Analysing Greg Hunt's retirement speech

With a federal election on the horizon, it is retirement season as MPs either exit the stage of their own accord or try to pass off an internal knifing as their own choice.

Retirement speeches are very different to most speeches MPs will deliver in Parliament. Hostility can give way to magnanimity, including to the other side. Bluster gives way to candour, even vulnerability (especially if a Member’s family is mentioned). The relentless march to the future turns and glances over its shoulder to past achievements. 

They also make good candidates for analysis. I’ll spend some time over the summer months looking at retirement speeches and trying to understand what a Member said, what they really said, and how they said it.

It’s fitting to begin with Greg Hunt, the Federal Health Minister. He was, after all, the face of the Government’s response to Covid-19 and it is this gargantuan effort that most Australians will remember him for. It is no surprise then that this workload, and the stress it caused, is a big part of why Hunt has chosen to retire now. I am sure it’s made the last two years of his two-decade stint in Parliament (he was first elected Member for Flinders in 2001) feel more like ten.

So let’s take a closer look at Hunt’s speech (here’s the full text from Hansard).

Note: I cut out a small part of the speech – a short thanks to some Liberal Party staff – because it was boring, fixed a small typo, and grouped the speech into sections based on my own analysis. The full, unabridged speech can be read at the link above.

The opening: looking forward

Well, it's been a slightly busy term! When I think back to the fear and the concern of this House and this country in February and March last year, and I look at that which has occurred around the world and the lives that have been saved here by comparison, I'm so proud of this government, of this parliament and of this nation, and all the things that have been done to save lives and protect lives. I'm confident that, in the systems that are in place of the Chief Medical Officer and the Department of Health, the National Security Committee, the National Incident Centre and the national cabinet, and in the leadership of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer providing the guiding way, the country is well prepared for the future. There will be challenges, but we are well prepared for that future. To have in some small way stood beside them at the time they made the biggest of decisions, and to have hopefully helped, has been an immense privilege.

It’s no surprise that Hunt leads with Covid-19. It has dominated the last two years of public life, his Ministerial portfolio, and I’ve no doubt it has also dominated his private life. 

But Hunt doesn’t focus on the hardship. He doesn’t emphasise the dark days and long weeks spent trying to get to grips with the pandemic (helpfully, there were speeches delivered by his Cabinet colleagues which did that). He wants us to feel proud of the undoubtedly good results which the Australian Government, relative to most other nations, has been able to deliver and secure in the knowledge that his Ministerial responsibilities can be handed over.

The final note about the “immense privilege” of having “in some small way stood beside them [Scott Morrison, Josh Frydenberg, et al]” is a common but still deft touch. Why claim credit for oneself when it can be better spent on those who will need it come election time?

The decision

But for all the time that we have spent together, and as fond as I am of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, my heart is ultimately elsewhere—sorry, Josh! It is with my family. My amazing wife, Paula, who is in the gallery today, is a nurse, carer, counsellor and confidante. But perhaps above all else she's raised two beautiful children largely as a single mother. I am so immensely proud of Poppy, who is going into year 11, and of James, who is about to go into senior school. They're both getting awards this week, and, again, I'm not there. On Sunday they looked at me and said: 'Dad, this is your last chance to be a proper dad. It's time to come home, Dad.' So, earlier today, I spoke with the Prime Minister and my electorate chairman, and I informed them that I would not be contesting the next election. 

This section, which contains the first and most important reference to Hunt’s family as well as the actual confirmation of his retirement, is the emotional core of the speech. Accordingly, I think this section contains the speech’s highest moment, as well as its lowest.

First, to the mis-step. It is clear he loves his wife and adores his children. I can’t imagine the pressure the last two years (never mind the last twenty) would have taken on the whole family. Yet despite this, it still seems to me a slightly jarring choice of words to say that his wife has raised their children “largely as a single mother”. I’d have opted for different wording, perhaps the following: But, perhaps above all else, she's raised two beautiful children despite all the times she was deprived of my presence.

But if Hunt here makes a slight mis-step, in the next breath he arrives at the part of the speech that will be best remembered. If you saw coverage of his farewell speech on the TV news, then you likely saw a clip of Hunt, voice thick with emotion, saying “On Sunday they looked at me and said: 'Dad, this is your last chance to be a proper dad. It's time to come home, Dad.'” It’s a minor heartbreak, a reminder of the toll of high-level political life, and a reason everyone can recognise.

The promise

This may come as a surprise to some of you, for the reason that the very ideas and structures that brought me into this place are still the things that I love and believe in. For the great Liberal Party—from Menzies's 'forgotten people' to Howard's 'battlers' to Scott Morrison's 'quiet Australians'—the golden thread which has run through the life of this party has been the simple belief that it's our task to try to give every Australian the best chance at the life of their choice. I would never be here but for the gift of the party.

I'm very confident in the future of our local party. I think it is time, subject to the will of the local branch members, for a strong, brilliant woman to be the Liberal candidate for Flinders. And I'm very confident about the future of this great party in this coalition. I look at the incredible talent on the back bench, the middle bench and the front bench, and I know that in the leadership of the Prime Minister we see someone where the bigger the issue, the clearer he knows the way. That's it. I think that's because he understands Australians, and he trusts Australians.

As much as I love the Liberal Party, I love this place more. My father said of the parliament: 'Honour the parliament. Be a parliamentarian before a politician.' This week I have seen this parliament at its absolute highest, with the passage of Maeve's law: government and opposition and crossbench working together for both the yes and the no case, and the yes and the no case working together for the dignity of the parliament.

In this section, Hunt pays tribute to the touchstones of his political life: the Liberal Party and the Parliament.

I think Hunt strains slightly beyond the point of credibility in trying to draw a single straight line from Menzies through to Howard and Morrison. Of course he would want to use the noblest interpretation of the Liberal Party’s leaders and imbue the party with a coherent ideological vision. But I think that, between these three, there are too many ideological differences and too many illiberal detours to political opportunism to save the furniture to make the analogy to a “golden thread” of liberalism successful.

Hunt’s explicit wish (hedged by his obedience to the local pre-selection process) for a “strong, brilliant woman” to be the next Liberal candidate for his seat of Flinders is the closest this speech gets to a newsworthy announcement. It’s a gesture which I’m sure will have ramifications for the pre-selection process but also manages to be consistent with Hunt’s small l-liberal profile – not a formal diktat, rather a gentle nudge.

He follows it with a declaration of love for Parliament and what it can achieve when left and right work together. Note that the suggestion that Parliament works best in moments of bipartisanship (rather than, say, the passage of socially necessary but partisan legislation) is a bit of a rhetorical sleight-of-hand – eminently reasonable on its face, but still expressing a definite view of the world.

The thanks

That reminds me of a second rule which I've learnt along the way: always turn your back from the cameras when you're putting your mask on! My staff taught me that—a little late! But none of us would be anything without our staff, and I want to thank the incredible staff—from all of us to all of them, but, particularly, from me to my staff. They have kept Australia safe, and they have worked throughout night and day during the course of this pandemic and throughout the last 20 years. I can't name all of them, but I do want to note there are six who have served for a decade: Lynne Strahan, Sarah Meredith, Tina McGuffy, Denise Garnock, Lisa Burgess and the incredible Wendy Black, who has been chief of staff for a decade. But there's a seventh. I want to acknowledge Joanne Tester as well, who, along with Wendy, has been the unrelenting and extraordinary joint chief of staff during the course of this term. You get double points for a pandemic, Jo!

But there is one more thing. The highest of all honours is the simplest. We are all representatives, and I have been graced and favoured by the people of Flinders to represent the area in which I grew up—the Mornington Peninsula and Western Port—and our strongest role is when we are partners with our community. Gunnamatta Ocean Beach, Point Nepean, the Somerville Secondary College, Balcombe Grammar, the Mornington cancer centre and the Abacus autism centre in Hastings—all of these things are meaningful and real.

This section has two parts: a gracious thanks to his staff, and gratitude to the people of Flinders for having him as their representative for two decades. The nod to different community institutions, which I’m sure are spaced evenly throughout the seat of Flinders, as being “meaningful and real” is the well-worn but still well-delivered evocation of politics as the yeoman’s task of helping local people get their voice heard.

The constituent story

But my most cherished possession is a simple letter that I received some years ago from Olivia. Olivia is the mum of Bella, who at the time was five. They were a family from a dairy and potato farm at Cora Lynn, just outside of Koo Wee Rup. Olivia said to me that Bella had an ultra-rare genetic enzyme condition, which led to liver fibrosis and that it was a terminal condition without treatment. It's so rare that there may at any one time be one child in Australia with it. There was no medicine in Australia and there was never going to be one that was listed. But, at her request, we asked the company to provide compassionate access from overseas, and thankfully they gave us the grace and did that. It's the letter on her 6th birthday, which I keep behind my desk, which I wish to read briefly: 'Isabella celebrated her 6th birthday at the start of August, and I thought this was a great opportunity to thank you and update you on her progress. We are overwhelmed with her response to the Kanuma infusion she started two months ago. She's a changed little girl. Most notable for us is that she is no longer in constant pain. She's started to build muscle. She has bounds of new energy. She spends most her free time playing on the gym rings outside. We hope to enrol her in gymnastics class soon.' Well, she's just turned nine. They did enrol her in gymnastics—and in soccer, and in cross-country. And, if there had been nothing else in these last 20 years, that alone would have been enough.

The right anecdote does a lot of heavy lifting in a speech. It can provide emotional weight while also being the ideal encapsulation of the speaker’s message, delivered using another’s story. And the beauty is that, done right, it doesn’t look like heavy lifting.

This one is well-chosen – a genuinely touching story which illustrates Hunt’s commitment to his constituents and his mission as Health Minister. 

The close

But now, Mr Speaker, it's time to turn to focus on another family: Paula, Poppy, James, Elsa and Charlie the cavoodle. And there's a lot more to do over the next six months. To paraphrase my favourite film, The Princess Bride—we've all got our secrets—there's a country to protect, medicines to list, a budget to prepare and an election to win, but, when all of that is done, it will be time to come home. I honour the House.

This is nice – a final nod to the family, including the family dog, and glance cast proudly ahead. The little peek into his private life with the reference to The Princess Bride (a great film!), and a reminder that his and his Party’s work in this term of Parliament is not yet over.

Concluding thoughts

Greg Hunt’s retirement speech didn’t break the mould. But it was a good example of the form.

It was heavy on family and gratitude. It was delivered with genuine emotion and thanks to the people who helped him survive and prosper in the brutal arena of federal politics. Perhaps the most unusual thing about it is that Hunt didn’t linger on his own political achievements, or even really the achievements of the governments he has been part of (by my rough maths, he has been in the party of government for 14 of his 20 years as an MP). He has no more elections to win.

Hunt also doesn’t linger for long on Covid-19. He opts to just use the pandemic and the reasonably good current state of the pandemic as his legacy piece – after many months of hard work, a magnanimous handing-off to others who can continue the work. A wise choice.

I can certainly point to the specific (the slow initial pace of Australia’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout) and the general (his party and ideological affiliation) things which I disagree with Greg Hunt on. But he is one of the more decent members of a Government which has often failed to meet that modest demand. I hope his retirement from politics provides him with the time he seeks.