Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I associate myself with the fine remarks from the member for Reid; it was very generous of him. Tom Uren was many things, but to me he will always be a fighter. He fought against entrenched interests his entire life. He fought for: peace and led the opposition to the disastrous Vietnam War; free speech; democracy and the right to assemble; and democracy within the Labor Party and took on the Sussex street machine opposed to that principle.

I will not detail his personal background as the many speakers before me have detailed this brilliantly. His political philosophy is best demonstrated by his experience as a prisoner of war. I will quote from his first speech in the old chamber that so many people have returned to.

In our camp the officers and medical orderlies paid the greater proportion of their allowance into a central fund. The men who worked did likewise. We were living by the principle of the fit looking after the sick, the young looking after the old, the rich looking after the poor. A few months after we arrived at Hintock-road Camp, a part of 'H' force arrived. They were about 400 strong. As a temporary arrangement they had tents. The officers selected the best, the non-commissioned officers the next best, and the men got the dregs. Soon after they arrived the wet season set in, bringing with it cholera and dysentery. Six weeks later only 50 men marched out of that camp, and of that number only about 25 survived. Only a creek separated our two camps, but on one side the law of the jungle prevailed and on the other the principles of socialism.

That principle, as espoused in that quote from his experience as a PoW was the philosophy that was to be the foundation of the rest of Tom's life. As a former prisoner of war, ultimately, Tom fought for peace. He was the first member of parliament to oppose the Vietnam War. This was as early as 1962. This was a full four years before the 1966 election when Harold Holt rode a jingoistic wave to defeat a Labor opposition that took a principled stand., a stand that has stood the test of history, unlike the cynical, reactionary Vietnam policies of other actors at that time.

It is not well known that Tom was the organising genius behind the Vietnam moratorium marches. Jim Cairns was the public face, but Tom led the mass mobilisation that remains to this day the largest mass movement this country has seen. He also fought for nuclear disarmament and many other causes to advance world peace.

This principled stand brought him into conflict with the powerful media oligarchies who accused him of treason in the early 1960s. Let me pause for a moment. They accused Tom Uren, a man who volunteered for the Army in May 1939 as storm clouds formed, a man who fought courageously in Timor against the advancing Japanese, a man who spent four birthdays as a prisoner of war—including time on the infamous Thai-Burma Railway. This colossus of a man defamed in an attempt to silence his opposition to the Vietnam War.

Well I am proud to say that Tom took on Frank Packer and the Fairfax family. He took them on and won the largest defamation damages case in Australian history. He remarked that he named his two houses he bought with his settlement, 'Fairfax House' and 'Packer Lodge'. It has been quoted that as he berated Sir Frank Packer during his case, Sir Frank Packer came to respect Tom. I think that is a nice story.

The truth is Tom also fought oppressive governments wherever he saw them. He fought the attempts by the corrupt Bjelke-Peterson government to establish a police state in Queensland. He led the street marches against the ban on public protest. He was arrested and imprisoned for his efforts.

However, his defiance continued. For a man who survived the Thai Burma Railway, this intimidation failed. In fact he was consistent in his principles while imprisoned, refusing to salute the Queen nor call the guards 'sir'. This commitment to democracy and tolerance also dominated his activism within the Labor Party. Winning a rank and file preselection against an incumbent MP, a win he attributed to countless cups of tea with preselectors, Tom quickly became the leader of the parliamentary left.

His skills in establishing a collective approach guaranteed that the left played a large role in the post war Labor caucus and produced some great ministers and policies. Prime Minister Hawke called him the 'conscience of the Labor Party', and Tom understood that to be effective you had to combine principles with the acquisition and exercise of power. This leadership extended to leadership of the broader New South Wales left. Together with Senator Gietzelt and Bruce Child, Tom Uren shaped and mentored generations of the left, including the members for Grayndler and Sydney, who we heard speak yesterday on this motion.

I got to know Tom after 2002, when I began work for Senator George Campbell. Tom would visit our office quite often to discuss politics and talk about his various writings. A generation of young staffers such as I were his unpaid typists. We would type up his letters and his manuscripts. It was a role we were proud to perform and we learned much from this colossus of Australian politics.

Tom had many other achievements. His fight for Timor Leste independence is well known, as is his position as Labor's first environmental spokesperson and Minister for Urban and Regional Development. Tom made a massive contribution to preserving and enhancing our natural and built environment. My colleagues have explored this area thoroughly. I will simply say that his policies and his management of the Department of Urban and Regional Development were magnificent. I remember studying them at university.

So much has been said about Tom Uren. One contribution that stuck with me was the conclusion to Mungo Macallum's obituary to Tom, which stated:

He will be remembered as a model of personal political integrity. Australia has produced politicians who were cleverer, wittier, more polished and more sophisticated, but few, if any, have been more decent.

I want to acknowledge that at Tom's state memorial last week it was a great pleasure to see former Prime Minister John Howard there, along with his old sparring partner Sir John Carrick, a former POW. I think that was a great tribute. When Tom left politics the fanfare and the tributes were not just on one side of the chamber. They were from both sides. When you live in a very partisan environment it is very important to acknowledge when someone had the respect and admiration of all sides of politics.

To conclude, I return to Tom Uren's first speech in the House of Representatives. The speech is as current now as it was then. He identified as his central political objective that of the labour movement, which is the struggle to improve living standards. He called for the diversification of Australian industry and warned against the over-reliance on primary industries—something that is very relevant today.

Interestingly, as we see some in this place campaign for a higher goods and services tax, Tom railed against the regressive nature of indirect taxation. He concluded, as I conclude my contribution, with Ben Chifley's 1951 speech entitled Things Worth Fighting For. This quote, in his first speech in this place, set out the consistent, principled approach Tom Uren took in his decades of public service, an approach all Labor Party members should be guided by:

I hope that the defeat at the last elections has not discouraged members of the Labour movement from fighting for what they think is right—whether it brings victory to the party or not.

The Labour movement was not created with the objective of always thinking what is the most acceptable thing to do—whether this individual will win a seat or whether the movement will pander to some section of the community.

The Labour movement was created by the pioneers, and its objectives have been preached by disciples of the Labour movement over the years to make decisions for the best for all the people.

If, from time to time, the policy is not favoured by the majority of the people, there is no reason why the things we fight for should be put aside to curry favour with any section of the people. I believe that what we are fighting for is right and just.

We must continue and justice will prevail.

On behalf of the people of Charlton, my condolences to Tom Uren's family and friends. Rest in Peace, Tom.

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