Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today, I wish to acknowledge the contribution and the legacy of former Deputy Prime Minister Doug Anthony, whom we remembered at a state memorial recently. Without Doug Anthony, the economic fabric of regional Australia would not be as strong as it is today. What he achieved as leader of the Country Party and as trade minister 41 years ago for Australia is virtually unheard of now. There were visiting nations, and they had never welcomed an Australian cabinet minister on their soil to forge new trade partnerships. He brought back to his constituents something that modern politicians too often forget: opportunity. He gave landholders, growers, producers and small businesses the chance to sell their food and fibre to new populations. Today, our farmers feed more than 60 million people outside the borders of our nation. That would not be possible without the work of Doug Anthony four decades ago.

Doug Anthony worked to make those in the bush the breadwinners of the country: agriculture, energy and minerals. He knew his constituents hated to rely on government handouts. They knew the value of what they had and wanted to trade to bring prosperity back to regional Australia. He pinpointed responsibility and outward-looking trade policies as the way for Australia to take full advantage of its potential and to develop both natural and primary resources. He knew that many countries blessed with abundant resources had failed to take advantage of them. Mr Anthony laid the crucial ground work to open up new markets for Australian growers, farmers and businesses across Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He worked to secure better access to the existing agricultural markets of the world, to create conditions for the opening up of new markets and to set up a code of behaviour on agricultural export that established fairer and more equitable conditions for trade.

Operating in a delicate diplomatic environment in the latter half of the 1970s, he flew around the world to open and to expand trade with the Soviet Union and Japan respectively, opening Australia's first trade fair in the Soviet Union and signing a new trade agreement with Japan in 1979 worth $180 million back then. That was a deal which, adjusted for inflation, would be worth $880 million today. He negotiated what would become Australia's first free trade agreement with New Zealand and he sought to increase agricultural and mining exports to the European Economic Community, which had shut its doors to Australian markets.

When he wasn't focused on growing regional economies he was protecting them—so much so, that when the Liberals sought to revalue the dollar to the detriment of the Australian agricultural sector he threatened to break the coalition. The policy was dumped three days later. Doug Anthony's legacy is what we gain when regional people hold the reigns of senior ministries. Our regional economies are no different today; they don't want handouts, they want opportunities.

I extend my condolences to his wife, Margot, to his children, Dugald, Jane and Larry, and to the rest of the extended family. Vale Doug Anthony.

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