Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House acknowledge the passing on 29 October 2017 of former Governor-General the Right Honourable Sir Ninian Martin Stephen KG AK GCMG GCVO KBE QC, and place on record its gratitude of his service to our nation and tender its profound sympathy to Lady Stephen and his family in their bereavement.

Sir Ninian Stephen was born in England in 1923. Three weeks later, his father walked out of his life and never returned. Young Ninian and his Scottish mother spent his early years in Edinburgh. Later they roamed the world before settling in Australia.

Last month a Scottish pipe band echoed through the streets of Melbourne as we farewelled an adopted son whose life represented the very best of us. Sir Ninian's legacy lives on both here and beyond our shores, in all the nations where he worked tirelessly for peace, justice and reconciliation. But he was not driven by a proud man's desire to leave his mark on history. His motivation was public service and the desire to leave the world a better place. It was a life of many acts played out across many stages.

A brilliant commercial barrister and leading constitutional lawyer, he rose to the top of his field to become a justice of the High Court. He served the nation from the battlefields of Bougainville and Borneo as an Australian soldier to the red dust of Uluru-Kata Tjuta, where, as Governor-General, he handed Aboriginal freehold title over to the Anangu traditional owners in 1985. As a peacemaker and international jurist, he sought justice and brought people together on the green but riven fields of Ireland, in the jungles of Cambodia, amid the destruction of the former Yugoslavia and across the unforgiving deserts and mountains of Afghanistan.

Sir Ninian's wise counsel, fairness and compassion, along with his great constitutional expertise, kept him in demand long after his retirement as Governor-General. His many roles included chairman of the Northern Ireland peace talks, mediator between government and opposition in Bangladesh, foundation judge on The Hague war crimes tribunal in respect of the former Yugoslavia, and distinguished observer representing the Commonwealth at the Convention for a Democratic South Africa.

There were few honours that Sir Ninian did not have to his name—he was knighted five times—but, despite his many public roles and accolades, his role as a father and a husband, as a family man, was paramount. Sir Ninian discovered late in life that his father had not died of wartime injuries, as he'd been told, but instead had left him and his mother to make a new family in Canada. He reached out to that family, proving that a true peacemaker always brings people together. The devoted husband and father of five daughters, he died holding his wife's hand. At his funeral his daughter Ann spoke of her parents' bond:

… he was also a romantic, writing beautiful, touching lines to our mother throughout their life together.

It may seem that Sir Ninian belonged to another age, but the qualities that made him unique are also timeless ones: witty, urbane, tolerant, humane and with a self-deprecating humour that proved, if any proof was needed, that this citizen of the world was truly one of us. Australia has lost one of its great statesman, and today we all mourn his passing. Our thoughts are with Lady Stephen and their entire family as they celebrate his life and mourn his loss.

See this speech in context