Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to say some words in condolence for Peter Walsh, a dedicated and talented senator for Western Australia and a key member of the economic team within the Hawke-Keating Labor government—which is the same as saying that he was one of the chief architects of Australia's greatest period of economic reform and budget management in the modern era.

At the outset I want to thank my Western Australian colleague the member for Brand for his reflections on a man who was not only a political mentor but also a father-in-law, a dad to Gary's wife, Deborah, and grandfather to Gary's children.

Peter Walsh entered the Senate in 1974 and in his early years was an unstinting opponent of the war in Vietnam and a white-hot critic when it came to the bastardry of John Kerr and Malcolm Fraser in 1975. As Minister for Resources and Energy he presided over the introduction of the petroleum resource rent tax, which currently provides around $2 billion dollars in precious annual revenue. Remember that John Howard had previously dumped the Fraser government's consideration of a proposal to derive a fair return for all Australians from the higher than usual profit achieved through the development of resources like petroleum that belongs to all Australians. But of course Peter Walsh is best known as the best finance minister Australia has ever had and the fact that this status is accorded to him unchallenged is a mark of the incredible public service contribution he made. Indeed, the strongest theme in all of the reflections on Peter Walsh's very significant contribution to the Australian government is his steely adherence to good policy and rational budgets, irrespective of the surrounding populist noise and the special pleading. I love the quote from Bill Hayden about Peter's discipline and disinterested rigour when it came to assessing budget proposals:

He took no prisoners, gave no sanctuary, recognised no neutrality. I am one of his best friends as he is one of mine, but I knew better than to ask for mercy or favour in the pre-budget process.

In Geoff Kitney's colourful obituary it is noted that:

In Paul Keating's reflections on those years ... Keating recalled the back-breaking, health-wrecking tediousness and thanklessness of the endless hours of meetings of the Expenditure Review Committee. For every hour that Keating spent in those meetings, Peter Walsh spent two.

I did not have the good fortune to know Peter, but as a Labor person from country WA, I feel an affinity with his background and with his related concern for the interests of hard-working people who are subject to the buffeting of macroeconomic forces that are generally shaped by others or else held back by rural and regional leaders with a head-in-the-sand attraction to an irrational status quo, which is just as bad. Having said that, there are many areas in which Peter and I probably would not have agreed, especially when it comes to environmental conservation and climate change, and, despite his having been part of the Left faction of the Labor party, I suspect he might have assessed me as belonging to a category of Labor people of which he was not particularly fond—but who knows?

I do know that Peter Walsh's example has influenced the conduct and work ethic of parliamentarians from all sides. He really was a person who gave his all, who brought all his energy and intellectual capacity to bear on some of the most difficult and complicated matters of economic policy in the best interests of all Australians. At times that effort put a strain on Peter that must have stretched his physical and emotional wellbeing to breaking point, but he never broke and he never shirked the hard work that needed to be done. No-one can ask or expect more than that from our political representatives.

As a loving family man, Peter will be greatly missed by all of his family. As a parliamentarian of the highest quality Peter Walsh set an example to be remembered and honoured. As a Labor senator and cabinet minister, his life and work reminds us that progressive, rigorous, fair and evidence-based economic policy is at the heart of the Australian Labor project.

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