Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to acknowledge the outstanding contribution to motor sport made by Melbourne racing driver Peter Brock, who died tragically in a motor racing accident in Perth on 8 September 2006. Peter Brock’s family association with motor racing dates back to the turn of the century. His great-great-uncle Henry James was the founder of the RACV and organised Australia’s first motor sport event, the 1905 Sydney to Melbourne reliability trial.

Peter made his racetrack debut in a self-modified Holden-powered Austin A30 sport sedan. I can vividly recall watching him compete at the Calder Raceway in the late 1960s. Despite the small car having the equivalent aerodynamics of a block of flats, he was to go on and notch up around 100 race wins, including the Australian Sports Sedan Championship. In 1969, the manager of the newly formed Holden Dealer Team, Harry Firth, offered Peter Brock his first drive at Bathurst, in a Monaro GTS350, and he recorded an outstanding third place outright in his first attempt.

The Bathurst 1000 is the motor race that most people now associate with the name Peter Brock—not surprisingly, as he won the event an unprecedented nine times. The race was originally described as an endurance event of 1,000 kilometres, but today the race is probably better described as a 1,000 kilometre sprint. The race had its origins at the Phillip Island circuit in 1960, when it was known as the Armstrong 500. Bendigo resident Frank Coad and co-driver John Roxburgh won that inaugural event in a Vauxhall Cresta. In fact, Frank Coad has built a replica of this vehicle and runs it in club events in and around Bendigo, as well as being the proud owner of an Ariel Square Four motorcycle he rides on Bendigo Historic Motorcycle Club events.

The event was relocated to the Bathurst circuit in 1963 and is now regarded as one of the premier touring car events worldwide. The race that Peter Brock dominated has changed substantially over the years. Throughout the sixties and seventies, the cars were production models from a variety of makes that were only slightly modified for competition and were virtually the same as people could buy off the showroom floor. I believe it was this factor that appealed so much to the person on the street, who could watch the race on Sunday and then go and buy a similar vehicle from dealers all around Australia on Monday.

The limited modifications were mostly because of safety concerns and resulted in roll cages being fitted as well as the bodies and chassis being rewelded, the engines and drive trains being balanced and blueprinted and some other minor alterations. It was often said that the 500 miles around the Bathurst circuit equated to 100,000 miles of ordinary motoring, so the race provided an ideal test capability for the manufacturers to evaluate their vehicles and test components, making the cars that we drive today more efficient and far safer. In fact, motor racing has always provided valuable information throughout its history to manufacturers all over the globe, and many of the modifications derived from motorsport have continued to influence the design of many of the vehicles we drive today.

It was this type of racing that Peter Brock was so successful at for decades. The Bathurst race is now dominated by the Holden and Ford companies in the V8 supercar category. While the cars have similar bodies to the normal Holdens and Fords we buy off the showroom floor, the mechanical components are designed and built specifically for competition and bear no resemblance whatsoever to the components of the vehicles we drive today. In some respects I think that is a great shame. It detracts substantially from the spirit in which the race was first designed. I can understand the need for change, particularly for safety reasons, as well as the need to retain the race’s status as one of the premier touring car races—if not the premier touring car race—in the world. It has attracted highly competitive cars and teams from England, Europe and other parts of the world. The race is now virtually limited to highly modified Holdens and Fords but enjoys international status approaching levels similar to those of the Le Mans 24-hour endurance race in France for sports and sports prototype cars which are designed and built by the big European and American manufacturers.

Bathurst became synonymous with the theory that what wins on Sunday sells on Monday. Recognising this impact on the market, Australian manufacturers began designing and building specialist vehicles specifically for this race, the only requirement in those days being that 500 of a particular vehicle had to be registered for road use within Australia to qualify. This development gave us the Monaro GTS, the GT Falcons and, of course, the Torana XU1 in which Peter Brock won his first Bathurst 1000 victory. Even Chrysler made a valiant effort to enter the competition with its RTE38 Chargers. I had the misfortune of owning one of those machines for some years. You used to be able to tell how fast you were going by the way the fuel gauge declined, but it was a lot of fun. There was, understandably, considerable opposition to the development of these vehicles because of the obvious dangers when they eventually found their way on to the second-hand vehicle markets and within the financial resources of young and inexperienced drivers. However, this problem seems to have resolved itself because of the current extraordinarily high value that these cars can bring in today’s market. For example, a genuine example in good condition of a Ford Falcon GTHO Phase 3 can fetch in excess of $100,000.

In 1980 Brock established a special vehicles unit to modify base-model Holdens. This was the start of a very successful partnership with General Motors Holden which included the famous ‘Brock Special’ Holden. In 1997 Peter Brock retired from full-time V8 supercar racing after an outstanding career. On the motor racing circuit he was known as Peter Perfect. On his retirement, Peter Brock was recognised as one of Australia’s sporting greats and as an internationally recognised motor racing hero. The UK Motor Sport magazine rated Peter Brock in the top 20 most exciting drivers of all time, a list which included the likes of Senna, Schumacher, Fangio and Nuvolari. That in itself was an outstanding achievement on any assessment. In another authoritative UK publication he was recently voted the second greatest touring car driver of all time.

Peter Brock continued to pursue his interests in one-off events of a charitable nature and some historic and Targa style tarmac racing and rallying, as well as tirelessly contributing to the nation’s road safety campaign. He remained an active ambassador for his many loyal sponsors who had supported him throughout his motor racing career. In 1998 he accepted an invitation to join the board of the Australian Grand Prix, which was responsible for both the Australian Grand Prix and the Australian Moto Grand Prix.

Peter Brock’s motivational and speaking skills were in great demand. He was regularly called upon to address meetings, conventions and conferences for a diverse range of organisations in the business, education, sporting, government and charity areas. He was a tireless campaigner for road safety, especially in the drink-driving area, as demonstrated by the innovative measure of adopting the number 05 as his regular competition number.

Peter Brock died tragically in an accident during the Targa West Rally, and this resulted in some speculation about the suitability and construction of the vehicle that he was driving at the time—and, of course, there is a coroner’s inquiry currently under way. The vehicle was purpose built for competition, based on reproducing the specifications of an American designed 1969 Shelby Coupe. Media reports indicate that the vehicle more than met the strict construction requirements under the regulations governing this type of competition. The impact was simply so severe that the safety features built into the design were not able to withstand the force of the impact—with the obvious tragic result.

There was much more to Peter Brock than a champion racing driver, including his establishment of the Peter Brock Foundation, which has provided guidance and assistance to disadvantaged young people, assisting them to reach their full potential, his tireless work and advocacy for road safety, and his passionate defence of animal rights—a quality that I very much admired and appreciated. He and his family also successfully bred the delightful border collie dogs. No doubt Australian motorsport has lost a great champion but, perhaps more significantly, the nation has lost a great Australian. On behalf of the people of Bendigo and central Victoria, I extend our deepest sympathy to his family and friends.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to speak on this motion. I want to briefly pay tribute to the late Peter Brock and to make mention of his contribution. Before I do so, I commend the previous speaker, the member for Bendigo, on his knowledge of racing history, Bathurst and Australian cars. I can attest that his knowledge is impeccable. As someone who owns a 1971 GTS 350 and has owned several Monaros in my life, I can say that he is absolutely on the money. It is something that is a bit of a passion of mine—though I have yet to get my wife to travel with me in it. The member for Bendigo’s outline of Australian motorsport history was right on the money.

As the member for Bendigo outlined, and as the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have outlined, Australia lost a great Australian on the day Peter Brock died—on Friday, 8 September. I heard the news on the radio late that afternoon. In the week that Steve Irwin had also passed, it seemed quite surreal. If I had woken up to the news, I would have thought I had dreamt it. As all speakers have outlined—and speakers yet to make their contribution, I know, will also outline—Peter Brock was a very special Australian. He was a great success at his chosen sport for such a long period of time—nine Bathurst wins. To give you some idea of how long he was successful, he won his first race in the year that I was born, back in 1967. But, more than that, he was a great contributor to his local community and his nation.

As the member for Bendigo outlined, Peter Brock made a major national contribution on road safety, the road toll and drink-driving—and did so at a time when Australia had horrific statistics for drink-driving and road fatality. He did not just agree to have the 05 on his car; he went out of his way to promote that message for the rest of his life and the rest of his motor racing career. For those in his local community in Melbourne, he was selfless with his time and for so many causes—many causes you would not automatically associate with a Bathurst winner.

He was obviously—and I say ‘obviously’ because I do not stand here pretending to have known Peter Brock—someone with a great and inquiring mind. He was certainly passionate about the local environment and Indigenous issues—and the list went on. It did not matter how big or small the cause, he would always make the time and make the effort. We of course saw that in the tributes that flowed in the days and weeks following his death. The tributes from his local community and from communities across Melbourne and right across Australia, including those we saw at the recent Bathurst race, where, fittingly, a person he had spent so much time mentoring won the race by half a second—or, as they pointed out, 0.05 of a second—said so much about what a person Peter Brock was and how much we have lost.

As I have said, I do not pretend to have known him well. In fact, I met him once. But what I want to add to this statement is that a very good friend of his who is also a very good friend of mine has been deeply affected, as you would expect, by his death. I speak of Mr Phil Munday, who worked very closely with him for 10 years as a sponsor of and, in many ways, a co-partner in many of his projects in the motor racing industry. In fact, I met Peter Brock at the wedding of Phil and Carolyn Munday just a couple of years ago.

In the week prior to Peter’s death they had been in England together, where Peter Brock raced. They had both worked on restoring a car—and anyone who has been involved in a car restoration knows what it is like—tirelessly over the course of a year. They decided a year or so before to restore to racing condition a 1953 FX 215 which had raced at Goodwood in London in the fifties. The annual Goodwood Revival race south of London was on, and they restored the car and sent it over there with all the complications and headaches that go with that. Peter Brock raced the car to a respectable fourth, from memory, against some of the world’s best. It was a great thing they decided to do to promote Australian cars and Holden—and the very first Holden that came out, in particular. I know that Phil and Carolyn are feeling great loss at this time at Peter’s shock death. I am sure every member would agree that if Peter Brock’s contribution can live on in other generations involved in motorsport, or for that matter any sport, in terms of dedication to a sport and giving back, as he did in so many ways, Australia will be a very good place indeed.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to admit that unlike the previous two speakers, the member for Casey and the member for Bendigo, I am not a great fan of motorsport and I know absolutely nothing about cars. But what I do very much support is the generosity of human spirit, and Peter Brock had plenty of that. He was a very well respected member of my local community. He grew up just outside my electorate, in Nutfield, near Hurstbridge, and attended one of my great high schools, Eltham High. In fact, he is one of many celebrated graduates to come out of that school. As the previous speakers have said, Peter’s achievements in motor racing are deservedly lauded—winning the Bathurst 1000 nine times and earning the mantle of ‘King of the Mountain’.

In my view, it is his achievements as an Australian who sought to help others that really set him apart, particularly from many other Australian sporting heroes. He was not ever content to live what can be the pretty cloistered life of some of our star athletes. Instead he chose to turn his many talents and his fame as an athlete into a lot of very good work for different charities and, in particular, the Hurstbridge based Peter Brock Foundation. This foundation allocates funds and directs support to individuals, families, community groups—all of those different organisations that have a genuine need for help.

As others have said, young people in particular captured Peter’s imagination. He was concerned at the number of young people who engaged in self-harm and he helped to secure sponsorship—in fact, $10,000 from the Peter Brock Foundation—to help our local Nillumbik Community Health Centre and their ‘From Harm to Calm’ program. I know how much they appreciated that support.

Peter also understood that his achievements as a racing car driver made him a role model for many young people, in particular young men. He used his fame to encourage safe driving and he campaigned for that cause for many, many years and won an Order of Australia medal for his work. Most recently, Peter helped to launch a book called Motorvate, written by Eltham authors Jeff Fickling and Jennie Hill, which is directed at parents of kids approaching driving age and for those who are already driving, because he clearly understood that, as a racing car driver and a man of influence to many, he had a responsibility to encourage young people to be safe while driving on our roads. We can only imagine the number of young people who had their lives saved by Peter Brock’s interest in and support for educating young drivers.

He donated many other facets of his life to help others—his paintings, his image, his signature, his time—in many worthy causes. Locally, he could certainly be seen at many events—at charitable car washes in Eltham as well as at local concerts all around the place. He helped our community at a very grassroots level. To that end, I am very pleased that the organisers of the Brockie Big Day Out charity concert in Hurstbridge, scheduled for November, are still planning to go ahead. I am sure that Peter Brock would have wanted that to be so. There is no doubt that in staging that event enough money will be raised to see another one of Peter Brock’s dreams realised—that is, a bike path linking Hurstbridge to Diamond Creek. In a lovely gesture, the local primary school, Hurstbridge Primary School, is going to name an annual bike ride after Peter Brock. It is going to be called the Peter Brock memorial ride. That is just one example of how important Peter Brock was to his local community.

We can be very proud of his achievements as an Australian and as a Victorian. He will be remembered by so many people in the local area as someone who grew up on the outskirts of Melbourne, labouring over cars in a chook shed, filled with his dreams. It is a great sadness that will overwhelm many of his close family and friends. My condolences, along with those of every other member of the House, go to those who loved him. He will be greatly missed, but I am sure all of his family and friends will take comfort in the great legacy that he has left behind. I would like to say, particularly from the point of view of the local community and all the children and young people who have benefited, how much we appreciate his life.

Jim Lloyd (Robertson, Liberal Party, Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great sadness that I speak to this motion today and recognise the role of Peter Brock in Australia. It was a terrible week for all Australians to have two significant Australians pass away in a very short period of time, with the passing of both Peter Brock and Steve Irwin.

Today, in speaking to this motion, I particularly want to recognise Peter Brock’s contribution to Australian road safety. In December 2004, I had the privilege of participating in a national forum on young driver safety held at Parliament House—right here in this building—at which there were many fine presentations from road safety academics and driver training specialists. Peter Brock’s presentation on that day was most impressive. He spoke passionately about improving road safety for young Australians. In his unofficial role as a road safety ambassador, Peter was, above all else, a gifted communicator. He spoke with the authority gained from the vast experience in his profession, but he also spoke from the heart.

For more than three decades Peter lent his support to countless road safety and driver training initiatives. As a motor sports hero to thousands of young Australians, he was uniquely placed to get the road safety message out to those who needed most to hear it. In the mid-1970s Peter collaborated with the Victorian road safety authority on the 0.05 BAC campaign, which he famously promoted by adopting 05 as his racing car number. This was a powerful public endorsement of road safety values at a time when social attitudes towards drink-driving in particular were far more permissive and uninformed than they are today. Peter continued to communicate the drink-driving message to young people throughout his career, most recently through his involvement with RADD—the Recording Artists, Actors and Athletes against Drink-Driving Association.

Peter Brock had a long association with driver training and education. Since 1992, his association with the Jim Murcott/Peter Brock Advanced Driving Centre helped deliver a range of driving training courses designed for fleet drivers. In 2002 he worked with the driving instructors from TAFE Tasmania’s Arrive Alive Program when he visited that state to conduct an advanced training session. In 2005 he launched a program developed by Murcotts Driving Excellence for rural drivers, particularly targeting young people in farming communities. Through Team Brock Driving Life, the driver education arm of Peter’s motor racing organisation, he helped to deliver driver programs to both corporate bodies and the general public. Earlier this year Peter provided the foreword for a new book designed specifically to assist parents of teenagers who are on the threshold of their driving careers.

Peter’s road safety activities were not limited to addressing the needs of motorists. He recently took part in a road safety forum organised by the Amy Gillett Foundation which focused on ways in which bicycle riders and motorists can share the roads more safely. He was also active in developing community walking and cycling paths in his home town of Hurstbridge in Victoria.

Peter Brock became an Australian icon through his involvement in motor sports. He was lovingly referred to as Peter Perfect, revered for his mastery of the racetrack and his supreme vehicle control skills. He was a nine-time winner of the famous Bathurst 1000. I was pleased to see Peter’s close friend and racing colleague Craig Lowndes become the first winner of the inaugural Peter Brock Trophy for winning the event recently.

As a road safety advocate and educator, Peter Brock’s message was about self-control, moderation and learning to share the roads with other people. Earlier I mentioned the national forum on young drivers held in Parliament House in December 2004. A focal point of that event was the vulnerability of novice drivers in the year or so after they graduate to a provisional licence—that danger period when they are learning to make their own driving decisions without a supervisor looking over their shoulder. In the face of all the evidence, the Australian government was convinced of the need for a new driver education initiative in Australia—a post-licence education scheme directly addressing the heightened crash risk in the early stages of solo driving.

The Australian government joined with the New South Wales and Victorian governments, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, the Insurance Australia Group and the RACV to develop and trial an innovative program. Progress on this project has been slower than we would have hoped. Frankly, it has proved to be a more complex and challenging task than I think any of us envisaged. But we are committed to developing a program with genuine safety benefits for all young Australian motorists. I know that Peter Brock, speaking at that forum, was very supportive of this program.

A lot of work has gone into designing a curriculum for the course, drawing on a combination of international experience, research and best practice learning methods. A tender process was recently initiated to select the right specialist to fully develop and test the course curriculum. The main aim of the program will be to help young drivers gain a better understanding of the risks they face on the road and to encourage safer driving strategies whilst they are still maturing as motorists.

Plans are progressing for the commencement of the trial in New South Wales and Victoria next year. It will be delivered to novices aged 17 to 21 in New South Wales and 18 to 22 in Victoria after they obtain their first provisional car licence. The trial will run for several months, with 12 months of post-course crash data feeding into a comprehensive follow-up evaluation. It is expected to involve some 14,000 course participants in New South Wales and Victoria—7,000 in each state—with a similar number of novices selected for a control group. This will constitute one of the largest and most rigorous studies ever undertaken in the area of post-licence driver education.

Driver education is only one element in a comprehensive approach to road safety improvements, and the Australian government is deeply committed to doing everything it can to reduce the level of trauma on the nation’s roads. I am particularly concerned that the number of road deaths has not improved since 2004, despite increased spending on the nation’s roads, advances in vehicle safety and a greater focus on driver education from many high-profile people around Australia, including Peter Brock. There are, however, some positive signs. Road deaths in the eight months to the end of August 2006 were down 2.4 per cent on the same period last year, with a seven per cent reduction in deaths among drivers. But a rapid improvement in progress will be required to meet the national strategy target of a 40 per cent reduction in road deaths by the end of 2010.

Ministers of the Australian Transport Council met last Friday in this building to consider a national road safety action plan for 2007 and 2008. One important initiative already agreed to by the council is to develop a plan to accelerate the uptake of electronic stability control in new vehicles sold in Australia. Already 20 per cent of the fleet in Australia have electronic stability control fitted, and I understand that by next year, 2007, some 40 per cent of the fleet will have electronic stability control in one form or another. My department is working on this plan, which will include working with vehicle manufacturers to encourage the fitting of ESC technology in all new vehicle models. The Australian government has significantly increased its investment in safer roads through its $15 billion commitment to land transport infrastructure over five years, from 2004-05 to 2008-09, representing a 90 per cent increase on the previous five years.

In conclusion, obviously road safety was something that was a passion for Peter Brock. It is a passion for many people in Australia, and we all have to work together to ensure that we continue to save lives on our roads. We need a combination of safer roads, better vehicles and better qualified drivers. I want to record my condolences to Peter’s family and his friends. His enthusiasm for life was infectious and the Australian public were clearly shocked and moved by his untimely death.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the member for Moreton, I particularly want to be associated with the remarks of other colleagues from both sides of the chamber regarding the passing of Peter Brock. It was, by any measure, a dreadful week in Australia’s history, to lose Steve Irwin and Peter Brock in the same small passage of time. Just as the memories of Steve Irwin have been well remembered by the conduct of his own children, I would like to say publicly how impressive it has been to watch the children of Peter Brock cope with the loss of their father and the dignified way in which they have shared their grief with the broader community and his enormous legion of fans on a number of very public occasions—at memorial services, both those directly associated with his funeral and those at other events, including Sandown and, indeed, Bathurst.

The reason I chose to speak on this was simply just to recount for the record a couple of little stories, some anecdotes. I met Peter Brock on a number of occasions in my life when I was working as a journalist for the Channel 7 program State Affair based in Brisbane.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And you were a very good one too.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hinkler would be a worthy critic, and I thank him for his intervention. When I met Peter Brock in 1983, at Bathurst, it was one of the toughest assignments I had had—to head down to do some of the Channel 7 coverage of the great race. Naturally enough, I met Brock—who had preceded, by his reputation, in my mind, to have this enormous status. I was somewhat in awe of meeting him, as indeed others would have been when meeting him. He was a disarming man. I also spoke to him in 1984.

I did see him on a number of occasions here in Parliament House. The member for McEwen, Mrs Bailey, the Minister for Small Business and Tourism, was a very close personal friend of Peter Brock and had brought him here to the parliament on a number of occasions to make his own personal representations about certain issues obvious. The last time I saw him was in February 2004—which I guess is at the heart of why I wanted to speak on this motion. It was my privilege when I was the Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs to confer citizenship on Allan Moffat, who had lived in Australia for some 30 years before he finally decided that he wanted to become a citizen.

Ron Walker, who looks after the Melbourne Grand Prix, thought that he could not let a chance go by to try to get some promotion for the Melbourne Grand Prix, so we had a very media-conspired citizenship ceremony with Allan Moffat. It was an enormous privilege from my point of view to hold that ceremony for Allan Moffat, who is a great Australian—officially Australian for now 2½ years. I really felt for Allan when he was making his comments about Peter Brock. I know that they had had variations in their relationship over the years, but Peter Brock was the star turn at the citizenship ceremony for Allan Moffat. He was cloistered in an anteroom and he suddenly appeared. After we had gathered and the ceremony was about to start, who should arrive but Peter Brock—almost by magic. I was told that he was going to be there. I do not think Alan Moffat would mind me recalling the fact that there was a tear welling in his eye that his great mate—this legendary man, Peter Brock—had seen fit to make himself available. Judging by all the stories that we have heard since Brock’s passing, this was not unusual conduct for Peter Brock.

The other story that I wanted to recount—because, even though it has been made public, I do not think it has been recorded in this place, and I think the parliament should be seen as a record of Australia’s history and an accurate reflection of a variety of views and contemporary things that occur—was about the time I was heading off to the Queensland National Servicemen’s Association conference. The member for Hinkler thought I might have been going to his political party conference, but not on that occasion.

The Queensland National Serviceman’s Association held their state conference the day after Peter Brock died. It was at Acacia Ridge in Brisbane. The Brisbane south national servicemen, who are located in my electorate, put this conference together. Dick Johnson—whom I also class as someone I am in awe of—spoke at this conference. I have known Dick for 25 years and he is always very generous enough to say hello to me, which I always appreciate. I think it is worth recording that Dick Johnson told the story of how he and Peter Brock—quite unbeknown to each other at the time, but many years later realised—actually served as national servicemen and trained literally feet away from each other. When you think about some of their early battles—the battles on the road that they had in the early eighties—it is quite extraordinary that they were in fact drawn together, like so many people of that particular vintage, in their national service to Australia. Those stories are on the record now, and I thank the parliament for allowing me to do that.

We will all miss Peter Brock, whether we are a Holden or a Ford man or woman. Either way, I am sure we are in awe of this man and thank him for his entertainment and indeed his great personal generosity to all Australians.

Cameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am honoured to have the opportunity to speak on this condolence motion, and I do so as someone who has competed for many years as a navigator in car rallies. I want to put on record a few notes about how much of an inspiration Peter Brock was to ordinary motorsport club members. I am sure that debates have already been had about how many Holdens were sold because of Peter Brock or how many people took up motorsport because of Peter Brock, or how many people were just prepared to go at life a little bit harder because of Peter Brock. He used to sign people’s autograph books saying, ‘Live your dream,’ or ‘Live life, Peter Brock.’ One thing that is certain is that he was a real inspiration to people to make them do that or to make them think about doing that.

Just as an aside, as the member for Blair, I was considerably thrilled last weekend to see Craig Lowndes win the Peter Brock Trophy. Craig Lowndes is, to many motorsport enthusiasts, like a new Peter Brock. He has many of the same attributes: he fires you up in the same way, he inspires you, he makes you feel great—and not only that, he comes from the electorate of Blair. He is a very good competitor and so we in the electorate of Blair are mightily proud of Craig Lowndes’s achievements.

Back in 1979, I remember going to the Townsville showgrounds with a friend of mine, and all these battered cars were lined up. I was a teenager then, and we were just agog at all these cars. Of course, they were cars that were engaged in the 1979 Repco Round Australia Trial—which Peter Brock won. It was a hell of a spectacle, and the whole of the nation basically stopped to watch the 1979 Round Australia Trial. I remember that there were a lot of other big wheels in that event—Shekhar Mehta is a name that comes to mind—people who were really internationally known. Peter Brock won that event hands-down and in a very impressive fashion.

That trial showed the degree of determination, dedication and strength of purpose that Peter Brock had. In those days, when they ran something like a reliability trial it was not just a reliability trial for the vehicles. They raced for massively long hours, and they were so tested by the event—with lack of sleep, high pressure, adrenaline, making dodgy roadside repairs and then continuing—that it showed not only that the car was good, which was an issue for the public, but also what incredible strength of human spirit those competitors had. To win those events was a real inspiration, and as a young fellow it was certainly a massive inspiration to me. Later on in life I did go on to compete in car rallies, and I have to say that I trace my interest and my involvement right back to that time when we went along to the dusty old Townsville showgrounds and saw those cars.

I am currently a member of the Brisbane Sporting Car Club, which is the oldest sporting car club in Australia, and I have been a member there since 1993. I was formerly involved in the North Australian Motor Sport Club in Darwin. To move away from much of what has been said, I thought I would make a few comments about some of the ill-informed commentary that has been published about issues to do with car rallying. People have noted that Peter Brock died in a car rally, and they have made some differentiation between him competing in a car rally and his many magnificent successes at the mountain and in motorsport competitions on circuits. All motorsport is dangerous. All motorsport is deadly. There are people who think that if you are a spectator at a car rally it is dangerous to sit on the outside of a corner. That seems to be pretty obvious, but it is also dangerous to sit on the inside, because a car that gets out of control is just two tonnes of metal and it can be very dangerous no matter where you might sit. It is a sport that is naturally very dangerous.

There have been incredible advances in safety over the years. At the time when Peter Brock was competing in the Round Australia Trial, you did not need a crash helmet. At that time, under the laws of motorsport, you could compete with a lap sash seatbelt. Today, to go in that type of event, you need a welded-in steel cage, the helmets are scrutinised, you have expiry dates on your seatbelts and you need logbooks for your car. There is massive additional expense and massive additional scrutiny. The types of cars and the requirements for safety now are incredibly complex and incredibly detailed—and every single effort is made to ensure that safety applies.

It applies on the circuit as it does in rallying. I know that to be a fact. I have been a witness myself to the growth of these safety rules. Those of us who compete grump about it from time to time because we remember the good old days when we did not need all this stuff. Spare a thought for the moment for the person who is responsible for running the car rally and whose job it is to ensure to the best extent possible that event is made safe. You have to realise you have to comply with those rules as they are sensibly laid down by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport and internationally by the FIA.

The day after Peter Brock was killed I was competing in round 5 of the Queensland Rally Championship. We had a minute’s silence for him. Round 6 of the Queensland Rally Championship is about to start. It is on 4 November. They have circulated the supplementary regulations for the event and they have Peter Brock on the cover with his 1979 around-Australia car. It just shows you I was not the only guy who was so struck by that event. I think everyone was.

I mentioned the difference between car rallying and competing on a track. There has been what I think was some terribly ill-informed commentary, particularly in the Australian newspaper, directed at Peter Brock’s co-driver, Mick Hone and the issue of the use of pace notes in competing in a car. Pace notes are notes you make when you have time to go over the course before an event. You write notes about every single corner and prepare for it in advance. In the case of the event that Peter Brock was killed in, he had some notes that had been drawn up by another competitor, but he did not go out with his navigator prior to the event to check that those notes suited his driving style. That is a very significant thing.

I noticed in the commentary that there was criticism made of the notes and of the navigator. The fact is it was a decision between the two of them not to go and do the reconnaissance. If they had done the reconnaissance, you might say they would have known that that corner tightened up more than it said in the notes. That is something you could probably assert. You could perhaps assert that, but no-one knows for sure. All we know for certain is, if you are going to compete in a car rally or a race, you have to be very careful. You have to bear in mind that you are working as a team in that sort of environment. You have to do those sorts of things. But people do it because they are having fun. They do it because they are living their dream. They do it because they are living their life in the same sort of spirit that Peter Brock so often expressed when he was signing those autographs. That is why people love to do this sort of thing. They love to get out and to see just how fast they can go. Forever, Peter Brock will be the embodiment of that spirit.

While we continue to refine and provide more and more safety opportunities for people who are prepared to compete in car rallies and on the circuits and who enjoy it so much, we must remember that as human beings we love that competitive spirit. That is always what it has to be about. That has to be the first thing. I really pay tribute to and salute Peter Brock, and I pass on my commiserations to his family because that was the passing of a great Australian. After all the awards—and they have been covered many times in this debate—that he achieved, he certainly deserves recognition from all Australians. But it is his embodiment of that go-forward spirit and great pioneering attitude that everyone who gets involved in motor sport aspires to. They aspire to be like Peter Brock, to have that kind of spirit, and to win through regardless of the obstacles that are thrown in their way. While we have to keep safety and things in mind, may we always remember that wonderful spirit because that is what I think provides the motivation in many aspects of life. I thank the House for the opportunity to speak in this debate. Once again, I pay tribute to the great Australian Peter Brock.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a mark of respect to Peter Brock I invite all members to signify their support to the expressions of condolence by standing in their places.

Honourable members having stood in their places—

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank members.

Debate (on motion by Mr Neville) adjourned.