The 2024 Speaker's Lecture was delivered by journalist Niki Savva on 9 September in Parliament House. Ms Savva's speech and the Q&A session held afterwards can also be viewed on the House of Representatives YouTube channel.
The full text of Ms Savva's speech, as well as introductions from Clerk of the House, Claressa Surtees, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Hon. Milton Dick MP, are reproduced below.
Introduction from the Clerk of the House of Representatives, Claressa Surtees
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Speaker's Lecture for 2024. My name is Claressa Surtees and I'm the Clerk of the House of Representatives.
Let me begin by acknowledging and paying my respects to the traditional custodians of the Canberra region. I acknowledge that where we meet today has been the meeting place for the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples for thousands of years. I also acknowledge the cultures of any Indigenous people present with us today.
I acknowledge that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Honourable Milton Dick MP, is here hosting the event. I also acknowledge other honourable members. And I acknowledge two former Clerks of the House, Bernard Wright and David Elder. And of course, I acknowledge all the guests that have come along to listen to today's lecture.
The program of business for the House of Representatives means that we're not expecting any interruptions today, so let's hope that's the case. Following the lecture, there will be an opportunity for questions.
I'd now like to take the opportunity to introduce the Speaker of the House to you. He was first elected to the House of Representatives by the people of Oxley in Queensland in 2016, and he was re-elected in 2019 and 2022. After being sworn in for this, his third term as a member, Milton Dick MP was elected by members of the House as the 32nd Speaker of the House of Representatives. So, with those words I hand over to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Honourable Milton Dick MP.
The Hon Milton Dick MP, Speaker of the House of Representatives
Thanks very much, Claressa, and good morning, everyone. Can I too also welcome you all to the nation's Parliament, and of course acknowledge that we are meeting on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, the traditional owners, and pay my respects to elders, past, present, emerging, and extend that respect to First Nations People that are here today.
To the parliamentary colleagues that have joined us today: thank you for attending, and in particular the President of the Senate, the Honourable Sue Lines, to the former clerks, and I want to acknowledge the current clerk, Ms Claressa Surtees. Ms Surtees became the 17th Clerk of the House of Representatives in 2019, the first woman to hold that position as well, having worked here for over 30 years; she was also the first female Deputy Clerk of the House, a trailblazer in her own right.
To the secretary of the department, Rob Stefanic and all the parliamentary staff and the members of the Department of House of Representatives, a warm welcome, and of course, to all of Niki's close contacts, friends and family.
I think Niki would be one of those people that you just want to get your hands on her phone and read all the messages – that would be a book in itself! But it is a great pleasure to welcome you here to the Speaker’s Lecture 2024. This series began in 2018 in recognition of the building's 30th anniversary and as the Clerk said, as the 32nd Speaker, it's my mission to acknowledge and welcome as many Australians to their nation’s parliament as possible.
Now today's lecture is by one of Australia's leading media professionals, and the Australian media play a very important role in our democracy. And something, I think it is fair to say, is taken for granted by some of us. In our parliament we are lucky, depending on who you talk to, to have a press gallery full of different media outlets, large, small, independent embedded here, right here in the heart of our democracy.
We have very experienced and trusted journalists and political commentators that have been part of our federal parliamentary press gallery for decades. Some that have been here for Australia's pivotal political moments.
Now this lecture series provides some of our most experienced political journalists a platform to share their unique perspectives.
So today I'm so honoured to introduce the 4th lecture as part of this series, to be delivered by none other than Niki Savva. A number of my colleagues have asked me how did I choose last year's speaker, Michelle Grattan, and this year's speaker, Niki Savva. There's no rocket science to this they were simply the favourite journalists of my late parents. My father loved reading about all of the goings on at Parliament House. They were a classic Brisbane family who always had the radio on day or night, always watched the news at 6:00 pm, subscribed to journals, magazines and read every piece of the newspaper front and back.
A couple of years ago before Mum died, I asked out of nothing, why do you like Niki Savva so much? And she said, well, she seems to be a nice lady, who know what's going on.
So, I was so pleased that Niki accepted my invitation to deliver the 2024 Speaker's Lecture. She's an award-winning journalist, author and political commentator. Her extraordinary career spans over 5 decades and I don't know about anyone else, but she doesn't seem to age.
She's worked for the Australian, the Herald Sun and the Age as a correspondent Bureau Chief. In 2016 she received a lifetime achievement award from the Melbourne Press Club for her outstanding coverage of Australian politics as a reporter, columnist and author. Of course, her recent publications, The Road to Ruin in 2016, Plots and Players in 2019 and Bulldozed in 2022 have all been captivating reads with thoughtful and insightful analysis.
Laurie Oakes once described Niki as someone who writes without fear, tells it like she sees it, doesn't run with the pack and doesn't flinch under fire. She's made an extraordinary contribution to public debate, and this should be celebrated.
Please welcome Niki Savva.
2024 Speaker's Lecture delivered by Niki Savva
I suddenly feel incredibly old. But anyway, I'll press on. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for coming. And thank you for the very kind introductions.
I begin by paying my respects to the original owners of this land, to elders past, present and emerging.
Thank you, Milton, for inviting me to deliver the speaker's lecture this year. It is an honour and completely overwhelming. My initial inclination to refuse was overpowered by my fear of offending the most powerful man in parliament. And one of the nicest.
Recently, I asked a prominent frontbencher to describe Milton. This MP was effusive, calling him remarkable, decent, gracious, intelligent. On and on he went about the kindness Speaker Dick had shown to his young staffer and the flowers he had sent to his wife after unexpected surgery, commiserating that she would have to endure her husband's cooking during recovery.
If you thought it was a Labor MP boosting one of their own, you would be wrong. It was the former deputy prime minister and leader of the National Party, Michael McCormack.
That tells you a little something about Parliament House and about politics. It is possible, even in these fraught times, to disagree and to be friends.
But it is rare, and much rarer here than it was in Old Parliament House, where friendships across the aisle were common, accepted and unavoidable, thanks to the intimate spaces everyone was compelled to share.
Not all the blame for the steep decline of tolerance and civility in political discourse rests with this building – and Mr Speaker is trying to rebuild respect with cross-party gatherings.
It's no mystery why it is difficult to forge friendships here. The stakes are so high, the ego is so immense and the stabbing for power so brutal and relentless. And that's just from your own side.
This is the most important building in the country, filled with the most powerful people, not all of them elected.
What happens here affects the national mood. We can infect and shape popular sentiment. We can inform, inspire, alienate or divide.
Every decision made here matters, every single person in this place can contribute to safeguarding democracy, restoring trust and ensuring good governance. Or can diminish it.
Sadly, too often we lapse – myself included – forgetting the great privilege and responsibility we have.
On the bright side, most politicians are decent people, here for the right reasons, conscious of their obligations to their communities.
There are still great journalists – Nick McKenzie, Hedley Thomas, Kate McClymont – and others in the press gallery, who work day and night, not just after dark, who succeed without paying for cocaine or massages.
We are rightly proud of our system of government: federation, compulsory preferential voting, a bicameral parliament with checks and balances, the capacity to remove non-performing prime ministers between elections, a largely independent public service.
So why do so many politicians and media wilfully or recklessly seek to undermine all that has been achieved by peaceful means over more than 120 years?
Why do warriors of left and right trawl for fights, whether on gender, climate change, immigration, race or religion?
Privately, they confess they believe politics is pointless without conflict. The last thing they want is resolution.
Obviously, policies of substance have to be robustly debated, but today it's the culture wars that excite passion, commitment and misinformation.
Battle lines are defined by feelings, not facts. The sensible centre is disenfranchised and disillusioned. The consequences are deeply worrying.
Trust between politicians and people, between politicians and journalists, between journalists and their audiences, is being eroded by those who thrive on discord, who avoid, distort or hide the truth, or hunt for clicks rather than facts.
The rot did not begin with social media, but it has certainly enabled and accelerated the decline in civility and the rise of mistrust.
The 24 hours news cycle imposes terrible pressures on journalists and politicians. There is little time to reflect on what to publish, even less on how to respond.
Nevertheless, basic rules should still apply. For reporters, it is to get it right and to get it first. For politicians, who spend their lives making important decisions under intense pressure, it is to pause and think before speaking or committing.
Trust frays when politicians break their promises – when they promise to fully implement a policy, deliver only part, then pretend they haven't reneged.
It frays when prime ministers secretly swear themselves into portfolios without the knowledge or consent of colleagues and parliament.
It frays when journalists get it wrong, twist their reporting to suit their agendas or those of their proprietors, or are intimidated or seduced by their subjects.
Today, we no longer instinctively vote for one party or the other, we no longer get our news from the same sources, if we bother to seek it out at all. Nor do we watch the same TV shows at the same time.
We connect instantly with strangers across the globe yet know little about our neighbours or those who govern us. We don't know who to trust, so many of us end up trusting nobody.
Numerous reputable surveys have recorded the decline.
In March 2024, the trust and satisfaction in Australian Democracy survey by the Australian Public Service Commission documented the attitudes of 6000 Australians. 53% agreed Australia’s democracy was on the right track, 15% said it wasn’t and 28% neither agreed nor disagreed.
As the report noted, almost half weren't sure their democracy was going in the right direction. The latest OECD survey on trust found political parties at 34% and news media at 41%, were the least trusted institutions in Australia.
In June 2024, the news and media Research Centre at the University of Canberra found trust in news generally fell slightly to 40%.
Distrust rose faster than trust in news.
Distrust increased 8% to 33%, reaching its highest point since 2016. Women were the most distrustful.
Almost half of Australians rely on social media for general news. Young people use it almost exclusively. Gen Z say if their sites drop news, they will not seek it out elsewhere.
Reputable independent media has seldom been so important, and seldom has its existence been so threatened.
Previously, politicians could refute accusations of inappropriate or inaccurate comments, confident no audio or visual proof existed to contradict them. Deep fakes have changed all that. The laws need to change too, and quickly, to ban their use in campaigns.
It's a bleak outlook – made bleaker because politicians and journalists who should know better exploit voters fears, feed conspiracy theorists or provide them with platforms to spread their particular poison.
Feeding the mistrust, cannibalising the competition, not only sows the seeds of their own demise, it threatens our democratic foundations.
If institutions or individuals fail in their obligations, they should be called out and constructive suggestions offered for improvements.
Instead, the right attacks our most trusted bodies and demonises experts to harvest votes or boost ratings. The left, with the Greens at the apex, sniffing opportunities, aligns with corrupt unions, then fails to deliver full throttled censures of attacks on MP's offices.
Opposite ends of the political spectrum have forged an unholy pincer movement. No surprise, then, that left and right extremists, filled with rage and grievance, fuelled by irresponsible politicians and media, resort to violence.
On August 24, 2023, during the voice referendum, Peter Dutton condemned the Australian Electoral Commission for explaining the ticks in the box meant for yes or no would be counted, while crosses would not.
Although this was legal and standard operating procedure, not part of a plot to skew the vote, Dutton told Ray Hadley's huge audience on 2GB 'it just stinks, to be honest.'
Dutton called on the electoral commissioner, Tom Rogers, to 'exert his independence' as if the commissioner was bowing to the government's directions.
' … Australians just want a fair election, not a dodgy one. I think it's completely outrageous, to be honest,' Dutton told Hadley.
No. What was completely outrageous, to be honest, was Dutton questioning the integrity of the AEC, which surveys have found is Australia’s most trusted institution, which subsequently received abuse and death threats.
The AEC responded by 'completely and utterly' rejecting allegations made 'by some' it had acted outside the law.
It was one of the lowest of the many low points in that campaign, ranking alongside attacks, particularly from the Murdoch mob, on those denouncing racism rather than the racism itself – a technique they have perfected.
It's worth wondering what might have happened if the vote had gone the other way. If the yes vote was 60% and no 40%, would we have witnessed our own version of January 6?
Dutton's attack on the AEC was a Trumpian moment, followed in March by another Trumpian moment when he criticised another respected institution, the CSIRO, for reporting that nuclear power did not stack up for Australia.
Seeking to discredit its report, Dutton described it as 'not genuine.'
Initially, CSIRO chief Doug Hilton rebuked Dutton without naming him. In May asked directly by The Age/SMH about Dutton's remarks, Hilton replied 'I think when you stop debating the scientific merits of ideas, you are almost dog whistling that the science itself is untrustworthy and the scientists are untrustworthy, and that there is some grander conspiracy that organisations like CSIRO are part of. I think that's dangerous.’
Too right it is. Good on Hilton for saying so.
More recently, on the day terrorism threat level was raised, ASIO director general Mike Burgess warned politicians and the media to tread carefully on the Middle East war lest they inflame community tension.
Obviously thinking Burgess was cautioning others, not him, days later, Dutton made his captain's call for a ban on anyone from Gaza, claiming on Sky that people would be shocked to think 'ASIO is not conducting checks and searches on these people.'
Dutton later claimed he was blaming the government, not ASIO. Hopefully, conspiracy theorists glued to Sky got the distinction.
There were legitimate questions about security checks, some of which the Prime Minister invited after unwisely deleting a few peripheral words when quoting Burgess. However, Dutton's weeks long barrage, fuelled by media acolytes selectively quoting Burgess, ensured one of Australia's premier security organisations was dragged into the middle of a political and moral quagmire.
The irony that this occurred after Burgess's warning not to inflame tensions did not escape the intelligence community. Aware of what I was writing, a hugely unimpressed Burgess provided a statement to me last week for this lecture and for my column. He emphasised ASIO's independence and took strong exception 'to those who keep distorting my words.'
The Nigel Farages and the Donald Trumps of the world have set the template for success: blame migrants for everything that goes wrong, besmirch respected institutions and whistle up conspiracy nutters.
However, their success has come at a great cost to their countries, their communities and to traditional conservative parties.
All politicians search for narratives, essentially word pictures, to explain policies.
Increasingly, it's to frame an alternative reality, to render facts or truth irrelevant, or to undermine people or institutions they see as a threat.
Before going to prison, Trump's adviser, Steve Bannon, boasted that this is a time of unrestricted narrative 'warfare,' that narrative was everything. 'Forget about the noise and focus on the signal,' he said. By noise he meant facts. No mention of policies.
Time now to relate some history from one of Australia's most insightful, most remarkable journalists, Warren Denning. In 1939, Denning became the first political correspondent for the ABC in the federal parliamentary press gallery in old Parliament House.
That ended a system imposed by newspapers to preserve their power, which only allowed the ABC to broadcast, at prescribed times, a few hundred words of copy prepared by AAP, which just happened to be owned by the newspapers.
Another of Australia's greatest journalists, Laurie Oakes, wrote in a Hall of Fame tribute to Denning that the decision that the ABC should cover federal politics with its own staff was a crucial step towards the public broadcaster going head-to-head with newspapers across the board.
The move was driven by government, not ABC management.
It all sounds horribly familiar.
The Murdoch empire continues its mission to emasculate the ABC, at times ably assisted by the ABC, which wilts in the face of pressure from politicians, other media or lobby groups, most recently and shamefully after the attacks on their senior political reporter, Laura Tingle.
I am grateful to Oakes for gifting me Denning's extraordinary book, Caucus Crisis: The Rise and Fall of the Scullin Government, published in 1937, documenting the demise of the Labor prime minister and his government during the Great Depression. The only one term federal government so far. No hints there.
Denning wrote that during Scullin's tenure there were grave fears massive riots caused by widespread poverty and joblessness would trigger a breakdown of social cohesion.
Denning summed up the dilemma thus: newspapermen found the responsibility of telling the people of Australia the story of what was happening at Canberra, so that, on the one hand, incompetence might not be cloaked, and on the other, grave national difficulties, not intensified by hysteria or panic, was a heavy one.
'It was increased by the reticence of the Scullin government and its fear of dislike of publicity and criticism.'
Denning concluded everyone had been adrift in a vast ocean of uncertainty.
Ignoring the pleas of his MPs to stay, Scullin sailed for England, supposedly to lift investor confidence in Australia.
By the time he returned six months later, the government had splintered and collapsed.
Denning believed Scullin was mentally and physically exhausted and was really seeking refuge.
Scullin was not the first, and certainly not the last, leader struggling to cope with the demands of the job during a crisis.
Denning's words remain pertinent today. He captured perfectly the responsibilities and the burdens of those in public office and those who report on them.
For journalists, it's to report as accurately as possible the turmoil inside government during a crisis without inflaming or inciting community tensions.
For others – politicians, public servants, advisers – it's to accept criticism, to be transparent about the challenges they face, as well as the limits to their capacity to solve them.
It's not as dire today as it was during the Great Depression, but some things haven't changed.
Governments respond to criticism by clamping down on information, by lying, by forcing people to sign gag orders, to discuss politically tricky policy like gambling ad bans, by doubling down on discipline, or by pretending everything has gone exactly to plan when it plainly has not.
Inevitably, amid the myths and disinformation, journalists get it wrong or stretch the few facts they have.
Politicians need to stop making promises they know they can't keep, or worse, never intend to keep. The rest of us need to stop demanding governments solve every problem and prevent every catastrophe.
They can't.
Even if he didn't follow his own advice, Tony Blair was right when he said in 1994: 'The art of leadership is saying no, not yes – it is very easy to say yes.'
The stage three tax cuts Anthony Albanese delivered were fairer, but they were not what he promised and when he promised them; the risks were obvious.
True, sticking with a promise made years before could be sheer folly. But breaches need to be explained truthfully, minus the spin and denial which drives voters mad and drives them to alternatives.
Everyone refers to the drift away from major parties, implying it is whimsical or unthinking or transitory, or a phase that voters will grow out of. It isn't.
It should be described as the great desertion. It is a deliberate, conscious repudiation by Australians in their millions of traditional politics and politicians.
Much like the desertion of audiences to social media or streaming services.
The existential threats faced by the major parties are real, not a passing phenomenon that will exhaust itself. There are profound implications for them and the way we are governed.
The solution does not lie in turning MPs into parrots or robots, nor in trying to starve independence out of existence with financial gerrymanders.
Unity is important unless it becomes a tool to stifle debate or punish those who defy the 'collective'. Not all rules crafted a century ago work today.
Australians need to know their MPs have a pulse, a ticker, and a conscience.
Coalition MPs treasure their right to cross the floor.
Yet a few poor souls – unless their first name is Barnaby – are vilified or isolated if they dare do it.
Bridget Archer seems destined to spend her political life on the back bench, despite increasing her margin in 2022, and even if promoting an intelligent woman with small 'l' liberal values would signal there is a place for such people inside the Liberal party.
Fatima Payman’s resignation from Labor is a reason to ditch the rules threatening expulsion for floor crossing.
It would still be a thing if MPs are brave enough to weather the wrath of the leader or their colleagues, but not such a big thing when it happens.
Some of us remember Labor's nuclear wars during the 1980s.
Left faction leaders like my old mayor Gerry Hand called full scale press conferences to condemn the policies of his prime minister, Bob Hawke, and his cabinet.
There were passionate public and private debates over tax privatisation, foreign policy, you name it.
Those 'fights' over policy did not prevent Labor governing or reforming. They did not prevent five consecutive election victories. Hand became a cabinet minister.
The Coalition did pay a high price for its leadership wars during this period, but in 1993 it was in full lockstep behind John Hewson and Fightback, and it still lost the unlosable election.
Voters seem destined to continue their mass migration to others in what threatens to be an ugly, divisive campaign if it has fought on immigration or a Middle Eastern war feeding antisemitism, Islamophobia and neo-Nazism.
I am indebted to the Parliamentary Library for its excellent summary of all federal elections from 1901, and to former Labor staffers Andrew Charlton and Lachlan Harris, who warned a few years ago of what was emerging.
According to the Library’s review of the 2019 election, Labors vote of 33.34% was the lowest since 1931, when it hit 27.1%. The Liberals 27.99% primary vote was the lowest since they first contested federal elections in 1946.
In 2022, the Liberal primary vote fell to a dismal 23.89%, while Labor's dropped to 32.58%. Almost one in three voters opted for minors or independents.
In a 2016 examination of minor party voting since federation, Charlton and Harris found that on three occasions when the 'protest vote' breached 25%, it coincided with or precipitated major party convulsions.
The first was between 1901 and 1903, when the rise of Labor forced the merger of Free Traders and Protectionists.
The second was between 1931 and 1934, with the Lang Labor split and the formation of the UAP by Joseph Lyons after he defected from Scullin.
Worth noting, though, Labor's lowest ever primary vote of 26.8% was recorded 90 years ago, almost exactly at the federal election on September 15, 1934.
The third, triggered by the death of Lyons in April 1939, came in 1943. Labor won 50.2% of the primary vote, the UAP collapsed and Robert Menzies founded the Liberal Party.
Three seismic events.
The 2022 election, where Labor lost once safe seats to the Greens and the Liberals relinquished their heartland to the community independents, was described to me recently by Harris as a volcano erupting just below the surface of the ocean.
Historians could pinpoint May 21, 2022, as the day Menzies party died while delivering one last warning to Labor: do better, or else.
There is no way of knowing what will happen next, only that something will. The aftershocks will continue.
There is no law that says political parties must survive. All badly run or led enterprises inevitably collapse. Sometimes it's desirable.
That organisation needs time out to consider its reason for being, to re-examine its values, to reflect on who it is meant to serve.
Realignments have already rendered parties unrecognisable to their creators. The Coalition looks more and more like One Nation, Labor more and more like the Liberals used to, the Greens have morphed into Labor's old guard left. The Teals waft and weave between them all.
Harris says it's unrealistic to think Labor or the Liberals can broaden sufficiently to reverse the trend so that they can govern on their own.
He predicts minority governments could become the new normal, with majority governments still possible, although more as the exception rather than the rule.
'Major parties have to get better at building coalitions with people not under their control,' he says. He certainly does not mean Labor aligning in government with the Greens, which he says would be 'fatal'.
Right now, Labor looks set to lose its majority. If it's lucky, it will survive in minority government after securing pledges from independents.
It will require dexterity and flexibility to govern. It will be exhausting.
There is every chance the leader and or the government will not last the full term.
If Labor loses outright to become the first one term government since Scullin in 1931, the resulting bloodletting, the accusations of timidity, arrogance, complacency or incompetence could precipitate a split. It could lead to the creation of a new social democratic party. Union defections over the essential CFMEU intervention could be a portent.
Anything and everything is possible.
If Labor retains its majority or falls into minority through gains by others, not the Liberals, the strategy of the past three years, to head further right to ape Trump, to dismantle the broad church on which the party was built, will be discredited.
A Coalition minority government – assuming it finds willing dance partners – will entrench the control of the hard right and the evangelicals.
One senior Labor man told me, 'A narrow pathway exists for a Coalition victory, but it would have to get everything right, which obviously means the government would have to get everything wrong.'
Whatever happens, the dominant right will not concede or retreat. The few remaining Liberal moderates can surrender, join the Teals, or hope someone founds a new socially liberal, economically conservative party.
One former PM I know has the resources. I doubt he has the will.
The Teals magic would evaporate if they formed a party or joined another. Besides, as one of their admirers says, they are all alpha females, so the leadership battle would be something to behold.
Our system of government offers a level of protection, not full immunity, from the extremes we have witnessed overseas and which have sprung up here.
Our immunity dissolves if when we reach the point millions of Americans have where lies are excused or accepted, corruption is ignored, and divisiveness tolerated because politicians and media manipulate our emotions rather than tell us what we need to know.
Fearing the rise of authoritarianism across the world, including in the US, if Trump is elected, David Brooks wrote in the New York Times in May 2024 that this could be a 'magnetic' year like 1848, when Europeans revolted against monarchies, or 1989, when citizens smashed the Berlin Wall.
Brooks noted, back then the world experienced 'an expansion of freedom, the spread of democracy, the advance of liberal values.'
'This year we're likely to see all those widely in retreat,' he warned, predicting social trust would have to be rebuilt from the bottom up.
Brooks quoted Hoover Institution scholar Larry Diamond in the American Interest magazine in 2020 on how to respond. It is good advice for us here.
- Don't try to out-polarise the polariser.
- Reach out to doubters among their supporters. Don't question their character or condescend.
- Avoid tit for tat name calling, you will only look smaller.
- Campaign on issues, not ideology, with policies to create jobs, improve education, healthcare and public safety.
- Don't let the populists own patriotism.
- Don't be boring. The battle for attention is remorseless. Don't let advisers make candidates predictable, hidden and safe.
This is not called a lecture for nothing, so I will finish with a bit more advice for politicians and journalists.
In this fight for survival, integrity and decency matter a lot. If you show respect for one another, people are more likely to respect you.
To journalists: Don't publish lies then claim it's balance. Also, balance is not refusing to run one side because the other side fails to turn up.
If you do your job well, you will upset people. You will be called names like 'Tory bitch' or 'fat-assed bitch'. That's me and Laura. You will be abused online, you will lose contacts, you will inevitably lose friends. But you will also win respect.
To politicians: Tell the truth, even if it hurts, we can handle it and we deserve it. Never run from cameras. It always ends in disaster.
To everyone else, please stay engaged with politics.
Please subscribe to reputable news outlets, they still exist. And please encourage everyone in your orbit to do the same.
Thank you all very much for coming.
Thank you to the Speaker and his terrific staff for their hard work in staging this event.
Lastly, to my wonderful family, all my dear old friends, and to a few new ones, you are all very precious to me. Thank you.
NOTE: This speech has been updated to reflect the fact that James Scullin’s Labor government (1929-1932) was the only one-term federal government since the beginning of the two major party contests.
About Niki Savva
Ms Savva is an award-winning journalist, author and political commentator. Her extraordinary career spans over five decades, where she has worked for The Australian, the Herald Sun and The Age as a Correspondent and Bureau Chief.
In 2016, she received a lifetime achievement award from the Melbourne Press Club for her outstanding coverage of Australian politics as a reporter, columnist and author.