Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in this place today to pay tribute to a great man: a successful businessman, a senator, a minister and a proud Queenslander. However, the Hon. Warwick Parer was actually born in Papua New Guinea. Tragically, he passed away last Friday, leaving behind Kathi, an incredibly supportive wife—they really were a partnership in so many ways—their seven children and many grandchildren. Queensland will be the poorer for the loss of Warwick's guidance and vision. His strong leadership as chairman of the Stanwell Corporation over the past few years has been invaluable, and indeed he worked continually up to his tragic death last Friday. In addition to Warwick's distinguished career in public service, he also lent his business acumen and perspective to the field of innovation as a former chairman of the Energy and Transport Advisory Sector of the CSIRO. He was also chairman of the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital Foundation from 2010.

While in Papua New Guinea, Warwick's father and family held many timber leases. Indeed, his father, Kevin, pioneered aviation up there with Bobby Gibbes, later of Gibbes Sepik Airways. His father tragically died while attempting to evacuate refugees from the Japanese in 1942 when he was shot down and killed.

Warwick was educated at Nudgee College in Brisbane and completed a commerce degree at the University of Melbourne, and later went on to become the commercial manager of Utah Development Company. Warwick was a leader in negotiating contracts between Australian exporters and the emerging Japanese markets for coal from the Bowen Basin.

Unlike many of my colleagues who knew Warwick through his political and parliamentary career, the first time I got to meet Warwick was when he left Utah and formed a company called Queensland Energy with his colleagues Ken Foots and Peter Gilchrist. This was back in the late seventies. I was working for an IT company in the same building, and Warwick purchased a computer from us to set up their new business. Back in those days we had some very entertaining moments trying to work out how this computer operated. That was the first time I got to meet Warwick and I got to know him and his family even better over the subsequent years.

While he was in Melbourne he had Sir Robert Menzies as his local member, and this initially sparked Warwick's interest in politics. Back in Queensland, faced with Minister Connor's approaches to resources investment, he became very active in the Liberal Party and served on many political committees.

Warwick was a pioneer, being the first to properly introduce the Liberal Party to the mining sector in Queensland. His bold efforts with Winchester South coalmine will always be remembered. Warwick was one of the relatively few senior Queensland businessmen actually involved in the Liberal Party at the time and shaped its mining and resources policy in the 1970s and 1980s. Warwick was said to have brought a depth of understanding to the resources portfolio that nobody else in the parliament could match.

Warwick entered the Senate to fill the vacancy created when Kathy Martin resigned from the Senate in November 1984 to contest the division of Moncrieff at the 1984 election. There was controversy at the time, when the then Queensland Premier, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, was tempted to knock back his nomination, not just because it represented another opportunity to give the Liberals a bit of a kick at the time.

Among Warwick's peers in the mining industry, he never disguised his unease at the political patronage which often seemed to determine the granting of mining leases in Queensland. Like most mining men at the time, he was also critical of the state government's charges on a depressed industry and the continued 'open arms' policy of the government at the time towards foreign investment and its then grip on Australian resources. Back then he gave an interview to a local journalist, saying: 'Foreign ownership is like a constant haemorrhage of Australian profits. We now have our own expertise and we should be taking advantage of it.'

Warwick served in the first Howard ministry as Minister for Resources and Energy from March 1996 until 21 October 1998. I remember he regularly introduced himself at events emphasising that he was the Minister 'for' Resources and Energy, not the 'minister against resources and energy'—which he thought some predecessors in previous governments had been. While he was not reappointed to the ministry after the 1998 election, Warwick continued in the Senate until his retirement in February 2000, when our now Attorney-General, Senator George Brandis, was chosen to fill his vacancy.

Shortly after resigning from the Senate, Warwick was appointed a director of several coal companies. He led the Queensland Liberal Party from 2005 to 2008, working, as we heard, with our colleague the member for Maranoa as party president of the National Party to prepare for the amalgamation of the LNP. He not only had the strong backing of John Howard but also was highly respected by the Queensland members of the Liberal Party.

I refer to a speech that former Senator Hill—a fellow senator in this place and a colleague of ours—made at the time of Senator Parer's retirement from the Senate. He commented that Warwick had had a distinguished career in the mining industry before his contribution to politics. He said:

… he brought to us a great deal of practical experience in that industry which balanced the many theorists that we have in this place.

I thought that was a fitting tribute, given the very practical and knowledgeable contribution that Warwick made not only as minister but to our parliament.

Warwick's many years of public service and long contribution to the people of Queensland will always be remembered. I join with my colleagues in expressing our sympathy to Kathi and the Parer family.

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