Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion of the Prime Minister that was also spoken to by the Leader of the Opposition, about the death of the Australian boxing legend Lionel Rose. The reason I rise to speak about Lionel Rose is that I had the good fortune of meeting Lionel on quite a few occasions and entertaining him at my house on quite a few occasions. This was in 1980, after Lionel had finished his boxing career but when he was still well known and respected within the Australian sporting community. We all know that Lionel suffered some hard times during his life, but he always managed to use that spirit of his, the fighting spirit that Lionel had, to continue to get on with his life.

I would like to put on record some information that I have researched about Lionel on the biography websites. Lionel Rose's career embodied the stuff legends are made of. In a boxing career begun in a makeshift ring in a poverty-stricken Aboriginal settlement, Rose developed a crushing punch that helped him become the first Australian Aborigine to win a world championship title and the second Australian to take home a world title in boxing. His win catapulted him to fame in Australia. His lifetime career of 53 fights with only 11 losses made him a legend in the world of boxing.

Lionel Rose was born on 21 June 1948 and raised in Jacksons Track, a poor Aboriginal settlement 50 miles south of Melbourne. The eldest of nine children in an Aboriginal family, Rose was on the wrong side of a society divided by racism, mistrust and economic disparity. As a child Rose escaped racism through boxing. Rose's father, an amateur boxer, inspired Rose to don his first pair of boxing gloves at the age of 14. The pair trained in a ring made of chicken wire. Rose and his siblings also became avid fans of tent matches, which were popular boxing bouts that travelled the country, much the way a circus might. However, it was at a ring match in Melbourne that Rose found his inspiration in another Aboriginal boxer.

I'd seen plenty of tent fights when I was younger, but the great George Bracken was the first boxer I saw in the ring—

Rose told the website Vibe Australia.

His great fighting style and speed really made me take an even bigger interest in boxing than before.

Rose began his amateur boxing career under the guidance of trainer Frank Oakes. He later married Oakes' daughter Jenny. Rose won his first big fight in 1963, the day after the death of his father. By the end of that year Rose had won Australia's national amateur flyweight title. Flyweight is one of the lowest weight classifications in boxing, with an upper limit of 112 pounds. In 1964, Rose narrowly missed being selected for the Australian Olympic team. By that time Rose knew he wanted to make a career of boxing and decided to go professional. In 1964, Rose began his professional training at Jack Rennie's Melbourne gym. Rennie, a legendary figure in Australian boxing, worked Rose hard often pairing him with Mick Croucher, a more experienced boxer 20 pounds heavier than Rose. Croucher recalled to the World Boxing Foundation website:

Champions are born not made and [Rose] had enormous natural ability. Some people work hard in training and are very dedicated but to be a champion in any sport a person must be born with a natural gift and Lionel was fortunate enough to have that.

Under Rennie, Rose moved to the bantamweight division, with a weight limit of 118 pounds. He also developed what the Age described as an 'easy style married to a tooth-shaking straight left to the clenched jaws of all who came against him'. In September 1964, Rose won his first professional bout in eight rounds. He won his next four fights in a row. In all of 1965, Rose lost only one fight. Between January and October 1966, Rose won six of seven matches, qualifying to compete for Australia's bantamweight title. On October 28, 1966, Rose beat the reigning champion, Noel Kunde, in a 15-round decision to win the title. Rose went on to win his next nine matches, including a 13-round challenge to his title in December 1967. That fight made Rose famous in Australia, as his challenger Rocky Gatellari was expected to win. Yet that fame was nothing compared to what was about to come.

By 1968 Rose had a fight record of 29 wins and two losses. He was the two-time Australian bantamweight champion and had developed quite a following in the boxing world. Boxing promoters at the international level took notice and offered Rose a chance to fight then bantamweight world champion Masahiko 'Fighting' Harada at a title match in Tokyo. The Japanese fighter was already a legend in the ring, having successfully defended his world title five times. Rose was eager to take him on. His trainer Rennie was not so sure. According to the World Boxing Foundation website Rennie thought Rose, then barely 19 years old, 'wasn't yet ready for a World Title shot'. Nonetheless, Rose accepted the challenge. Rose arrived in Tokyo six weeks prior to the fight to train extensively and assimilate to the Japanese culture. Despite his preparations, no-one considered him a threat to Harada's title. Boxing scholar Jim Amato noted on the Inside Boxing website:

When this Australian entered the ring to face Harada he was a prohibitive underdog. Very few gave him a legitimate chance.

Rose ignored the naysayers and entered the ring with confidence. The website actually says: 'An estimated 30 million Australians'—but I am sure it would have been more like three million—'tuning in by radio and television, entered with optimism.' The website further states:

Rose started the fight by holding back, a stance which caught Harada off-guard. I expected Rose to come in and attack first but he didn't. So I started to take the initiative myself. That is where I made a mistake," Harada told The Age. After the third round, despite injuring his hand, Rose told Rennie, "Don't worry about me; this bloke can't punch," noted The Age. That seemed true throughout much of the fight as Harada unleashed a volley of punches that Rose either ducked or absorbed without much notice. Meanwhile, Rose landed several stunning blows to the champ. "By the end of the flight the desperate champion was chasing Rose round the ring," wrote The Age. After 15 rounds, Rose became the new World Bantamweight Title. The disappointed Japanese crowd was stunned, but gave Rose a respectful ovation as he struggled to hold aloft the massive title trophy. Rennie proudly told The Age, '[Rose] was a boy doing a man's work, and he did it well. He was in a strange country, among a strange crowd, and he did not let this worry him.'

When Rose returned to Melbourne, he was met by an estimated quarter of a million people lining the streets to welcome him home. 'It was simply unbelievable,' Rose told Vibe Australia. 'To fulfil my ultimate dream and then be met by so many people was amazing. My picture was all over the newspapers and it made me realise how much it meant to everyone.' Later that year he was named Australian of the Year, the first Aborigine to receive such an honour. Rose had not only become an Australian hero; he had also become an Aboriginal icon. 'To see the way that my people looked at me and to know that I made a difference to them was an honour,' he told Vibe Australia. Rose refused to get involved in political issues, instead helping Aborigines, often children, at a grassroots level. One example occurred in 1999 when Rose gave his championship belt to an Aboriginal child who had been set on fire in a racially motivated attack.

In the late sixties and early seventies, Rose continued to fight successfully He defended his title three times: in July 1968; once again in Tokyo; in December 1968, in Inglewood, California; and in March 1969, in front of record crowds in Melbourne. The Inglewood match was memorable for two reasons. The challenger was a Mexican boxer, Chucho Castillo, and the fans were evenly split, with Americans rooting for Rose and Latin Americans pulling for Castillo. When Rose won in a decision after the 15th round, the crowd erupted into a riot. Over a dozen people, including a boxing official, were hospitalised.

Despite the sensation the riot made in the press, the most impressive moment for Rose during his California visit was meeting Elvis Presley:

I was punching a heavy bag in a gym in L.A., and I hear a voice sing out, "Hey, Lionel! What's doin'?" "And it was Elvis himself," Rose recalled to The Age. "I was in awe of him, but he said he was in awe of me." Music had been a part of Rose's life for even longer than boxing. He had learned to play guitar as a child and was never without one. "You're never lonesome with your guitar," Rose told The Age.

In 1969 Rose appeared on a televised variety show, singing along to his guitar. Australian producer and songwriter Johnny Young caught Rose's act and offered to pen a song for the boxer. The result was "Thank You," Rose's first single. The song reached the No. 1 spot in Australia's country charts. The following year Rose, again, made the charts with a cover of the country classic Pick Me Up On Your Way Down. Rose began touring as a musician when not boxing and, in 1970, recorded two albums for the Festival label. One of those, Jackson's Track, is considered a lost classic in Australian country music circles. Back in the boxing ring, Rose had a couple more successful fights before he fought Mexican boxer Ruben Olivares in August of 1969. Olivares, who went on to become a boxing legend, knocked Rose out in the fifth round, taking the world championship title. Rose fought seven more bouts over the next year and a half, winning five. However, he had begun to have trouble keeping his weight down to bantam levels. 'I used to spit a real lot in order to lose an ounce,' he recalled to the Age. By 1971 Rose was up to the lightweight category that had a weight limit of 135 pounds. In that division he fought unsuccessfully in a bid for the Australian lightweight title. By the end of 1971 he had gone down to the superfeatherweight level that had a weight limit of 130 pounds. In that category he made an unsuccessful bid for the world title in Japan. After that loss, Rose decided to hang up his gloves. He did not fight again for four years.

Rose interrupted his retirement and returned to the ring in 1975. However, after losing four of six bouts, he retired from the sport for good in 1976. Over the next few decades, Rose worked odd jobs, including running a cafe and performing as a musician. He soon fell on hard times due to alcoholism. At his lowest point, he was arrested for his role in a robbery attempt. Despite these setbacks, Rose remained a hero for both Aboriginal and white Australians. In 1991, a biography of Rose, called Rose Against the Odds, was published. In 1995 a full-length movie of the same name was released. Ten years later, Rose was honoured with an Australian stamp bearing a replica of his boxing gloves. That same year he was honoured with a Deadly Award for lifetime achievement in sports, one of Australia's most prestigious Aboriginal awards.

I would like to get on the record a couple of quotes by his peers. As the member for Bennelong will know, we all get a lot of plaudits when we are successful in sport but some of the most meaningful are the ones you get from your peers who played a sport with you. You understand those people. Jeff Fenech, who clawed his way out of working-class Marrickville in Sydney's inner west to win three world titles, told the Australian:

Lionel was simply brilliant, arguably the most gifted fighter this country ever produced.

Barry Michael, another famous Australian boxer, recalled:

Lionel would often jab with triple left hooks and thrown at incredible hand speed.

Australian boxing historian Paul Upham said:

Rose's win against Rocky Gattellari, himself a former WBC flyweight world title contender, at the old Sydney Stadium, remains one of the best pound-per-pound bouts in the annals of the sport in this country.

Lionel was to win with a knockout in the 13th round with a straight right hand and it was the very first boxing match televised interstate by the Seven Network.

I applaud the career and the life of Lionel Rose. It was a pleasure to have met him and entertain him in my home during a time when he was going through a tough period. He was a champion bloke and an Australian legend.

Sitting suspended from 13:08 to 16:00

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