Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great honour to rise to join with my colleagues from all sides of this parliament today to pay tribute to a great freedom fighter and a great friend of Labor, Nelson Mandela AC. All members here in this House joined parliament for a reason. We joined with the firm belief that we can make a difference. We joined because we believe we can improve this nation, that we can help make this nation a better place. With no offence intended to any of my colleagues, the difference we make here in this parliament will no doubt pale in significance alongside the difference that Nelson Mandela made to his nation, the Republic of South Africa. While few if any will rise to his heights, we should all be driven by his words:

What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.

The South Africa that Nelson Mandela leaves behind is a far better place than the one he joined in 1918. It is a country where democracy now reigns and in which people can live together with equal opportunities—opportunities which he helped to create. Mandela was a true freedom fighter. He rose above oppression and incarceration, and led the battle to take down the worst side of humanity.

Mandela's infinite capacity for inclusiveness and forgiveness should serve as an inspiration to us all. His eternal optimism and determination to always find and then move towards what was the very best in humanity was truly remarkable. His words again:

No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

Mandela battled for equality and what was just, and after considerable time he was victorious.

In the year of my birth, Mandela made his famous Rivonia trial speech from the dock, where he professed democracy 'is an ideal that I would die for' before being sent to Robben Island. It was nearly two decades later while at university that I first learnt of this extraordinary man and his long struggle against apartheid. I made it my business then to learn much more of this struggle, the struggle of the people of South Africa, and I pledged my support to do all I could to free Nelson Mandela. Throughout the sixties and seventies while I was growing up, learning about life and enjoying everything of wonder here in Australia, Nelson Mandela was being kept in a cell smaller than my bathroom and put to work crushing stone.

His struggle was indeed an important part of my political awakening, as, indeed, many of my colleagues have discussed today. Through his 'long walk to freedom' and through his fight to end apartheid, Mandela gave a true gift to the people of South Africa and to the world at large. It is an often-forgotten fact that Nelson Mandela offered to help the Howard government with native title holders at a time when the then government and, indeed, our nation was struggling to come to terms with the very belated recognition of common law native title rights of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In 1997 Nelson Mandela also invited long-standing Aboriginal activist, Dr Gracelyn Smallwood, to attend the huge 20th anniversary memorial service for Steve Biko, another crucial figure in South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle who tragically died in custody.

It was this tragic death of Steve Biko that was to have a profound impact on Australia's own father of reconciliation, Professor Patrick Dodson, who in 1989 was appointed as one of the commissioners of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. On hearing the news of Nelson Mandela's death, Patrick Dodson described Mandela as 'a giant for justice' and mourned the loss of a great human. For Patrick Dodson, Nelson Mandela's incontrovertible stand against racism and his life's demonstration of the power of conciliation over persecution are his greatest teachings:

The key thing is to believe that there's goodness in all human beings, irrespective of their colour, their beliefs, their particular ideology.

This was the way in which Nelson Mandela influenced Patrick Dodson's own work in Australia. I quote again:

My work in reconciliation, along with many others, has been to challenge our nation to deal with its history, the legacy of the dispossession of Aboriginal peoples, and then the legacy of treaties and sovereignty and those sorts of issues. To deal with these matters in a mature, constructive way so that the nation can go forward, to make sure that there is recognition in the constitution of the first peoples of this country.

For Patrick Dodson:

So there's a motivation that Mandela has given, along with Gandhi and others, of a non-violent approach, but also a consistency and dedication to that sort of cause for the betterment of the nation and not just for personal aggrandisement.

While Mandela's life has ended, his influence will continue through the lives of many others. As Patrick Dodson concluded this week in his comments on the passing of Mandela:

Those universal teachings of his, along with Gandhi and Martin Luther-King ... will live forever. I don't see it ever fading.

Nor do I.

I am very proud that it was the Australian Labor movement that ensured that apartheid remained on the agenda here in Australia, putting pressure on the government to use all of its diplomatic powers to force change, providing assistance to the ANC and its representatives in exile and enforcing economic sanctions against South Africa when they were needed most. A few months after his release from prison in 1990, Nelson Mandela repaid the favour, travelling to Australia and attending a special function in Melbourne where he personally thanked the Australian unions and Labor for their support. I quote from Mandela's words on that occasion:

I will remember that the Labor movement of this country was among the very first, if not the first, to launch solidarity action in line with the people of South Africa in the course of their struggle. It was difficult to understand how workers, thousands of miles from our shores, who did take the initiative, the lead, among the workers of the world to pledge their solidarity to the people of South Africa. The feeling that we were not alone, that we had millions of workers behind us is a factor which has prepared us, notwithstanding the most brutal form of oppression, which we have faced in our country. Throughout, since 1912, every South African Government has tried to destroy the African National Congress, or at least to cripple it. Not only have they failed in that resolve, but we have emerged to be the most powerful political organisation in the country, inside and outside of Parliament.

I note that many of my Labor colleagues, including the member for Gorton, were present at his address and I thank the member for sharing the transcript of Mandela's speech from that day. I note that many members of the Maritime Union of Australia, Newcastle branch and many other comrades were involved in the actions around Australia at the time, where they refused to unload ships from South Africa not only in Newcastle but across Australia and the world. These were critical forms of action taking place in order to shift the debate and political discourse around the issues of apartheid in South Africa. I pay tribute to the many men and women from my area who were very involved in those struggles and have now passed. I feel their presence with me today in this chamber.

It is very fitting that, last night at his memorial service, close to 100 leaders from around the world gathered to honour the life of Nelson Mandela. Perhaps no speech was more poignant than that of the President of the United States, President Barack Obama. In 2008, Nelson Mandela was amongst the first to congratulate Obama on his magnificent election victory. That he was the first black American to occupy the Oval Office was not lost on Mandela or the world. Mandela said Obama was an inspiration to people all over the world:

Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place.

I will finish with some words from the memorial service held last night, by General Thanduxolo Mandela:

I am sure Madiba is smiling from above as he looks down on the multitude of diverseness here, for this is what he strove for, the equality of man, the brotherhood of humanity and the unity of progressive peoples until his last days.

Peace, justice, unity of all mankind. Let us pledge to keep Madiba's dream alive in the way in which we honour the humanity in each other, in the way in which we reach out to the humanity in each other, and in the way in which we raise up the impoverished, and the disfavoured.

These are important lessons for us all. May the generous spirit of Nelson Mandela live forever.

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