Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House record its deep regret at the death on 14 March 2008 of the Hon. Clyde Robert Cameron AO, former minister and member for Hindmarsh, and place on record its appreciation for his long and meritorious public service and tender its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

Clyde Cameron was the member for Hindmarsh for 31 years, from 1949 to 1980, an era spanning from the end of Ben Chifley’s time as Prime Minister to Bob Hawke’s election to the seat of Wills. After the death of Kim Beazley Sr in October last year, he was the sole surviving member of the parliament elected in 1949; Clyde Cameron was the last of ‘the 49ers’. Clyde Cameron was a cabinet minister in the Whitlam government, a prolific author and a leading figure in the Australian labour movement for more than 40 years.

Clyde Cameron was born on 11 February 1913 at Murray Bridge, South Australia, the son of a shearer of Scottish descent. It was a poor but happy upbringing. As he said many years later:

We assumed that it was the natural order of things that children did not wear shoes and would have to go to school barefooted.

He left school at 14 to work as a shearer. He experienced unemployment during the depths of the Great Depression and, during the rest of the 1930s, worked in every Australian state and in New Zealand as well. His harsh experience of working life, combined with a political awareness that he had learned at the family dinner table, led him to become a lifelong supporter of the working people’s movement and, in fact, an active participant in the Australian labour movement. In The Confessions of Clyde Cameron, published in 1990, he remarked of his mother:

Every mealtime she used to talk with us about the state of society, explaining that it did not have to be the way it was. If we took an intelligent interest in politics and exercised our right to vote when we became old enough, then we could change things … I can honestly say that I do not remember a meal at which political and social questions were not mentioned by my mother.

Clyde Cameron’s commitment to changing things began with an active role in the Australian Workers Union from a very early age. He gained a reputation for his dedication to improving the working conditions of shearers. He travelled the sheds across much of southern Australia, meeting with shearers and often sleeping in the back of his car before travelling the next day to another remote location. By 1941, at the age of just 28, he had become South Australian state president and federal vice-president of the AWU. From 1943 to 1948 he was the union’s industrial advocate and taught himself industrial law.

Clyde became State President of the Labor Party for South Australia in 1946, and at the 1949 election he was elected to the House of Representatives for the Labor seat of Hindmarsh. His entry marked the beginning of 23 years in opposition for Labor. He rose quickly to become a leader of the Left within the Labor caucus and, during the split of the 1950s, he played a prominent role opposing the influence of the industrial groupers. Clyde Cameron served in the shadow cabinet for two decades, from 1953 to 1972. In the Whitlam Labor government, he served as Minister for Labour, from 1972 to 1974; Minister for Labour and Immigration, from 1974 to 1975; and Minister for Science and Consumer Affairs, in 1975. One of Clyde Cameron’s greatest achievements in office was taking the case for equal pay for women workers before the arbitration commission. That case was argued by Mary Gaudron, later, of course, the first woman to be appointed to the High Court bench.

Clyde Cameron was an effective and able parliamentarian, a great storyteller who brought passion, intelligence and colour to parliamentary life and then to political and historical debate afterwards. After retiring from the federal parliament, he played a major role in documenting Labor history and interviewed prominent political and other national figures as part of the National Library’s oral history program. His published works include The Cameron Diaries of 1990 and The Confessions of Clyde Cameron, also of that time. Clyde remained a frequent contributor to public debate well into his 80s.

Clyde Cameron was a tough and passionate man who was as hard on his own side of politics as he was on his opponents. It is true that he could bear the odd grudge for a while, yet he was able to deal with political opponents like Menzies and Gorton with a great generosity of spirit. His personal relationships aside, Clyde Cameron’s commitment to working men and women remained paramount throughout his life. This was recognised when, in 1982, he was awarded the Officer of the Order of Australia. On behalf of the government, I offer condolences to his wife, Doris, and his family.

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