Mr FERGUSON (Bass – Deputy Premier) – Mr Speaker, today the Parliament of Tasmania honours the life, faith and duty of our beloved late Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia.
On the night we were advised of the Queen’s deteriorating health, like many others I was greatly affected and slept poorly. I awoke around 4.00 a.m. to discover the sad news. For the rest of that day, and the days since, like countless others I felt an immediate sense of change; that we were now living in a world without Queen Elizabeth; that one of the pillars of our global community had given way.
Many Tasmanians have experienced the same distinct realisation that a discernible age of modern history, in which we have lived, has ended.
As the Prime Minister stated:
"With the passing of Queen Elizabeth, the historic reign, and a long life devoted to duty, family, faith and service, has come to an end. The second Elizabethan age is over."
On behalf of the people of Bass, and Tasmanians, I express my heartfelt and sincere appreciation, respect and admiration for the life – and life of service – of her late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth. I acknowledge the tributes already given by the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition at our last shortened sitting. There have been countless acts of mourning, many spoken words and many ceremonies. We have expressed disbelief, gratitude and sorrow.
From London, England, to Launceston, Australia, the peoples of many nations have united in a time of mourning. This, of course, amounts to billions of people expressing their personal sorrow in their own ways. For those of us in public life, we understand what it means to live in service to our community. We, as elected officials, realise we are never off-duty. We do not work nine to five. People in our communities recognise us wherever we go.
However, there is a major difference between a parliamentarian’s life of service and the kind demonstrated by our late Queen. When our voters have had enough of us or we choose to retire, our life of service is over, and we return to our family and personal interests. A parliamentarian who serves, say, 20 years is said to have had a long career in politics. Not so with our Queen and now our King. Theirs is quite literally a life of service, walking the line between public leadership as well as public service, sworn to do so for the full extent of their natural lives. There is no retirement. The difference is very real between our political lives of service and the unmatched legacy of the Queen, having celebrated her 70th year Platinum Jubilee as the highest decision-maker in our Westminster system of government, at the age of 96.
Before she even took the throne, Elizabeth was ready for a life of service. She made it known on her 21st birthday, in 1947:
“I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong, but I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join it with me, as I now invite you to do. I know that your support will be unfailingly given. God help me to make good my vow and God bless all of you who are willing to share it.”
The proof is there if we needed it. Even two days before her passing, Her Majesty was commissioning a new prime minister – look at that beautiful photograph – with a smile. I imagine she must have been so uncomfortable. I think about that a lot, knowing how hard final days can be. How very selfless of her. Those of us lucky enough to be able to tell our own children we lived in this time will always be able to remember Her Majesty as an inspired, disciplined leader who carried herself with enormous dignity, humility and decency.
However, she wore her crown only lightly. Make no mistake of her genuine affections for the people of our state, and our nation, Australia. For example, her humility on display whenever asked about the future of our constitution, Her Majesty said she trusted us to decide for ourselves and remained at our service as sovereign. It is well known that she was nonetheless delighted at the results of the referendum.
In respect of my own feelings, I realise that my perception of such sudden change, of living in a world without Queen Elizabeth, and the sense that one of the pillars of our global community had given way, our feelings that have flowed up from the well of security, stability, honour and trust of living in the Westminster system of constitutional monarchy with a stable, peaceful democracy. These feelings, in my own way, are a reminder that we do not have each other forever. Is this not the way we always feel when we lose someone we love? A parent, a grandparent, a close friend, a sovereign. Over time, we must allow the deep sorrow that we and our community are feeling to shift instead to a deep thanksgiving for the privilege of having such a remarkable sovereign in our own lifetime.
In 1952, after deteriorating health, the young princess’s father, King George VI, passed away. Her Majesty was a young woman at just 25 when she received the news – first of the fact that her father’s death had occurred, and second, that she was already Queen. In the public mourning, we gain a small insight into her own private sorrows on the day of her accession, the day when she lost her greatly loved father.
Many Tasmanians will remember her seven visits to our island state, always with such an effort to reach the regions to converse with all levels of society, from the suited premiers to the young mums, from the business people to the mayors, to the farmers, to the school kids. One of my unfulfilled hopes was to meet Her Majesty, however like millions of others, I felt privileged just to see her from a distance on two of her visits.
Her late Majesty the Queen was a woman of strong but quiet faith. Her title, Defender of the Faith, is an ancient one with centuries of tradition. It is a form of words that while important and relevant, nonetheless has a clouding effect of what is and what must be the essence of the very personal nature of Christian faith; a relationship of trust, obedience and hope in a personal saviour; a personal faith, not an institutional one alone. In a speech in 1981, she said:
“I know just how much I rely on my faith to guide me through the good times and the bad. Each day is a new beginning. I know that the only way to live my life is to try to do what is right, to take the long view, to give of my best in all that the day brings and to put my trust in God.”
The people of so many nations, both Commonwealth and not, have joined together to mark our late Queen during these past three weeks. We have united around a common bond of respect for Queen Elizabeth II as head of state, but also love for the person herself, Elizabeth, a person of conviction, integrity, trust and kindness. We have lived to see a queen for seven decades in full public view show what it looks like to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God.
We have loved her, and from the earliest of days there was that simple and hopeful trust that our monarch would act with duty and care for us and protect our way of life while also, strictly speaking, rule over us. Looking at history’s list of kings and queens, we know that such simple and hopeful trust can be poorly and tragically misplaced. Not so with our gracious late Queen Elizabeth. We honour her today because she lived her life not only as sovereign reigning over us but at the same time living with her Christian humility and submission to her own king whom she publicly recognised throughout her life and, most memorably, in her now famous Royal Christmas Messages shared on radio and television.
With various people in authority around the world, whether in government, business or organisations, we see the combination of great power and great humility extremely rarely, but we have seen it in Queen Elizabeth. We have enjoyed it, we have benefited from it and we have admired it.
As I close, I will quote from her 2011 Royal Christmas Message. Her Majesty spoke about forgiveness, a subject we do not hear very much about these days, and said:
“Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves, from our recklessness or our greed.
God sent into the world a unique person, neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a saviour with the power to forgive. Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God’s love.”
Let us reflect with thankfulness for the life of our beloved late Queen Elizabeth and choose to take this chance to dedicate our own lives to our families, our nation and our local community in honour of the great and unmatched legacy Her Majesty has left for us all.
