A number of his friends have attended and heard Ruddock’s speech. Philip Ruddock delivers his Valedictory speech to the Parliament May 3, 2016 (Translation of this article appears in Arabic section) After 43 years in Parliament, Philip Ruddock – the Howard government's controversial immigration minister who gained notoriety for the children-overboard scandal in 2001 – proved he was also master of the art of understatement. "I've had some difficult policy issues to deal with from time to time," he said in his valedictory to the House of Representatives on Tuesday. He was most proud of the way he had created an immigration policy that was "supported by the Australian people as a whole", and which restored integrity to a program that had been driven by fraud and family reunion. "When we introduced screening, the applicants fell by half," he said. For example, one man had sponsored nine partners from the Philippines. "I believe we have to be as humane as possible about the way we do it, but if we do not manage our borders we can't manage an immigration program in the national interest, " said Mr Ruddock, the member for Berowra. "But if we do not manage our borders we can't manage an immigration program in the national interest." Although he received fierce criticism as immigration minister in the Howard government, his interest in non-discriminatory policies, immigration and multiculturalism was the enduring theme of his valediction. 
A young Philip Ruddock with his family. He announced in March that he was retiring from politics – the second-longest-serving member of the Australian parliament in its history after William Morris Hughes' 51 years – to become Australia's first special envoy for human rights to the United Nations, a difficult decision that he had agonised over. But the job of getting an Australian elected to the Human Rights Commission "built on his personal areas of interest in a way I couldn't have dreamt of". Mr Ruddock's appointment as a human rights envoy was derided on social media as similar to putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. A number of his friends have attended and heard Ruddock’s speech. |
