Media
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Speeches
June 24, 2026
I acknowledge my fellow nominees – each of them have already achieved important things in public life, and I have no doubt they will continue to have significant impact in their parliamentary careers.
There are many great causes for philanthropy in our country, but perhaps none more ambitious than McKinnon’s mission to improve the quality of politicians in Australia.
But I think they are right. Better politicians means a stronger democracy.
And I personally appreciate McKinnon’s investment in me.
I completed their Advanced Political Leadership Program in 2022, and in 2023 they supported me to attend an executive education course in national security at Harvard.
Growing up I never thought opportunities like this would be available to me.
I am very grateful for this award, and particularly to receive it at this time in the political cycle for my party.
I think it recognises the importance of strong opposition in a healthy parliamentary democracy.
One of the worst pieces of advice we give parliamentarians entering opposition for the first time is this: your worst day in government is better than your best day in opposition.
When I was told this four years ago I was pretty concerned. We had some pretty bad days in government.
Happily, this has not been my experience.
While of course I hope to serve as a Minister in government one day, you can serve your country and the national interest from the backbench, crossbench and opposition.
And it is an immense privilege to serve in any elected office.
Without yet having served a day from the Ministerial wing of parliament house, I am proud of the impact I’ve had as a parliamentarian.
I helped stop Australia ratifying an extradition treaty with the People’s Republic of China.
I secured the listing of Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organisations in their entirety for the first time.
I championed the Magnitsky sanctions regime and the foreign arrangements scheme.
I exposed thousands of devices from high risk vendors across Commonwealth agencies, leading to their removal, and a ban of high-risk apps from government devices.
And despite the Coalition’s significant loss at the last election, one of our signature national security policies – the restoration of the Home Affairs portfolio – was subsequently adopted by the government.
I worked with likeminded colleagues to achieve every one of these policy changes, often on a bipartisan basis.
And regardless of whose name was on the Ministerial letterhead, they made our country safer and more secure.
The founder of my party, Robert Menzies, recognised the importance of opposition in a parliamentary democracy.
In The Measure of the Years, published in 1970, he wrote:
“Opposition must be regarded as a great constructive period in the life of a party. Properly considered, not a period in the wilderness, but a period of preparations for the high responsibilities which you hope will come.”
There is a lesson in this for the Liberal Party today.
While we of course seek electoral success, returning to government for its own sake can never be our primary objective.
Instead, we must demonstrate we will fight for the national interest, and the Australian people, from whatever office we hold in the political system.
Because Australians, not unreasonably, are much less concerned about which side of the house we sit on than what we deliver for them.
Only when we demonstrate that consistently over time will we again earn the trust and support of the Australian people to govern.
Generally the only opportunities we have to publicly thank our families in politics is our maiden and valedictory speeches, so I am thankful to McKinnon for proving another chance for me to do that tonight.
I am immensely grateful to my wife Lydia, who remarkably balances her own substantial professional responsibilities with supporting me and raising our two children during my frequent absences.
William and Emily are here tonight too and I hope this gives them a better sense of what I do.
They both often demand that I explain which “real laws” I have passed, because apparently “securing the passage of Magnitsky style sanctions against foreign corrupt officials and human rights abusers” does not roll off the tongue in the playground.
But I do hope my work here, in whatever position I hold, allows my generation to pass on to theirs the sovereign liberal democracy that we inherited from previous generations.
Thank you.
ENDS