E&OE….
Topics: Passing of Don Randall, 500km Walk for Autism
MARK PARTON:
Greg Hunt is the Federal Environment Minister, he’s on the line right now. Morning Greg.
GREG HUNT:
Good morning Mark.
MARK PARTON:
Don Randall – what a shock.
GREG HUNT:
Yeah look, I found out from a text from a close friend last night, somewhere after about 7.30 and I sort of immediately looked it up on the web and I was just really shocked. Don I know incredibly well.
I’ve been out to his electorate a lot, we’ve worked on a lot of his environmental issues locally, the Peel Harvey Catchment and there were two things about him. One is he was a big, passionate guy in terms of his electorate and his family and he was a really good family man. I mean, you can say that, but he really was just an incredible family man.
MARK PARTON:
He was a very different Member though too, wasn’t he? He just – he didn’t play the game in the way that many elected Members do.
GREG HUNT:
No, no, no. And, you know, he loved his area and fought really hard for them and in a difficult seat, they loved him back and then a great example is he would train up his staff, he’d get good staff, but he would always be trying to help them go on to other offices to advance their career. He was never holding them back, he was always searching, so one of my fantastic staff members, Nicole, came from his office.
He sort of promoted and advanced her and taught her the ropes. She was really close to the family and so this is the sort of thing that he did with each of his staff members, to give them a pathway forwards and that made it harder for him because people would go on and up. But that was a real indicator of the type of generosity of spirit that he had. I’m just really pretty shaken up.
MARK PARTON:
I can imagine and I can imagine too that when you were first given the advice that this has occurred that when you checked it online you checked it to see if it was true.
GREG HUNT:
That’s correct. Because obviously it was only just a few weeks ago that we were all with Don and I checked a series of sites, the main news sites across all of the different outlets and sadly it was clearly true and not long afterwards we had a message from the Whip who was confirming that reports were accurate and it’s just – somebody you know well, they’ve you know, you’re quite shaken up.
Similarly in the environment movement there was a very capable and passionate campaigner for the environment, Felicity Wishart, who was – is my age, 49, and by all reports she passed away in her sleep only a couple of days ago. So it reminds you, you have to enjoy what you’re doing…
MARK PARTON:
Oh you do.
GREG HUNT:
…but at the end of the day the family and the friends – that’s what’s going to be here after we’re gone.
MARK PARTON:
Yes very much so. It does remind us how important every day is. Now I want to move on, if I can, to…
GREG HUNT:
Sure, of course.
MARK PARTON:
…what it is that you’re doing right now and that’s your 500km walk for Autism. You’re in an absolutely gorgeous part of the world at – where are you at the moment?
GREG HUNT:
So today we’re starting from Mt Martha…
MARK PARTON:
Mt Martha, Mt Martha.
GREG HUNT:
…and so I’m fortunate because that’s where I live. We’re Day 3, we’re about 60km’s into the walk and what it’s doing is visiting all of the schools but also walking around the electorate and visiting all of the towns and we’re raising awareness for and we talk about Autism in a very positive way in each of the schools.
And then we’re raising funds for a little Autism kindergarten, called Abacus, which makes incredible transformation in the ability of kids to be verbal, to integrate into school and I’ve had so many parents from Abacus talk to me about the fact that their children’s lives have changed and their lives have changed. And again it puts everything into perspective about what’s important and what’s not so important.
MARK PARTON:
But how hard is it? I mean, you’re Federal Environment Minister – I dread to think what you’re diary looks like on some days. How tough is it to clear out all this time to do stuff like this?
GREG HUNT:
Well of course you’re always a Member of Parliament. First and foremost you’re a Member of the House of Representatives. That’s actually a fundamental constitutional role. So we cleared the diary six months ago, blocked out these three weeks and along the way you get to visit every school, so more than 50 schools in three weeks.
And people will join the walk every day, so we’re doing mobile walking meetings, I’ll have people from the Italian Club who wanted to come and meet me, I’ve had people from local environment groups, I’ve had people who wanted to discuss council issues, planning, things that may not necessarily be in my portfolio but always come into the job as the electorate.
So throughout the day you’ve got the mobile phone and you do all the portfolio work, you meet with constituents, you visit the schools and then in the evenings the office will drop me a bag of paperwork that I have to go through.
MARK PARTON:
Oh good, oh joy! And I bet you find on these sort of events that there’ll be occasions where you walk with constituents who are diametrically opposed to what, you know, the position that your party holds on things, but they just come together…
GREG HUNT:
Oh absolutely.
MARK PARTON:
…on issues like this. At the end of the day everyone’s, you know, everyone’s an Aussie.
GREG HUNT:
Exactly. Look I had a fantastic guy who’s a school council president who walked with me for about five km’s on Monday. A great school council president and we’ve worked on cleaning up what’s called the Gunnamatta outfall over the years and he – we were talking about all these issues, but we met with his school and he’s saying, look we may not see eye to eye on some of the political issues, but we really do on some of the environmental and on Autism, and I said to him you know, I’m shocked you’re not one of our voters, but I’ll learn to live with it.
But we had this wonderful time walking and talking and then he sort of dropped off and more people came on and so it’s a great experience walking around the electorate. Some mornings it’s very cold, others it can be a little blustery or wet, but it’s also beautiful.
MARK PARTON:
Good stuff. Mate, if you were walking anywhere near me I’d come and join you today, but it’s not the case. Thanks for coming on the radio anyway.
GREG HUNT:
Take care. Bye bye.
MARK PARTON:
Greg Hunt, the Federal Environment Minister.
(ENDS)