Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week Sir Harold Young, a former President of the Senate, passed away. I would like to extend my condolences to his widow, Lady Margaret Young, and his four children and his grandchildren. I had the privilege of knowing Sir Harold Young many years after he had served in the Senate. I got to know him recently, whereby probably twice a year a group of current South Australian members and senators would have lunch with some of the former members and senators. We would often gather at the Kent Town Hotel or the Adelaide Bowling Club. One of my predecessors in Boothby, John McLeay, would come and Sir Harold Young would come, as would Dr Jim Forbes. I know that Sir Harold always enjoyed these lunches. It was always a great time for the old and bold to give their advice on current events. They would be very interested in what was going on but they would also have their own perspective on it as well.

Sir Harold, in a fairly longstanding tradition, was involved in a lot of what we would now call agripolitics groups. He was a vice president of the United Farmers and Graziers Association, he was a president of the local district in Wallaroo, he was on the South Australian state wheat research committee and he was also President of the Liberal Country League State Council of South Australia. He was educated at local state schools and then at Prince Alfred College. He worked as a primary producer and was involved in not just the grazier side of things but also as a member of the Australian Wool Industry Conference.

He was elected to the Senate in 1968 and served as a government whip and then as an opposition whip in the Senate. He was Chairman of Committees and then, when Sir Condor Laucke, another from country South Australia, retired in 1981 as President of the Senate, Sir Harold Young was elected over Senator Reg Withers to become President of the Senate. He served in that position for two years and then retired in 1983. When he retired a number of people paid tribute to him. Senator Tony Messner said this:

In the time that I have known my very great friend Sir Harold Young, which is something like 16 years, he has always been one of the most pleasant personalities—certainly a person with whom all of us had some identification of personal feeling. To my mind he was one of the most popular politicians in South Australia. Whenever we travelled together throughout the State, however remote the locality, he would either have a relative in the immediate vicinity or be well known to people in the area.

As I said, I had the opportunity to know Sir Harold in more recent times. He was also a great lover of cricket. One of his great loves was to attend the test match at Adelaide Oval. You would have to get there fairly early. He would arrive early and take a seat square to the wicket in the members’ stand. On Friday the Adelaide test will begin, and certainly I will take a moment to think of Sir Harold Young. It will seem very strange without him being there.

He made a great contribution. We heard speeches in the condolence motion today from the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and others. He was a very fine example of a parliamentarian. He made a great contribution for South Australia. He will be missed. I offer my condolences to his wife, Lady Margaret, and his four children and grandchildren.