Mike was a damned hard worker. I think the only thing he did harder than work was smoke, back in those days. It would be cellphone in one hand, cigarette in the other, and going from cigarette to cigarette, butt-lighting off one to the other, and he just carried on. He would roll from interview to interview, and I'd be sitting in his lounge thinking "Holy hell! Is this what Parliament's going to be like? Is this what politics is?" This was Mike living, breathing the dream, and fighting as a true battler did. 