good things. I also thank the leaders of this house John Lenders and my good buddy Gavin Jennings. In the early days, when a lot of people thought I was a Martian, Gavin Jennings afforded me so much time and so much advice. A lot of the time we spent just laughing, but I think that is a good way to learn as well. That is a pretty easy way to learn. And Jaclyn Symes – I am not sure if I am right or not, but I feel that Jaclyn was the most chill about what I could potentially say in this chamber during any contribution, because no-one knew what I was going to say in here, especially me.

To my colleagues: we spend so much time in here together. I have to say it has been my pleasure. Our internal levity has always been our best relief in here, whether it is just me and Terps catching up and having a laugh about stuff happening in our shared electorate or the time when, while sharing an office with Harriet Shing, we co-wrote Sky Rail, the Broadway musical. It has been such an excellent adventure. In saying that, I am pretty sure all the people I have mentioned looked at me as someone that was a bit out there, but fortunately for me, they saw past that and put trust in me to get some important stuff done. I want to acknowledge staff members of the leaders who were important to me, including Johnny McLindon, Lissie Ratcliff, Jessie McCrone, Ben Foster and others.

I feel so fortunate to have been a member of Parliament of the state of Victoria. In the early days of being an MP, two mothers of sons with high degrees of autism came to me and told me they were desperately advocating for an autism-specific secondary school in the outer-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It was an absolute privilege that they let me join them in their advocacy to ministers and departments. It is all to their credit that the Eastern Ranges School has been operating in Ferntree Gully for many years now.

I feel fortunate to have worked with Jacinta Allan in the early days of the new government when she held the transport infrastructure and employment portfolios, and she made sure the social spend was inserted into the project tenders. She and Daniel Andrews sent me out to get the policy moving on our projects. I feel fortunate that Gavin Jennings gave me the opportunity to assist in developing the government’s first social enterprise framework. You are not always completely sure how something like the social enterprise framework is going to be received, but probably short of a year after it was launched I caught up with the boss of Social Traders, who told me that he and a department head were going to a Scandinavian country to do a TED Talk on Victoria’s social enterprise framework. I cannot remember them being involved in the development too much, but it is all good. Our framework and our social spend on the larger government projects afforded me an opportunity to meet so many fantastic social enterprises. Because of the framework, because of the social enterprise spend in the tenders, those enterprises, for example, that supply work for men and women with intellectual disabilities – good work on award rates – these policies have caused or helped those enterprises to absolutely thrive.

I feel fortunate to have been the President of the Legislative Council in the last Parliament and that I was in a position to push the kitchens of the Parliament to stay open in whatever fashion they could to give the catering agency workers a chance to maintain a wage during COVID. I feel fortunate to have a buddy in Brendan Nottle from the Salvos, who told me because of the nature of COVID he could not keep his kitchen going down at Bourke Street – a kitchen that fed hundreds of people every day. We put two and two together, which resulted – this is a figure that catering is quoting – in 1.8 million meals being produced to feed people that needed a lift, out of our kitchens here. I feel fortunate to have another buddy Paul McConville, who is the head of the Parliament’s catering. He and I had a lot of good contacts at other charities. As far as the meals coming out of here goes, we enlisted not just Salvation Army 614 – I have got to say there is no show without Brendan Nottle, but not just 614 – we enlisted the Lazarus Centre and Heaven at the Hill at St Peter’s Eastern Hill, Father Bob’s Foundation, Melbourne City Mission, St Vincent de Paul Society Victoria and St Mary’s House of Welcome onto the program when meals were coming out of here for people that needed it. And then something really cool happened: other state parliaments followed our lead. They saw what we were doing, and other parliaments in different states of Australia followed our lead, opened their kitchens and started producing meals for people in need during COVID. Then the federal Parliament joined in. And then something even really cooler was that our friends across the sea in New Zealand opened up their Parliament’s Beehive and started to produce meals out of their kitchen. So here, we are leaders.

I feel really fortunate to have been the Minister for Veterans when veterans were pushing for a royal commission into veteran suicide, and the cabinet agreed to my submission that our government should be the first jurisdiction to go against the grain and openly push for it.

I feel fortunate that at the time I was the Minister for Local Government – local governments can cop a really bad rap, but they do a power of good work. You just have to look at our Victorian public library network, which is such a wonderful jewel in the crown of our state, and its amazing, extensive services are free. When I was the minister, I visited a very small library at a very small regional town, and I was a little bit scared of the librarian. She had a Gough Whitlam badge on. She was a little bit older than me, believe it or not, I thought. Anyway, we are doing the minister tour thing, and she looks at me and she goes, ‘You and I are going to have a chat, away from everyone.’ So we had a chat away from everyone, and she said, ‘You know what your job is?’ And I go, ‘I’m expecting you are going to tell me.’ And she said, ‘Your job is to make libraries stay free for everyone.’ And I think collectively, as the people that come in here, that is all of our jobs.

Moving forward, I can tell you I have written two books. One was a political cartoon book that I did a long time ago, and it went all right with a couple of people. Another book, just about stuff, took me 10 or 12 years to write. I think I am the only one who has completely read it and I like it, so that is all right; that is all that matters. I am glad to announce today that I am working on a couple of other books. One book title will be People That Have Been Lucky to Have Met Me, and I have started naming people in alphabetical order. There will be a number of volumes. The first volume is quite thick, and it goes from A to Dan – you are supposed to laugh at that. Another concept I am working on is an illustrated book, which I plan to illustrate myself. That is going to be called How to Be an MP for Dummies, and it is going to contain a number of little tips. One of them is: do not be the first one to stop clapping when your leader is getting a round of applause. But I am not too sure how this book is going to go, because right now I am going to completely give away the crux of it.

If you are like me at all, the first time you get elected you go, ‘Oh, beaut,’ and then a millisecond later you think to yourself ‘What does an MP do?’ And so you come into Parliament House, and it does your head in about when you are supposed to stand in your place and what type of contributions you are supposed to do at any given time of the day. And you are bound to have to say naff things like ‘pursuant to’ and ‘the other place’. And then something fantastic happens. You go out to the electorate, and you are privileged to meet so many good people that are doing good things for other good people that are doing and pushing for good causes, and it dawns on you that that is probably your job – to acknowledge them and their good work. And if you are privileged enough to be asked, you advocate for them to have the ability to do more good work. If you are lucky enough to be given duties on top of the privilege of being an MP, you get the opportunity to advocate for certain stakeholders right across the state. And after you do that, what we do in here makes so much more sense. That is it: our job is to represent and advocate. It kind of starts and ends there.

For example, if a school councillor approaches you as an MP for help to advocate for them for a capital improvement at their school, it is not your initiative, it is theirs. And if their advocacy is successful – and you might have helped – you do not build that part of the building. You do not teach in that new part of the building. If a health network enlist you to help to advocate for the installation of a specialised piece of equipment in one of their hospitals and they are successful, you may have assisted, but you do not install it and you do not operate this piece of equipment that could be saving people’s lives. We advocate. We represent. That is it. We may be advocating for a constituent or a stakeholder to ministers or departments or other levels of government – for health networks, education facilities, sporting associations, NGOs. The scope of where you can operate your advocacy is only limited by the network you have developed. We are fortunate. If you are fortunate enough to have ‘MP’ on the end of your name, it can go a long way in assisting an institution or corporation getting focused to assist that person in their issue when you approach them, and you should never waste that.

In early days again I got invited out by the president of the council of the Cerebral Palsy Education Centre. We walked around the centre, and he showed me this little extension. He showed me this blank wall and went, ‘This place here – we want to put a TV there, but we haven’t got a power point and an aerial.’ And he was looking at me, and I went, ‘Oh, okay. Well, I think I know some good electrical contractors that will be prepared to come and install a power point for free, because you do such good work.’ I am looking at Tom now. I said, ‘Some electricians aren’t great at installing aerials, so you want to get that right, so let me have a think about that.’ So I went back to the office, and I was thinking about it at the time. I am driving back to the office. There is an ad on the radio for Mr Antenna. So I got back to the office, and I got on Mr Antenna’s website, and the only space you could communicate with Mr Antenna on his website was a little block for complaints – and limited words as well. So I wrote, ‘Hi, Mr Antenna. I’m a member of Parliament. My name’s Shaun Leane. The cerebral palsy centre – they need an aerial. Any chance you could send out one of your people to install an aerial for free so they can do some good work?’ Too many words. Anyway, I got it in there – send. And then about a week and a half later I get an email from Mr Antenna. Mr Antenna emails me, and he goes, ‘Absolutely, sir. We’ll send one of our franchisees out there and they will install an antenna within the next couple of weeks’ – winning. Those sorts of things just make your job. So we are advocates for good people and good things.

In my book How to Be an MP for Dummies I will pose the question: how does an MP know they have done a reasonable job? When my buddy Gavin Jennings left here, after he gave his last speech, I got up and said that how an MP has performed their role is so subjective. You have days when a constituent might tell you you are a hero for helping them out. Some MPs might like to think they are actually heroes, but we are not heroes. A lot of people think all MPs are villains, but we are not villains – at least the majority of us are not. Mainstream and social media might share their view on your performance freely, political commentators as well. Political commentators – there would be a growth industry. It seems like now you kick any tree and three of them will fall out. Your political opponents might share their critiques freely. Your colleagues might share their views about how you are travelling, sometimes even when you are in the same room as them. But I am going to say that a long time ago it dawned on me that there is one person that really knows how hard you have gone, and that is yourself. We know how hard we have gone. You know how many times fatigue has gotten the better of you, and you know how long it has taken to snap yourself out of it. You know how many times you have been kept awake at all hours of the night thinking about how you can best advocate to get good things across the line as opposed to thinking about self-interest and the next extra title you might be able to grab. You know you have opened yourself up when you clearly believe you need to push against the tide and what issues you have avoided taking on because it has made your life easier. In my opinion, the person staring back at you in the mirror has the best idea of how you have gone. And of course everyone wishes they could have their time again in certain situations and maybe approach them differently. In saying all of that, in the future when I look myself in the mirror and reflect on my time as an MP, I am going to be okay.

Members applauded.

Sitting suspended 6:51 pm until 7:06 pm.