Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to commemorate the life of former Capricornia MP Dr Douglas Everingham. While Dr Everingham and I didn't share the same political ideologies, we did share the same dedication for the electorate of Capricornia, and I have the utmost respect for the achievements he made. Born in Wauchope, New South Wales, Everingham graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Sydney in 1946. He spent time in New South Wales psychiatric hospitals before relocating back to Rockhampton, Queensland, where, like many medical students, he had completed his internship. Dr Everingham died last Thursday aged 94 in an aged-care home in Brisbane. He was a respected politician, a loved family man and a successful advocate for health reforms.

Dr Everingham beat Evan Schwarten for Labor Party preselection in 1967 at a time when party leader Gough Whitlam wanted to add more tertiary-educated politicians to the ranks. He remained the member for Capricornia until his retirement at the 1984 election. He was somebody with vision and one of the few doctors at that time that were in government. The first of a stream of academic leaders under Whitlam, Dr Everingham worked in public and private hospitals as well as as a general practitioner in Rockhampton after his graduation from the University of Sydney. After he won Capricornia, he became health minister and was responsible for introducing community health centres and establishing the Hospitals and Health Services Commission. He opened new hospitals, established new agreements with the states and also focused on Indigenous health programs. It's important to recall that this was in the 1970s, a time when such reforms were considered radical.

Although it was not delivered during his tenure as health minister, Dr Everingham was instrumental in the creation of Medicare. Dr Everingham knew that all Australians would benefit from universal health care and was committed to seeing services delivered through general practitioners under a system paid for through taxation.

In many ways Dr Everingham was ahead of his time, but that did not stop him from succeeding in driving his agenda forward and realising many remarkable achievements. He urged restrictions on cigarette and alcohol advertising, going to the extent of sticking antismoking signs on the cigarette vending machines that were once commonplace at Parliament House.

Not only was he a man of high intelligence, but he had a sense of humour to boot. Dr Everingham was a proponent of the proposed SR1 set of spelling reforms. Spelling reform 1 is an English spelling reform proposal advocated by British-Australian linguist Harry Lindgren. It calls for the short 'E' sound to be always spelt with 'E'. In a sign of his cheeky character, the proposal resulted in him renaming his department the 'Department of Helth', prompting Prime Minister Whitlam to send correspondence to Dr Everingham beginning with 'Dear Dug' and signed 'Yurs, Gof'.

The spelling reforms were a reflection of his unerring belief in international peace. As his former state member for Rockhampton said:

His absolute commitment to the introduction of the international language, Esperanto underpinned his world peace objective as he reasoned that if people could communicate in a universal language there it would bring nations together. I think he must have had some influence at Rocky High where his children went to school because there were lunchtime instructions available for those I treated in Esperanto, I tried and failed.

He worked tirelessly for peace and had a profound influence on many people at many levels.

At the time of his death last week, Everingham was one of four remaining original Whitlam government ministers, one of the last remaining stalwarts of a very political era. Today, we remember the contributions of this honourable man and thank him and his family for his commitment to our nation. To Jo-Anne, Sue and Rick, thank you for the contribution your father made to my electorate of Capricornia and the sacrifices I'm sure you made as a family. Please know that they will not be forgotten.

See this speech in context