I'm grateful to be able to speak today on this condolence motion to honour Wal Fife, an enduringly successful former federal member for Hume who had a penchant for people and a knack for numbers. If Wal had written a book on grassroots politics, it would have been a bestseller. No doubt, an entire chapter would have been devoted to the art of village visits—advice he so kindly shared with me when I was a candidate, which I readily absorbed.

Wherever Wagga Wagga went, Wal went. In 1984 he squared off against prominent National Party member Stephen Lusher and a tough Labor candidate for the newly redistributed Hume, which had taken in Wagga. At that stage, Wal had previously been the member for Farrer. Wal was always a gentleman, a man of the people who had time for a yarn. His great friend and adviser and a former Yass Liberal Branch President, Dr Jonathan Williams, recounted to me that Wal's village visits probably swung that election in 1984 in Wal's favour. 'One has to look beyond the Cootamundra dinners,' Wal always used to say. He put that to great effect in 1984, turning up to Wee Jasper, a very small town just outside of Yass that I used to represent, a place Lusher hadn't visited for years. In a few moments, Wal had completely wooed 44 Wee Jasper locals, winning their hearts, minds and approval at the ballot box.

Wal was a statesman of consequence and a mentor of mentors. I like to think that there are many of us in the House today, including myself, benefitting greatly from his legacy. He was the major influence on my predecessor and mentor, the late Alby Schultz, who went on to become the longest serving member for Hume since Federation. 'Wal Fife is the reason I went into politics,' Alby said when he announced his retirement in 2012. 'He guided and nurtured me and is still giving me advice.' Alby, in the same way, guided and nurtured me as a candidate in my early days as the member for Hume. Very much in the Wal Fife mode, Alby would remind me where I came from, to be honest and to make time for people.

Dr Williams always says that Wal was an absolutely outstanding constituency MP. He would dictate to his secretary, Mrs Nugent, constituent replies, notes of personal thanks, birthday cards and vote-winning strategies for particular towns and villages while driving the car from one end of the electorate to the other, which would take, in those days, most of the day.

Alby Schultz's wife, Glo, who remains a very local and close friend, said to me of Wal: 'There was no-one else in politics who carried out their job with more respect for protocol. He was a statesman in every sense of the word.' When Alby contested the seat of Burrinjuck in 1988, Glo recalled Wal being always encouraging and guiding: 'But that didn't stop him from having a quiet word to me on occasion about protocol—about what I should say and what I shouldn't. He was strong on things like that but always warm and encouraging.' Glo says that Wal also used to have a saying—that politics is like a wheel, but the trick was to keep moving forward. He was always making progress in the right direction. Former Deputy PM Tim Fischer, the former member for Farrer, said that Wal had masterminded the establishment of Charles Sturt University. He had worked closely with Dr Cliff Blake, the then vice-chancellor of the Riverina-Murray Institute of Higher Education, to bring the multicampus university into existence. We all see the enormous benefit of that today.

Over a federal parliamentary career spanning 17 years, Wal would serve only the first 18 months on the backbench before his elevation to the Fraser ministry as the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs. He would go on to serve as the Minister for Education from December 1979 to May 1982 and as the Minister for Aviation from May 1982 until the defeat of the government in 1983. He also served three stints as minister assisting the Prime Minister, twice in the area of federal affairs and then, from 1980 to 1983, as the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister in Public Service Matters. He would have marked 70 years as a member of the Liberal Party in January 2018, and 14 December will mark 60 years since he won the state seat of Wagga Wagga. He not only put his life into the Liberal Party; it was his life. Just hours before he died, he was told that he was to be made a life member of the Liberal Party in recognition of his service.

My thoughts and the electorate of Hume's thoughts are with his wife, Marcia; with their children, David, Allan, Carolyn and Susan; and with their 10 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. I offer my deepest condolences to them.