Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to congratulate the member for Barker for moving this motion about a very great Australian. As members may be aware, a state memorial service to celebrate the life of Mr Steele Hall was held on 1 July at the Adelaide Festival Centre, hosted by the government of SA. The state memorial service honoured Mr Hall's life and his contribution to South Australian politics. His leadership showed a determination to do what he recognised to be in the best interests of South Australians, and he leaves behind a reputation for integrity and for political courage. By introducing landmark legislation that changed the way voters were weighted during the elections, he reformed the state's electoral system. Other significant reforms and actions under his leadership were in areas including abortion access, Aboriginal affairs, the state's natural gas industry and his opposition to a dam at Chowilla in the Murray-Darling Basin.

Switching from state politics to federal politics in 1974, Mr Hall was elected to the Senate, where he served until 1977, and was the member for Boothby in the House of Representatives from 1981 to 1996. With a parliamentary career spanning more than 33 years, Mr Hall was the only Australian to serve as premier of a state as well as a member of three legislatures and was the leader of two political parties, one of which he founded. It's fitting that Mr Hall's state memorial service was held at the Adelaide Festival Centre. It is almost impossible to imagine Adelaide without this iconic building, which was the first of its kind in Australia and finished almost six months earlier than the Sydney Opera House.

When potential sites for Adelaide's top-tier performance venue were first discussed in the mid-sixties, discussion centred around the location in North Adelaide at the old Bonython family estate, Carclew, on Montefiore Hill. However, the then Premier, Steele Hall, made an official visit to the UK during which he visited the Royal Festival Hall on the banks of the Thames. I'm told that, at this moment, Premier Hall envisaged a world-class riverfront theatre with breathtaking views of Adelaide's waterfront vista. By the time Premier Hall left office, a new site had been selected at the former Adelaide Baths on the banks of the River Torrens, with the then incoming government of Don Dunstan continuing the project, which resulted in the magnificent Adelaide Festival Centre site as we see it today. The view from the festival centre, down the sloping lawns of Elder Park, across the river to Adelaide Oval and St Peter's Cathedral is now forever part of the proud remains of a legacy that Steele Hall left to South Australians, who he served diligently and with distinction.

In 1988, we saw his courage in crossing the floor to vote against his own party leader who proposed to make race a determinant in migrant intake. Mr Hall found this to be personally repugnant and dangerously corrosive to Australian society.

After Mr Hall retired as member for Boothby ahead of the 1996 election, a journalist asked him to sum up his time in politics. He replied, perhaps with a hint of well-earned pride:

I do not have a record which is wimpish or weak—

a pointed statement.

Mr Hall is survived by his beautiful wife, Joan Hall, who's here with us today and who also served in the state parliament as the member for Coles, now Morialta. To Joan, her six children and six grandchildren, our heartfelt condolences go out to the family. May he rest in peace.

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