Ms MADELEINE KING (Brand) (16:31): I rise today to pay tribute to Michael Beahan AM, the 19th President of the Australian Senate. Michael Beahan was a true Labor man and a great Australian. His story is one to which so many of us can relate in some way. Like a third of Australians, Michael was a migrant, coming to Australia as a 16-year-old, and he worked at a factory manufacturing electrical equipment. He got an apprenticeship as an electrician and established his own small business. In his late 20s, Michael went back to study as a mature student. He obtained an arts degree and an education degree from the University of Western Australia and became a secondary school teacher. It was this combination of factory-floor background, trade qualification and teacher education that led Mike Beahan to become WA Trades and Labour Council's first ever education officer and later the Trade Union Training Authority's Western Australian director.

In 1981, Beahan became WA Labor's state secretary. He led Labor's successful win from opposition to government at the 1983 state election and then won again in 1986. He also led the WA campaign for the 1983 federal election, again winning government from opposition and turning the erstwhile blue seats of Canning, Moore, Perth, Stirling and Tangney a deep shade of red. Perth has remained a Labor-held seat ever since under the stewardship of that great hockey player and champion Ric Charlesworth, another great hockey player Stephen Smith, Alannah MacTiernan, Tim Hammond and the incumbent, Patrick Gorman. 1983 was also the year in which Wendy Fatin was first elected to parliament as the member for Canning. Wendy, of course, then became the first member for Brand when the seat of Brand was created in 1984. Michael Beahan also led the WA Labor campaign in the 1984 federal election, at which not a single newly won Labor seat was lost to the Liberals. Nor were any WA Labor seats lost in the 1987 federal election, when Beahan was not only state secretary but also elected as a senator for Western Australia.

Michael Beahan's principal legacy during his time as state secretary was the modernisation of WA Labor's campaigning infrastructure, practice and culture. He brought new techniques and a new approach to campaigning. Beahan saw the value of modern campaign technology, from imagery to lines and themes—things that all of us here in this place would know now as common tools in the campaign arsenal. In the 1980s they were new and innovative. Michael Beahan championed campaign innovation and training and ensured that those who followed him would be best placed to steward the Labor Party forward.

Much will be said of Beahan's time in parliament as a senator. Unsurprisingly, he became a leader within the parliamentary party and of the Senate itself. Among Michael's lasting legacies is the art collection of the parliament and the acquisition program that he was responsible for creating. When he arrived in this parliament there was little art from Western Australia, Queensland or the NT and no urban Aboriginal art at all. This has changed. Now the corridors and our offices see art from everywhere in the nation, including art by many emerging artists. When I was first elected in 2016, I was very keen to see what was hidden in the basement of the parliament, where the collection is carefully stored. It is a wonderful treasure trove, and I thank the curator for facilitating a tour a number of years ago. It's a very great honour and a privilege for each of us to be able to select art for our office walls. Members and senators get to see a trolley load of art. Those who look after this collection come and see us in our offices and offer us these great gifts to mind for a while, and we should be very grateful for them. That is all thanks to Michael Beahan.

I often reflect in this place on how interrelated we all are, particularly in politics. I never met Michael Beahan, nor worked with him within the movement, but his successor as WA Labor state secretary was Stephen Smith, with whom I worked at the Perth USAsia Centre at UWA. From what I understand, Beahan, like Smith, was a big fan of Paul Keating's prime ministership. Moreover, Michael Beahan used his influence within the ALP to ensure the election of Gary Gray as national secretary from 1993 to 2000. Gary was, of course, my predecessor as the member for Brand and remains a valued political mentor to me and many members in this place—and now is also the Australian Ambassador to Ireland, based in Dublin, and I hope he is well.

So there is no doubt I owe my presence in this chamber today in no small way to this man whose life we are commemorating in this condolence motion. It is an honour to stand on the shoulders of giants like Michael Beahan. I express my sincere condolences to his family and loved ones; I hope your memories of Michael provide you solace and comfort in these challenging and sad times.