Wednesday, 21 September 2022

Mr Gepp

Valedictory statement

Mr GEPP (Northern Victoria) (19:20): Following the previous speakers, it is an honour to rise in this place. Mr Rich-Phillips is absolutely right: if ever you think that this is a forever gig, I invite you all, if you have not, to go and have look at the transition plan that was sent out by Parliament a few weeks ago and just have a read through that and the dates. It is very, very blunt about when you return your pass, when you return your computer, when you return your car and when you are turned into a pumpkin. It is absolutely true, Mr Rich-Phillips; I could not concur any more with you that this is not a forever gig.

I think it is fitting that as the 2022 footy season concludes its business on Saturday this contribution also draws the curtain on my six footy seasons in this place. I want to make some personal reflections about my time as an MP, and of course I will also say the appropriate thankyous. In terms of the footy analogy, it is not lost on me that as many of us rejoiced in that one-point victory of the Sydney Swans on the weekend and the demise of Collingwood, there will be some that will not be too upset to see me depart this show as well. I was not sure, when Mr Atkinson was talking about standards in this place, if he was looking at me. If I have offended anyone, I will not say I did not mean it, because I think I probably did at the time, but I hope you did not take it personally.

Others who are leaving this place and their role as an MP have described it as their life’s honour. Whilst I understand that sentiment, it is not one, I confess, that has been true for me in terms of being my life’s honour. That is not to diminish in any way, shape or form the role that the Parliament or we as individual MPs play. It has been a magnificent highlight of my professional career, one of the many highlights in my professional career in the labour movement, and it has certainly been an honour to represent the great Australian Labor Party and to serve the people of Northern Victoria. You have to pinch yourself on some occasions to believe that you are in a particular room or a particular place or with a particular person or group of people or that you have the floor talking about the most remarkable issues. It can be breathtaking, as we know, and without a doubt it is a great privilege that only 128 Victorians get to experience every four years. I am sure I probably have not met the same array of people that Mr Atkinson mentioned, but I did meet one of the great presidents of our time, I think, Peggy O’Neal, last Friday. I actually had breakfast with Peggy along with Ms Watt. It does put you in touch with some people that you do admire, and I absolutely agree with him that it is a great privilege to be able to do that. I have never seen it as the greatest honour of my life because I see myself as part of a whole moving wheel of people who make a contribution—whether it is the clerks, whether it is the table office, whether it is the security people, whether it is the IT people, whoever it might happen to be, whether it is our constituents, whether it is the staff, the ministerial office—and we all play a role in this very complex, very intriguing and very interesting dynamic that is the Parliament of Victoria. I am pleased to have been able to play a part, absolutely, and I will cherish that.

To the people of the Parliament, the staff—I have been around the public sector all my life. We talked about how Mr Quilty and I are alumni from the tax office. 1981 is when I started in the tax office. I have been around the public service and public servants all of my life, and I have got to say—and I think I said it yesterday when I tabled the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulation report—how blessed we are to have people of such outstanding quality to provide the service. People get to see the theatre and the show that we put on here from time to time, but it is the classic of the duck on the water with the legs underwater, furiously going. To all of you—I will not name you individually—you are marvellous people, and we owe you a debt of gratitude.

On a professional level, I think the thing that I most cherish in my time in the labour movement is my time with my unions. I am a trade unionist, and I spoke about that when I first came into this place. I joined the mighty CPSU. It was not the CPSU then; it went through amalgamation. I joined the union when I first started in the tax office, and that union gave me the greatest honour in my professional life when they made me a life member. For people who come from trade union backgrounds, that is everything. That is the pinnacle. In fact the organiser who signed me up on my first day in the tax office went on to become—my wife, Sue, is in the gallery—our best man. So those friendships run deep and for a long time.

After leaving the CPSU, I joined the Finance Sector Union. I had a variety of jobs there. It was a bit of a hodgepodge really. I am not sure if it really set me up for Parliament, but I did everything from running their policy and political program to their front-end member engagement operations and administration. But I was popular back then, particularly in the ALP, because I actually was very instrumental in affiliating both the CPSU and the FSU to the Labor Party. Particularly in the left—people sort of scratch their head, ‘Really? A white-collar union such as the CPSU’, and then I buttered up with the FSU. Certainly the synergy of the work that I did in those days did carry on into this place.

But it was not those unions that got me here, and I know this bloke will be watching, because the person who is responsible is a fellow by the name of Shaun Reardon. Shaun was the assistant secretary of the CFMEU at the time. I was at home on the back verandah, having a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning, and Sean’s number popped up on the phone. I said, ‘Oh, that’s a bit interesting. What does Shaun want on a Sunday? What on earth could be going on at the CFMEU?’. And I had no clue what he was about to say, but he said that there was a vacancy about to come up in Parliament, that the CFMEU wanted direct representation in the Parliament and that they wanted me to be their dog in the fight. For those of you that know Shaun, Shaun is a very, very difficult man to say no to. But he is a beautiful man. I walked inside, and I must have had a look of fear on my face. I do not know, but Sue said, ‘Gee, what’s happened?’. I said, ‘I think I just agreed to try and go into Parliament on behalf of the CFMEU’. And life changed for a while after that. Shaun has been nothing but absolutely supportive of me ever since that phone call, and he and his wife, Brenda, are very, very dear friends of Sue and me to this day. I love you, mate. Thank you.

My next call was to my other great mate in the union movement—or one of my other great mates—the state secretary of the FSU, Darren Martin. Funnily enough, Darren is now working for the CFMEU. But like Shaun, Darren could not be any more supportive than he has been over the journey, and I am thrilled to say that Darren and Jane remain lifelong friends of Sue and me.

This government—I had no clue when I came into this place about the reform. You know, when you are not in this place you hear people talk about the government and often characterise the Andrews Labor government as the most progressive government in this country. They do that for a very good reason—because it is. I have had to pinch myself on many, many occasions, just thinking about the things that I have had the great privilege to be involved in as a member of the great Labor caucus, a member of the great Australian Labor Party and a member of the Andrews Labor government. It has been a tremendous honour. There are far too many achievements of this government for me to go across. I could have a crack if you want, but I think, given the time, people might—

Members interjecting.

Mr GEPP: Do you want me to? I have been encouraged to incorporate it into Hansard. I will not go through them, but it will not surprise anyone here, I do not think, that out of everything that I have had the privilege of seeing in this place and being a part of nothing will top the Big Housing Build—nothing. I am not sure if I have told anyone in this place before, but I actually have a pretty deep connection with public housing.

Members interjecting.

Mr GEPP: No, no. I do. For me, as I alluded to in my inaugural, having affordable and secure housing is the most basic of human rights. Everything else is white noise. If you do not have decent housing, you have got nothing.

I was thrilled at the policy announcement of that great Minister for Housing, and he will go down in the annals of Victorian history, I think. No disrespect to the current housing minister of course—he will forge his own path—but Richard Wynne will rightly be recognised in the history books of this state for the tremendous reform that he introduced into this Parliament. I was delighted when Richard was making that announcement that he also announced that 25 per cent of the dwellings would be built in regional Victoria; it is so important. And I was delighted when I heard the current housing minister just earlier today update the house in the other chamber that we have to date built in excess of 6300 of those new houses. So to Minister Wynne and now Minister Pearson, thank you from somebody who has lived it. It is so important.

I had the opportunity earlier to bump into Dick Wynne in Strangers, and I told him about starting life in the Flemington public housing estate. I was not certain a few days ago whether I would actually be making a contribution this afternoon—I had not made up my mind—but what made up my mind was that I decided to go back to the old digs. I wanted to go back to where it all began: Holland Court, Flemington, flat 4/65. Proudly, it does not exist anymore. It is gone. That joint that I grew up in almost 60 years ago thankfully has now gone. But it has been rebuilt, and some mum and dad and some other little boy and his big sister will get the chance to live in a place where it is safe, where it is warm, where it is sustainable—and I am very, very proud of that. I am very, very proud of that.

If I can briefly talk about my electorate of Northern Victoria, the first thing I want to say about it is—President, excuse me for my language: shit, it is big. It is 100 000 square kilometres. It is massive. I feel very, very sorry for Jaclyn, for Tim, for Tania and for Wendy. We should have eight MPs in that electorate; it is that big. It is massive. For anybody who is going to put their hand up—

Mr Melhem: Give them helicopters.

Mr GEPP: ‘Give them helicopters’—on 25 November, if you do not like driving, do not do it. Do not run for office, because it is a big place. I reckon I passed Mike and Mal Leyland on the road at least 38 times; that was just in the first year.

Of course the best part of the job, as we all know, is the incredible people that you get to work with in your electorate. We know that there are stars in this place—and there are—and emerging stars and people who make wonderful contributions and do wondrous things, but it is the folk out in the electorate, the people who roll their sleeves up, whether it is a footy canteen or whatever it is, who do so much. Before I mention them, and I do want to mention just a couple of them, I do want to generalise by thanking the 315 000 people in Northern Victoria who did not vote for me. I want to thank them because I reckon I have met every one of them. One of the great things about having a regional electorate is that people look you in the eye and tell you that they did not vote for you but they do it with good humour and they do it respectfully, although I do have to say that on a couple of occasions it was a bit disconcerting. You would turn up somewhere—it could be in the middle of nowhere, and believe me the middle of nowhere exists in certain parts of Northern Victoria—and you would have some bloke sidle up to you and say, ‘Shit, mate. You’re brave. We haven’t seen a Labor member here for God knows how long’, and you would just want to make sure that the car was placed in a space where you could get out quickly. Look, they were fantastic, everybody that I came across in Northern Victoria. No, they did not vote for me, I understand that, but they did say it respectfully and they did do it with a lot of humour—and 141 000 of them actually did vote for me, so there you go. Bugger Jon Snow being king of the north.

I have a couple of favourite projects that I do want to quickly mention if I might. There is the Echuca Cancer and Wellness Centre. There is a bit of a story, and I will tell it very quickly, behind this, with the board president, John Quirk, and the then CEO, Mike Delahunty—yes, of the famous Delahunty family. He was the CEO of Echuca hospital. Not long after I started Mike got me into the hospital for lunch, and he said, ‘I want to show you around the hospital. I do not want any cameras there; let’s just do it one on one. I’ll just show you that’. It was terrific. He took me to all the shiny bits and showed them to me, and it was sensational. Then he went to his office and his boardroom. We had a beautiful lunch, and I said, ‘Mate, I’ve really got to go’. He said, ‘Yeah, your staff told me quarter past. It’s 5 past’. I said, ‘Yeah, that’s right’. He said, ‘I’ll walk you out’, and he walked me out, of course, through the worst part of the hospital. It was the dialysis and oncology unit. We trudged up the stairs; we had to get up the stairs. I said, ‘Why are we walking up the stairs?’, and he said, ‘Because the lift’s broken’. So we had all of these cancer patients and people on dialysis having to do that. When I came back to Parliament I got in touch with Minister Hennessy’s office at the time and told her the story, and very proudly in not too long a time we were able to make an announcement of $6 million for an upgrade of that centre.

The Crossenvale Community House—Sheradin Clark runs that community centre. I got the pleasure of going there earlier this year and last year as well. We gave them a grant of $50 000, and you would have thought that we had given them $50 million. What an outstanding group of people that coalesce around that Crossenvale community centre. They are the real heroes of northern Victoria.

Shepparton Legacy—look, there are too many stories about Shepparton Legacy, but I do want to single out my friend Leonie Wilson. I think I met Leonie at an Anzac Day function. Leonie introduced me to five other women, and this group of volunteers had all been diagnosed with breast cancer very recently. And they decided that they could either wallow or they could band together and they could do something for their community—and they did. They provide an excellent service for the people of Shepparton Legacy. They do a power of work in their community. Leonie, I do not know if you are watching, but if you are—love you.

Two last ones that I want to mention are not big projects. These are not big things that happened. Outside of the cancer and wellness centre at the hospital, these are just small things, but they mean so much. There is I Wish I’d Asked. Two people, Eva Gruen and Danny Finley, approached me. They had come up with this concept called I Wish I’d Asked. It was about connecting kids in secondary school with people in aged care. They were concerned about the loneliness being experienced in aged care. We worked together and we got the grant up—I think it was about $125 000—and you have never seen bigger smiles on the faces of secondary students in the Shepparton area, particularly Wanganui. That is where most of the kids came from, and their connection with the people in that aged care facility was just a beautiful thing.

Finally, the project dearest to my heart, Ardmona primary. There were a number of announcements that we were making around a particular budget, and there is this little school, which is, I do not know, 15 kilometres out of Shepparton. I drove out there and knocked on the door of the principal, Jean Varty, and I said, ‘Oh, look at me!’. I had made one of those big, cheesy cheques that we are not allowed to use anymore—if anyone has got any use for about 30 of them, I have got them; you can have them—and I said, ‘You’ve got a cheque for $15 000’ or whatever it happened to be. And Jean was very, very grateful, very polite, but I sensed that there was something wrong. This little school has about two dozen kids, maybe 30 on their best day, and it was a beautiful old building. And I said to Jean, ‘Can you show me around if it’s not too much trouble?’. And she would not let me into this old building; she kept me away. And I thought, ‘That’s a bit odd’. Anyway, I pressed the point, and it turned out that they had a rec room for the kids, and there was also a kitchen area with four stoves. It was the place where they used to have breakfast club and teach the kids some life skills—because these kids all come from challenging backgrounds, and if not for that school, I do not know what they would be doing. And the roof was falling in, and it had been that way for some 18 months. And then I went out to the staff room, and they had chicken wire on the bottom of the staff room door. ‘What’s the chicken wire for?’. ‘Oh, that’s to keep the snakes out’. And I was thinking, ‘Gee, there’s a few issues here’.

I want to thank James Merlino, because I actually had to visit a few other schools that day in the area, and all of them said, ‘Oh, yes, we’ve got to close Ardmona down’. And I thought, ‘Well, hang on, if these kids don’t go to Ardmona, they’re not going anywhere’. And I came back and I spoke to James about it and worked with James and his staff over the next 12 months, and I am so proud—I think it was $593 000. Do not quote me, but it was somewhere in that sort of vicinity. And if you want to have a look at what this school is like now, go on and google Ardmona Primary School. They have now become a school of choice in the area. I am most proud of that project out of everything else I have done.

I know I have gone on and I said I would not, but this is the last time, so just a little bit more. I hope that I have been true to my values in this place. I have tried my best to let them guide me. Sometimes they have gotten me into trouble, I will grant you that, but the repercussions of standing up for my values and my friends were never important to me. It never bothered me that there may be some repercussion for me, that there might be a cost; that did not matter. My values are my values, and they are who I am.

As most of you know, I have had a bit of a perilous journey over the last three years, health wise. I have got to say that on more than one occasion Sue and I were not quite sure about whether we were going to get through it. Things got a bit hairy. In fact what saved me—I will tell you the full story one day—was when Martin Foley stood up last year and announced that there were going to be some restrictions on critical care. That actually saved me. I was on the table at the time and about to undergo a 10-hour operation, and they pulled the pin on it and said, ‘Well, we’ll try something else’, and ‘something else’ seemed to have worked. So—touch wood—thanks, Marty. I appreciate your intervention.

There were some times I could not rise to the challenge; try as I might, I could not answer the bells. That did not sit well with me, because we do have a responsibility in this place, and you should make every effort. There were other days of course when I should not have been here but was able to make it and drag myself over the line. I want to thank all of my colleagues, who knew that there were just times when I could not do it—that I would try, but I would leave a gap, and it might just happen at a moment’s notice. So thank you for picking up the slack.

I also want to particularly acknowledge the opposition, who were aware of the circumstances. Pairing at the time was—and still is—a bit of a prickly issue in this place, but I have got to say that Mr Finn and Mr Ondarchie reached out to me on behalf of the opposition and said, ‘We will always grant you a pair’, and that meant a lot. It gave us a lot of comfort, Sue and I, that if I could not answer the bell, the team would not be punished because I could not get to the line, so thank you.

Very quickly, I want to thank my staff. They are not here. I did not decide until very late that I was going to do it. I know that they are a bit pissed off that I did not forewarn them so that they could come in, but to Antony, Zeynep, Jamie, Lela, Darren and Kate, you are wonderful people, and I am very lucky to have you. I promise that I will buy you lunch, and it might go for a few hours.

Can I thank all of the ALP branches across my electorate of Northern Victoria for their support and for the support that they have given Jaclyn and me. It was never geographically easy for us to get to all of those meetings, and we thank you for your understanding.

My mate Jane is not here. We made a pact that we would do this together. Unfortunately we are not able to do that. It would be remiss of me not to mention her today. I have said a lot about her over the last two months. I thank the family for giving me that opportunity, and yet it does not matter how many times I speak about her, it always seems to be insufficient. Friends for life—sometimes in life you really get lucky. Mr Barton said in an earlier contribution that new friendships get struck up in this place and that they will endure—and they will, absolutely they will. In addition to those new friendships, I have gained two brothers for life. My two Lebanese mates, Nazih and Cesar, you know what you have done, and I love you for it.

To the broader Labor caucus, current and future, I wish you well. Only a Labor government can deliver the sort of life that I think our citizens, our children need and deserve, and I wish you nothing but success. If I can in any way, shape or form turn a vote, then I will turn a vote. I will give it a crack.

To my family, none of us can do this work without the support of our families, and I have had unwavering support from my kids, Amanda and Daniel. Thank you, and I love you. My biggest family support has come from a little mate who I know is watching through that camera. We had a bit of a game that we would play over the last six footy seasons where I would scratch my nose if I was up on my feet and he would know that that was for him. Landen, I do not have to do that today. He gave me a little photo frame on Father’s Day, because he is with his mum and only his mum. He gave me a frame, and on it was the title ‘Best mates’. It was the best gift that I have ever gotten, and the best thing that I am going to do after this, Landen, is spend so much more time with you, mate.

My beautiful wife, Sue, and I first went out on 16 February 1983—it is embedded in my brain—and for all of that time it has been about unions and politics, campaign after campaign. Sue, I do not propose to put you through another 40 years of me. I do not think anyone deserves that. But I do promise that now is your time. I love you.

Finally, solidarity forever, and carn the Tigers!

Members applauded.

The PRESIDENT: We have in the gallery former members Mr Young, Mr Boardman and Mr Theophanous. Welcome.