Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I want to say a few words about Labor great Gerry Hand. Lindsay Tanner wrote of him, 'They don't make them like Gerry Hand anymore,' and that certainly is true. As a union organiser who grew up in Warrnambool, in south-west Victoria, Gerry Hand was known to be an energetic fighter for workers and for disadvantaged communities all through his union life and his political career. He didn't just fight for the Labor Party; he occasionally had fights inside the Labor Party. He did fight Bob Hawke in the early 1980s, when he stood as the Socialist Left candidate against Bob Hawke in what was by all reports a brutal contest for Labor preselection for the federal seat of Wills. He lost, but three years later he won Labor preselection for the neighbouring seat of Melbourne, and we got both Bob Hawke and Gerry Hand. He went on to work closely with Hawke at an extraordinary time in the party.

In the decade that Gerry Hand held the seat of Melbourne, he was a passionate and unflagging fighter for disadvantaged groups of people, including Indigenous Australians, low-paid workers, public housing tenants and recently arrived migrants. From 1983 to 1993, including the time he served as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and then Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs, what we saw from Gerry Hand was distinction and passion. He became a leading light of the ALP Left, and he re-energised it with his commitment to social justice. He's credited with bringing the Left in from the cold.

Gerry Hand was also a link between Labor's traditional blue-collar working-class union base and the rapidly growing progressive middle class. He was able to incorporate the wishes, desires and world views of both groups, and, in his various roles, he brought those views to cabinet. He was a vital part of the Hawke government, working behind the scenes to achieve agreement and support for some of the more difficult and controversial policy initiatives of the time. And, of course, he had a deep commitment to improving the lives of Indigenous Australians, including in the establishment of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. He prepared much of the ground for the work that has come after, when it comes to political moves to benefit First Nations communities around Australia, and his early work went on to pave the way for the 1993 native title legislation and, later, the Bringing them home report on the stolen generations.

We are, all of us in the Labor family, sending our deepest condolences and deepest sympathies to Gerry Hand's family and many, many friends. We farewell a giant of the Left and a Labor legend.

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