Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband) Share this | Hansard source

As we reflect on the life of Frank Walker in the debate that has proceeded today, it is perhaps worth recalling that this is where we will all end up—with a cursory debate in the Federation Chamber lamenting us and remembering our contribution to public life!

I first knew Frank Walker in 1976, when I was a young journalist—21 in fact—in the state parliamentary press gallery. Frank would have been about 33 or 34 at that time, a young, up-and-coming member of parliament in Neville Wran's opposition. Following Wran's win in 1976, he became the Attorney-General. As the Special Minister of State has said, he was the youngest Attorney-General in New South Wales up to that point. I do not know whether there has been a younger one since. At the time, I thought 34 was very old. Now it seems impossibly inexperienced.

There were three people in that Labor government that I had a personal relationship with—only three. There was Neville Wran, of course, who had been a university friend of my mother's. I always had—and still to this day have—a very close friendship with Neville. He has been sort of family for me all my life, and we subsequently went into business together and so forth. But there were two other people in the Labor government that I was close to, or that I got to know very well as a journalist—obviously I did not get too close; I was in the press gallery. They did not want to get too close to me either! One was Paul Landa, who was an incredibly charismatic fellow who just exhibited energy and dynamism. He was certainly not someone of the Left, whereas Frank Walker was very much of the Left, and I think he always regarded me as a dangerous member of the capitalist classes.

See this speech in context