Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this condolence motion as a matter of great personal privilege but also as a matter of great responsibility on us as parliamentarians to acknowledge not merely the life of Nelson Mandela but also the role that he played as a prince amongst men. He was a prince of peace and a prince of his country, as he guided his country through the most tortuous circumstances to a better place. The death of Nelson Mandela leaves us all in a better place because of his humanity, because of his belief that there are, as Abraham Lincoln would have said, 'better angels of our human nature' that ought govern how we do what we do and why we do what we do.

In the early 1990s I had the great privilege of being the National Secretary of the Australian Labor Party. At that time, my party, under the leadership of Ian Henderson, the assistant national secretary, led a powerful and large campaign team to South Africa to campaign and work with the ANC on their campaign structures, to ensure that political organisation was in place to assure a solid victory for the ANC in that election.

It was a victory not simply for the ANC; it was a victory for principle. It was a victory for those Australian politicians who had always stood on the right side of this debate in Africa. It was a victory for Malcolm Fraser. It was a victory for the Liberal Party. It was a victory for those people in politics who take the business of politics and the aspiration of politics so seriously. Across the divide in Australia we unified to help support the election of a democratic government in South Africa, and we were able to do that because of the outstanding leadership and the moral quality and value that Nelson Mandela had brought to this world, to South Africa and to all of our lives.

I regard it as a great privilege to be able to make these comments and these observations in this parliament today. And I know that the teams who went to work for democracy in South Africa today feel grief but also power from the role that they played as a consequence of the events in South Africa over the course of the last 50 years. Thank you.

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