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

In this appropriations debate I will speak of the former finance minister, Peter Walsh. Peter Alexander (Alexanda) Walsh was a farmer, a finance minister, a husband and a father. Peter was born in Kellerberrin in 1935; he left school at 14 and entered the Senate in 1974. He entered cabinet in 1983 and left parliament in 1993. His achievements in public life are quite remarkable. When Peter died on 10 April he was surrounded by his loving and understanding family. He was not always easy to live with—he was acerbic and gruff to political opponents while being friendly, social and caring, always loving and intriguing to his family. Hardworking, he enjoyed a party and he was an enduring friend to a broad political church of public policy enthusiasts. Peter applied a consistent set of values throughout his life—Australia is better for that. He distrusted the new class, saw government as having an efficient and effective purpose, only doing what governments do best—taking one tax dollar more than was necessary was, he said, theft.

But I am getting ahead of myself. In his younger days Peter, Rosalie and brother John and sister-in-law Margaret farmed wheat and sheep at Doodlakine in Western Australia's grain belt. In a family of outstanding farmers, Peter was a good farmer and a good left-handed 100 sheep a day shearer. Harry Perkins told me that. Harry was beaten by Peter in a junior farmers regional shearing zone final in the early 1950s. Peter was very pleased—Harry was Country Party! Peter's farm neighbours were always impressed by his remarkable capacity to estimate crop yields. He was known to get it right to within 0.1 of a tonne per hectare. It was an invaluable skill and an ability he retained to the end. Even through the gathering cloud of dementia and as other skills left him, in October last year he could convert grain length and density of the head into bags of wheat then bushels per acre, then to tons per hectare and finally into tonnes per hectare—all in his head. Although it was thought radical in the 1960s, Peter built contour banks across the farm to contain and direct heavy rainfall. Peter was proud of his contour banks. They remain in full working order today, saving soil and water and controlling erosion.

In the early 1950s Peter did National Service with the Army at the Northam camp. But he was not an enthusiastic soldier of the Queen. Peter was an enthusiastic soldier in the battle for a stronger economy. He was a general in the fight for a better, fairer budget. Peter was outstanding at that.

Peter had a clarity of thought, an ability to reduce the complex to simple principles. This was a critical facility. When he spoke he made sense, and people listened. The Labor Party, led by Bill Hayden, with John Dawkins, Don Grimes, Neal Blewett, then Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, found Peter's approach invaluable. We thank his colleagues for finding not just a place but a purpose for what Paul Keating called 'Peter's reactive economic rationalism'. As resources minister, Peter introduced the petroleum resource rent tax, which, like his contour banks, remains in place today, working for the benefit of future generations. Bob Hawke said:

… it was as Minister for Finance that Peter really made his mark. His highly principled, no-nonsense and at times acerbic style made him ideal for this position. In agricultural terms, of which he was well versed, he was able to sort the wheat from the chaff in a very efficient manner. His talent and contribution has been widely acknowledged, including high praise from Nick Minchin and other Liberals as the Best Ever Finance Minister. No-one could disagree with that.

Significant expenditure cuts were required in 1986 in order to weather collapsing terms of trade. The government adopted a simple trilogy: do not raise taxes as a share of GDP; do not raise outlays as a share of GDP and reduce outlays in real terms. For four years, using IMF expenditure definitions, Peter fulfilled that trilogy.

For four years, using IMF expenditure definitions, Peter fulfilled that trilogy. He produced four budgets which reduced outlays in real terms, something that no other government finance minister has done more than once. So Peter remains the gold standard, cutting spending in real terms while increasing the fairness of outlays. The old child endowment, a payment to every family regardless of wealth, was abolished. The family allowance was introduced. It was income tested and provided a greater payment only to those who were less well off. Peter worked with a team of aligned souls, as Paul Keating called it—a company of ministers and public servants who understood the need for fairness and frugality, pursuing a philosophy of 'restraint with equity', ensuring that the least well off were protected as overall government spending fell.

Peter was always at work—even at a diplomatic corps dinner at the embassy in Tokyo. Ross Garnaut tells of Peter's visit in the latter days of the 1980s property boom, when Peter was finance minister. Ross says:

The Australian Embassy residence was set in an old and beautiful Japanese garden that had been bought for a number of inconvertible Japanese yen during the postwar occupation. It was famous around the old and great of Japan, and the pride of the Australian Ambassador and diplomatic glitterati. 'How much is this garden worth?', asked Walsh. The Ambassador said that he didn't know for sure, but, proudly thought it was probably a billion dollars (that's the dollars of the late 1980s). The Finance Minister said he would check it out.

A Cabinet meeting a couple of months later authorised a process to put part of the garden in Tokyo out to sale by tender, and to build fit for purpose offices for the Embassy in a corner of the site that would not be sold. The next year's budget papers revealed a surplus of more than $800 million from the sale of land, after deducting the costs of new Embassy buildings in Beijing and Tokyo.

So, fairness was increased as a consequence of restraint.

Labor's primary vote rose and its two-party preferred vote rose. At the 1987 double-dissolution election held on Gough Whitlam's birthday, 11 July, with declining government outlays Labor increased its parliamentary majority. Peter was proud of that, and we are proud of Peter—proud of him as a Western Australian and proud of him in his role as a Labor senator and a Labor minister.

Peter enjoyed a party. He was not going to let hard work or politics get in the way of that. Members, senators and public servants would seek out Peter's corridor parties, in the company of Gareth Evans, John Button, Ralph Willis, John Dawkins, John Howard, Peter Costello, John Hewson, and another son of the WA wheat belt, from the town of Korbel, John Stone. I could keep on going but you get the picture. Peter was also close to John Hyde, another dry, wheat-belt public-policy obsessive from Dalwallinu. He respected Eric Ripper's fiscal management. He liked and respected Nick Minchin and made a friend of Mathias Cormann. He liked Tony Burke and he enjoyed showing Burkey around the family farm.

Peter's daughters remember a loving father, proud of his girls, unlike the reserved, stoic, sunburnt grain-belt types. He was always soft and gentle—but don't ever tell his foes that; they thought the softest thing about Peter was his teeth. He was a contradiction. To daughter Deborah, he was a pessimistic optimist, an anti-green conservationist, a frugal man who loved to party, a grandfather who doted on his grandchildren but who was a dodgy babysitter. Deborah talks of a Saturday morning when the boys were in Peter's care. Deborah came home to find two wild ducks walking to the boys' bedroom and a trail of duck poo from the back verandah to the bedrooms. Deborah asked Peter why he had let the ducks into the house. He looked up from The Australian Financial Reviewand said, 'Well, I didn't leave the door open.'

To Anne, Peter was a teacher and a role model, remembering Peter's connection to Muresq Agricultural College through which a young and troubled Vietnam war conscript came to stay on the family farm. Peter taught the girls that you could hate the Vietnam War but honour, sympathise and support its participants. Peter taught that creed and colour play no part in the worth of a person. Peter taught never to confuse the volume of noise with the number of people making it.

To Shelley, Peter was a playful father, teaser of kids and family pets, and a serious competitor in childhood games on the farm. He taught that it was always possible to add one more to the dining-room table.

Peter had three lives: the family man, the senator and the farmer with enduring attachments to the dirt at Doodlakine.

Karen remembers Peter living by the numbers and precision; farming required that. The girls were daughters 1, 2, 3 and 4. Peter was fun, spontaneous and out for adventure, while Rosalie restored the order. Karen remembers his vast general knowledge, and how learning new things was exciting with Peter. To escape the heat on a hot dry summer night, the family would often drag their mattresses out onto the back lawn. Peter was fascinated by the stars and the universe, and he would encourage the girls to find constellations in the Milky Way. On the farm on their back lawn, on their backs looking up; going to sleep they would discuss the universe and its wonders.

While Peter retired from politics in 1993, he left a legacy that transcends politics. He learnt from the land and he brought from the wheat belt that gave him life an appreciation of the real value of things, and the rigour to apply those values throughout his life. Those values included a 'restraint with equity' philosophy to protect the most vulnerable, which ultimately meant a better and fairer outcome. He blazed a new path for finance ministers. Peter enjoyed football, first as a player locally, then as a lifelong member of the Swan Districts Football Club, and he was a proud—original—West Coast Eagles member. Peter was always true to himself. Australia was made stronger and fairer for Peter's public service. No Australian could aspire to do better than that.

We thank the whole Walsh family for letting Peter perform his public service; John, for holding things together on the farm; and Rosalie, for holding things together at home. The Walsh family, through Kevin and Philippa, continue today to farm at Doodlakine, where as dust Peter will settle. Peter is survived by Rosalie, by his daughters Karen, Shelley, Anne and Deborah, and by 11 grandchildren, Rhiannon, Daniel, Imogen, Christopher, Alexander, Laura, Siobhan, Michael, Riley, Darcy and Toby. We thank you, Peter. We thank you for your service.

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