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

I rise to speak on this statement in respect of the life of John Bannon, the Premier of South Australia, a personal friend, a long-term Labor staffer in the Whitlam government, President of the Labor Party and great force for political stability in my home state of South Australia. I first met John before the 1982 South Australian election, when he became Premier. I first met him at The Workers Club in Whyalla, where he was campaigning in favour of our new local candidate, Frank Blevins, who went on to become Deputy Premier of South Australia and one of that state's most significant treasurers in the terrible and difficult days following the collapse of the State Bank of South Australia.

John was a deeply pragmatic man. He was thoughtful, caring and kind. He had a cheeky sense of humour and a voracious appetite for work. He led the debate at our national conference in 1982 to reform a substantial area of our party platform and then took that debate up again at the 1984 national conference here in Canberra, at what we then called the Lakeside Hotel, when the Labor Party adopted its three-mines uranium policy. John's speech at that conference centred on the importance of nuclear power, the role that South Australia could play in the nuclear cycle and, importantly, the damage done by acid rain in northern Europe and in northern America and the importance therefore of a technology-based energy-generation shift to deal with the climatic catastrophe that was being created by acid rain fallout. John engaged in that uranium debate with a fullness of spirit, an openness and a deep democratic belief that the party could make the hardest judgements in the best way.

The decision in South Australia to progress Roxby Downs was a massive decision. The decision in South Australia by the Bannon government to support the development of Roxby Downs continues to have very important implications. The reality is that Roxby remains the heart of the economic growth opportunity for South Australia, producing copper, gold, silver and uranium. John Bannon was also Premier at the time of the approval of the Cooper Basin liquids project to pipe liquids from the Cooper Basin into the northern Spencer Gulf and then for those liquids to meet international markets. It was an insightful, difficult set of decisions inherited from a very capable former government and implemented with great skill by the Bannon government.

The development of the Grand Prix in Adelaide brought to Adelaide a highly uncharacteristic sense of excitement and fizz. It took South Australia into a world that I do not believe South Australians had ever believed could be theirs, and that was a world of being popular, of being energetic and of having a bit of a difference about you. South Australia had become somewhat a bit staid and a bit stale, and the Bannon government gave it new life.

The transition in the Labor Party from the deeply reformist and flamboyant leadership of Dunstan to the more cautious, careful and suited Bannon government was something that we all noted. On occasions, as much as Young Labor people like me adored Don Dunstan, the transition to Bannon was something that we watched carefully and thoughtfully. And Bannon becomes one of those significant economic leaders on the Labor side of politics balancing fairness and economic responsibility in an energetic way providing the foundation stone for a long-term government.

Bannon was also, of course, the chief of staff for Clyde Cameron, who was Whitlam's Labour minister. Bannon was on deck the day when Gough Whitlam sacked Clyde Cameron. I had cause to reflect late last year, with Bannon, on that event. Bannon did not tell me how sick he was, and indeed just on the eve of Christmas I received my annual Christmas card from John and Angela.

He wrote his Christmas cards even though he knew how deeply sick he was. He prioritised his friendships, his relationships and a simple gesture such as a Christmas card at that time becomes a towering gesture from a man who was saying goodbye to those of us who were important to him.

John continued to carry a major role nationally until his death. The Prime Minister remarked on that and, I think, at John's funeral the wonderful comments from Ian McLachlan on John's role in the South Australian Cricket Association and the formation of a sensible arrangement around the magnificent rebuild of the Adelaide Oval is something that should inform sports administrators in all states—cricket administrators, in particular—and the Australian Football League and the government of Western Australia in their consideration of the football stadium in Western Australia.

One of the really interesting things that Ian McLachlan said was that he had met with John in the days prior to John's death and that John had spoken to him about the nature of the funeral and the arrangements and the celebration of his life. John had requested that both his cricket bat and cricket ball be on the stage during the eulogies at the wake for the former Premier. Ian agreed that it was entirely appropriate that John's cricket ball should be on the stage.

His cricket ball had been John's favoured weapon in cricket—although, as one would expect of John Bannon, he was not a fast bowler; he was a very good slow bowler and a highly successful slow bowler. Ian McLachlan, a former minister in the Howard government, made mention of the very spectacular bowling figures that John had continued to obtain as an experienced cricketer in the older leagues in South Australia. However, Ian was mystified by John's desire to have his cricket bat on the stage. Ian had gone back and done the calculations with the ball and realised that John's average at taking a wicket was extremely respectable—about a wicket every 17 runs. But, with the bat, John had scored—over the course of the previous 30 years—only two runs, on average, at each outing. Ian made the observation to John that he was not much of a batsman. John took umbrage at the fact that Ian had done the calculation and concluded that it wasn't two runs per innings that he had made with the bat; it was actually 2.05. I believe that correction should be on the record.

John was a terrific man—a man of humour, a man of passion, a man of great differences. He was a man who brought to my party a deep sense of obligation and a deep sense of accountability. When the State Bank of South Australia collapsed, John took it all on himself. It was not John's fault, but it was appropriate that the head of a government should act like a head of a government and take all of the accountabilities for the decisions that could be anchored back to that government. John was both very old-fashioned, proper and very principled but he did take it on himself to take more responsibility for those decisions than ever any head of government should have had to have done.

John was a terrific man, a wonderful friend, an outstanding president of my party and an enduring Premier of South Australia, whose institutions will last and whose legacy to that state will be greatly appreciated for generations to come, if only because of the great decision that he made to ensure that Roxby Downs has a terrific future.

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