Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth) Share this | Hansard source

I want to follow on from the remarks made by the member for Berowra and note the fact that across the parliament there has been unanimous respect for and acknowledgement of the contribution that was made by Lionel Bowen. As the member for Kingsford Smith, now serving in a seat that Lionel Bowen won after his time in both local and state politics, it is a very great privilege for me to be standing here with Lionel Bowen as one of my predecessors. It is also a great privilege for me to be able to reflect on the contribution that he made not only in the parliament but also in the electorate more broadly.

Lionel Bowen's career was a highly distinguished one, which is even the more remarkable given the humble conditions and circumstances under which he grew up. It is appropriate for me to note again just some of those achievements of high office. He was the Deputy Prime Minister from 1983 to 1990; the Attorney-General for a significant period of time; the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Commonwealth-State Relations; the Minister for Trade; the Deputy Leader of the Opposition; the Special Minister of State; the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister; the Postmaster-General—his first appointment under the Whitlam government; the state member for Randwick for a number of years; the first Labor Alderman of the Randwick City Council; and, of course, a founding director of the Randwick Labor Club. His achievements are noted. They are recognised as being the mark of someone who had tremendous capacity and who gave himself to the service both of the Labor Party and of the country.

I want to reflect on some of the remarks that have been made by those people who worked with Lionel Bowen in his time. Bob Hawke, the former Prime Minister, said:

From his own intrinsic talents and characteristics emerged this remarkable man who now together we remember and we honour.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating said:

Australia has been fortunate in having the conscientious service of someone so committed to the values of justice and equity and the public good in general.

Humility was written all over his calling card.

I noted the remarks of Johno Johnson, who has been a long-time loyal servant of the Labor Party, when he remarked of Lionel Bowen, whom he knew very well:

Office meant nothing to him unless he could serve people.

It is also the case that the qualities that Lionel Bowen displayed, qualities both of humility and of capacity, are rare. They are rare in this place, to be frank, and they are also rare in life in general. Here was somebody who was sure of himself but had a down-to-earth nature that not only was noted by his colleagues and his contemporaries but was something which is always reflected upon by anybody you meet, as I do as the current local member for Kingsford Smith, by anybody who met him on any occasion. He was someone whom they could relate to, who they felt connected with them and listened to them, who was able to empathise with them—and I will go on to say why I think that was the case—but who also had something to offer them by way of observation, assistance, if they were a constituent seeking help, and analysis by someone who was extremely capable and had considerable intellectual abilities.

I think one of the keys to understanding someone's career and character is to look to their early life. In the case of Lionel Bowen there is much that instructs us there. He certainly was born in what we would now describe as fairly challenging circumstances. He was an only child and, ultimately, the only child of a single mum. He left school at 14 to support the family and then worked overtime to become a solicitor and ultimately a politician, serving his local community for generations and generations. He was diagnosed with rheumatic fever at an early age, and it is probably fair to say that this would have had some influence on him as a young man. He trained as an artillery signalman but was taken out of active service because of the condition, and so ended up in the war working as an orderly at Sydney Hospital unloading the wounded from the ships. Here again is an experience that I know, from what his family have communicated, had some impact on him. He was a child of the Depression but also, in his adolescence, late teens and early 20s, a child of the World War II generation, and that certainly left its mark upon him.

The Bowen family are very well known in the electorate of Kingsford Smith. To Lionel's wife, Claire, and to their children and grandchildren, I again extend my warmest sympathies at the loss of Lionel. There is no doubt that they were aware of the tremendous capacity and character that Lionel had, but I think it would have come home to them even more vividly when we all gathered, along with former prime ministers, at St Mary's Cathedral for the state funeral. Recognition of the contribution he made was appropriately given. Lionel's son Tony remarked to me that he died in his favourite season, Easter, a time which reflected his religious adherence and when his great pursuit, the track, is also starting to gear up into full swing at the racing carnival.

After growing up in the circumstances in which he did, he ended up as a married man living in his three-bedroomed house in Kensington with some 10 people for a number of years, until the second-storey extension was added in 1974. In his time he played the role in the Labor Party of a constant, loyal, diligent and active participant in the political affairs of the party, and subsequently of the nation, at the highest level.

There are some aspects of Bowen's career that have not been remarked on up until now, and I would like to pay a brief tribute to them. One is the fact that he was very active in his early period in the parliament on issues concerning Cambodia, and subsequently the progress of the Cambodian nation following the terrible reign of the Khmer Rouge. Members opposite may recall some of that involvement. He was probably the first federal politician to suggest that a peacekeeping force be sent to Cambodia, something which at the time people looked at somewhat askance. Yet it is an example of how he identified with the people in that country, who had suffered such a great deal.

Lionel Bowen was someone who was both humble and confident. He was a very acute assessor of people's characters and as a deputy to Prime Minister Hawke, and in work with other prime ministers, he served in a way that gave them the opportunity to lead to the fullest of their abilities. That was truly a mark of his service here in the parliament and to the Labor Party.

I want to make one personal reflection, as I think it is appropriate to do so in this condolence motion. My first interaction with Lionel Bowen was when he was Attorney-General and approached me to sit on the 1998 Constitutional Convention. I thought that did some very good work, but ultimately we were not able to settle those issues, which were and remain very important to Australians. It was always a mystery to me as to why Lionel Bowen had approached me, and I subsequently found out that a couple of his sons—particularly Peter, but also Tony and, I think, the other kids—had listened to a lot of Midnight Oil in his house at Kensington over the years, and eventually it seemed as though Lionel's ears were pricked up as well.

I have to say that when I came into the party and the parliament I was welcomed both by the Bowen family and by Lionel. He was there to provide sage advice—and it certainly was sage advice—and I was extremely appreciative of the relationship that I was able to develop with him, even though I did not know him as well as many others. He made an extraordinary contribution to his community, to the Labor Party and to the Labor governments that he served, and he made an extraordinary contribution to the nation. He will be very well remembered.

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