Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House expresses its deep regret at the death on 3 November 2007, of Mr Peter James Andren, former Independent Member for Calare, and place on record its appreciation of his long and meritorious service, and tender its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

Peter was born on 28 August 1946 at Gulargambone in New South Wales. He graduated from Macquarie University with a Bachelor of Arts degree and trained as a teacher at the Alexander Mackie College in Sydney. He taught for three years, between 1965 and 1968, and in subsequent years he remarked that he still regarded teaching as the most honourable of all professions. He made a career shift into television journalism in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War, and those years of seeing all the incoming war footage on television news left an enduring impression on him. He worked as a news producer for the Seven and Nine networks in Sydney before moving to the central west of New South Wales in 1977. There he became the news editor for the Orange radio station 2GZ and then newsreader for the Prime television network station at Orange.

Peter first entered parliament in 1996, having won the seat of Calare as an Independent. It is rare for a politician to be elected to the House as an Independent member. It is even more uncommon to enter the House for the first time as an Independent. More commonly, those who serve as Independents have previously won office as a member of a party and have subsequently left that party. Peter won the seat of Calare in 1996 with a vote of 63.3 per cent after the distribution of preferences. By 2001 he had increased that margin, with a further 15.1 per cent swing in the election that year. This made Calare the second-safest seat in the country. That was an extraordinary achievement for an Independent.

As others have commented, Peter’s achievement in not just securing that seat but also increasing his margin in it is testament to his local popularity and also his deep commitment to many of the policy debates we have had in this parliament. Peter’s popularity in his electorate was all the more remarkable for the fact that many of the stances he had taken prior to the 2001 election were deemed unpopular and out of sync with his regional electorate. There was a great public admiration for Peter’s integrity that transcended conventional political alignments. Peter was a forthright Independent member who brought dignity, honesty and integrity to Australian politics—and these are rare commodities. He was well regarded by all sides of politics and respected for his thoughtful and controversial contributions to debates on subjects as diverse as refugees, Iraq, Indigenous affairs, mandatory sentencing, renewable energy and telecommunications.

Peter was a particularly important friend and colleague to the member for New England as well as the member for Kennedy. He was a man of principle and an absolute Independent. He worked hard and cared deeply for his constituents. In his 2003 book The Andren Report he described his job as one of pastoral care, except he conceded that it was he who needed the flock most. I think his observation about pastoral care is important for all of us as local members of parliament to reflect on. I am advised that he used to tell his staff that they should treat every single inquiry at his electorate office as if it was the most important event happening in that person’s life at that moment. That is an important discipline for us all to reflect on. As we are caught up in the affairs of this place, so many people who need the most basic and elementary of government services come to members of parliament, often as a last resort. They need a friendly ear, a friendly face, someone to talk to, someone to try and make the bureaucracy work for them. Peter’s observations in his book The Andren Report on the role of a local member are worthy of all of our collective reflection, study and application.

Peter was a deeply compassionate man. In The Andren Report he recounts a moving story from his childhood days living near the railway line at Camden. I would like to share a bit of it with the House. This is Peter Andren, in his own words, as a little boy growing up:

I was rapidly forming my ideas about who was regarded as important, and who was not, in this society. A small and bent old guy, white-bristled and perennially dressed in a dirty grey suit … used to shuffle up the street past our house to the pub on the corner. He embodied evil in my childish mind, although I never stopped to analyse why. He just looked an outcast and, somehow, threatening. When I saw him coming I’d run and squeeze myself between the wall of the house and the side paling fence, an alleyway barely a foot wide. I’d crouch down hiding in the dampness and spider webs as I watched him toddle passed on his way ‘up the street’. One day he stopped and looked down the side of the house at me, directly catching me crammed into the tiny space and frozen with fear.

‘Don’t worry about me, lad,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

The sadness in his old, grey eyes hinted at many stories of his loneliness, his rejection. I felt scared and ashamed. He moved on, with that slow, painful gait. He lived alone, and eventually died alone, in his little shack down behind the saleyards, near the river flats. I never asked my parents, or anyone else, who this man was. But I knew from that day on that he was misunderstood, harmless. I began to understand the meaning of rejection and of isolation, and of the cruel injustice of prejudice. I’ve probably been trying to make it up to him ever since.

What an eloquent story, an eloquent reflection of a moment in Peter Andren’s life when he realised the impact of rejection and isolation on others—values which shaped his subsequent public and political career.

When his cancer was diagnosed on 10 August last year, Peter was planning an audacious run for the Senate. Peter Andren had guts—real guts. He was about to take on the entire political machine and run for the Senate, and we will never know whether that gamble would have succeeded. I strongly suspect it might have. Peter Andren’s death is a loss to our parliament, and this 42nd Parliament will miss his presence on the crossbenches.

I would like to recognise today the fact that Peter’s partner, Valerie, along with friends and former staff members, are here in the public gallery and that Peter’s great friend Tony Windsor, the member for New England, will also be a speaker in this condolence motion. On behalf of the government, I offer condolences to Val and sons, Greg and Josh.

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise obviously to support the motion in support of Peter Andren, a great man, a kind man and a man who will be deeply missed not only by Val but by those who knew him and those whom he touched in his pastoral life as the member for Calare, although of course on many occasions on policy and other matters we and those opposite did not agree with him.

Peter was born in 1946 in Gulargambone in north-west New South Wales. His father was a stationmaster and Peter grew up in a succession of country railway towns. Later in life, he talked about the need to restore rail infrastructure to ease the pressure of trucking on rural roads. He studied arts at Macquarie University and worked as a teacher, the profession of which he was most proud, before switching careers to work as a news producer in Sydney for the Seven and Nine networks. After returning to the Central Coast of New South Wales, Peter became a TV newsreader in Orange. He was much loved by his partner and childhood sweetheart, Valerie Faber, and sons, Greg and Josh. At his funeral, Valerie said, amongst other things, that Peter was ‘a man with an open heart who allowed people in’.

He was elected to represent the electorate of Calare in parliament in 1996. His success in winning his seat in 1996 came in part from his significant ability to tap into the sense of dislocation and uncertainty that many Australians felt in that era. In his maiden speech, he said:

In a world that is becoming more confusing, more threatening, far more violent and less personal by the day, people need leadership from politicians who will hear their calls regardless of the political implications.

…            …            …

Lest one side or the other in this place believes it has a mortgage on common sense, might I warn that the traditional role of parties in Australian politics is under strong challenge. There is a growing awareness in the electorate that honest, effective representation of constituents’ interests can be achieved through channels other than political parties.

Whilst we might debate the point, they were prophetic words that should be well heeded by all of us and those whom we represent.

He was, as the Prime Minister just reminded us, immensely popular in his electorate of Calare—much to the consternation, I suppose, of both of our major parties—and increased his margin over the years to hold one of the safest seats in the country. By the 2004 election, Mr Andren had increased his primary vote to over 50 per cent, a result that many of us have envied. In parliament, he campaigned for greater investment in economic and social infrastructure for rural and regional Australians and worked to make parliamentary and electoral processes more transparent and accountable. His friend and our fellow parliamentarian, from whom we will hear in a moment, the member for New England, called him ‘a man of the highest integrity and the conscience of the parliament’.

At the time of his diagnosis with pancreatic cancer, a cruel disease, Peter Andren was intending to run for the Senate. Had he been able to run, he would have had an excellent chance of being elected. In fact, he probably would have been. Peter died on 3 October, in the middle of the election campaign, and the hustle of an election campaign and the travelling media sideshow was such that it meant that members here did not perhaps put enough time aside to adequately reflect on his passing and what his contribution had been to this parliament and to Australia.

Amongst the dealings I had with him when I was Minister for Education, Science and Training, trying to develop a complex reform program for higher education, I concluded that he was a man with an open mind, that he was prepared to listen to a reasonable idea and that he was prepared to take people as he found them. I also saw him as a man who constantly nurtured the inner integrity of his own intellect. I think in the end he, like people who are really remembered, is remembered for the humanity that he really showed to others, even though at times many of us envied the fact that he was not constrained by the disciplines of being a member of a political party.

We remember him today for his dedication to the people of Calare and for the high standards that he set for all of us in this place. To his family—Greg, Josh and his childhood sweetheart, Valerie—on behalf of the coalition, I extend our deepest sympathies for your loss. We are better for having known him.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition, for those words. Peter had respect for both of you and I am very pleased to have heard you both speak. This is a very sad time of course for a lot of people in here—from all sides of parliament, not just from the crossbenches. As the Leader of the Opposition said, in my view Peter was the conscience of the parliament. On occasion I disagreed with him, as did the member for Kennedy and as did many in this place, but he did reflect a logical view of many, many issues. If we refer back to some of the issues that Peter Andren stood for and voiced his opinion on in this place over his 11 years of service to the parliament and to the people of Calare, we will see in hindsight that on quite a lot of those issues he was right. Whether it was the war in Iraq or whether it was the asylum seekers, they were significant issues on which Peter took a stance. Sometimes Independents are accused of being populist—that they can drift here and there and pick up a popular issue and appeal to their electorate. On issues of that significance, Peter took a very real stance of principle and intellectual argument.

On the issue of Telstra, the sale of public infrastructure, there is no doubt in my mind—and others would disagree with this and they have the right to disagree—that Peter’s agitation during the period of the first tranche sale led to the formation of Telstra Countrywide, which is still in place today and which some people would argue has led to some of the innovations that have occurred for country users of telecommunications. Obviously much more needs to be done.

Peter Andren led the charge on the Snowy Hydro turnaround. The former Prime Minister and others in this room were good enough to recognise that that policy initiative was not a good one for Australia and that Australians did not want it. Peter was able to lead that campaign to a successful outcome when all the parties in New South Wales, Victoria and this place had voted to sell Snowy Hydro. Peter Andren, a voice amongst few, was able to speak for the people. I think it says something about our political system and something about the former Prime Minister that from time to time we are able to accept from the people a view that may be different to the one that is politically expedient in our chambers in terms of partisan politics. But it was Peter Andren who first raised that issue and Peter Andren who led the charge to make the change possible. If we reflect in 100 years time on the Snowy Hydro and many other infrastructure schemes that have been developed across Australia—hopefully in that period of time; hopefully in the next three years—we should remember people like Peter Andren, who have made a great effort.

Peter was an advocate for Aboriginal rights, and it is a great tragedy that he is not here today. His partner, Valerie, is, and she knows the genuine feeling that Peter had for Aboriginal people. I think all of us are aware of the speeches that he gave in this place defending the rights of Aboriginal Australians. There was a turning point today in terms of the welcome to country ceremony, and I congratulate again both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition on their conduct today. I thought it was tremendous—and I think Peter Andren would have thought the same—that we were having an opening of a parliament that recognises the first Australians of all those generations ago. Peter’s last speech was about the intervention in the Northern Territory. He felt very strongly about that. He did not believe that many of the things being contemplated in that legislation were in fact correct, and there may be some revisiting of some of those issues. But his spirit was in this parliament this morning and it will be in this parliament tomorrow morning when an apology is made to the first Australians. He would have been very proud to be part of that contribution.

As the Prime Minister said, it is a tragedy that he did not survive to test his wit in the Senate, because he may well have captured the imagination of people as a true representative of all Australians and actually pulled it off. Prior to his illness, Peter was scheduled to come to our home and talk to people who were interested in what he was trying to do in the Senate—that is, to make the Senate a house of responsibility. He was to be a guest speaker at a garden party at our home. Many people were coming, and then we were notified that Peter was not well and would not be able to attend. It was a great shock to us then and it was a great shock to all of us that Peter lasted such a short time.

Peter was a stickler for parliamentary reform, and I think there are some issues outstanding that should be addressed by the parliament. If any of the new members of parliament wish to reflect on those ideas, they are in Hansard. Many of them make a great deal of logic not only in terms of the operation of this place and the way our electoral system works but also in terms of how people in the community reflect upon the conduct of parliamentarians. There is no doubt, prior to my time here, that Peter Andren’s agitation led to the travel entitlements et cetera of members of parliament having to be tabled from time to time in the parliament so that the general public would be aware of those particular issues.

Peter Andren was a great man; he was a great representative. He did genuinely believe that people who came through the door deserved to be represented in this place to the ministers, to the bureaucracy and, from time to time, in the press to use the press to advantage. His early years in the press held him in good stead in this place. But the television media or other media were not the first stop for Peter. He always tried to adjudicate and to correct the circumstances of people’s complaints prior to going direct to the press. I am sure that many of the former ministers would agree with that.

I would like to mention by name a few people who are in the gallery today, because Peter did not just become elected and do everything on his own. He did it with the help of his constituents, the people in his electorate of Calare. His partner, Valerie, who has already been mentioned, is with us today. His sister, Trish, is here. His former chief of staff and adviser, Tim Payne, and his family are here. Also here are Chris Gregory, Helen McHugh and Gavin Priestley—all good friends of Peter.

I am sure Peter would also want me to recognise the people that assisted him to be a good representative. They are not only the family and friends who supported him but also his staff: Helen Bergen, Dianne Abbott, Eileen Webb, Brian Hustwayte, Peter Stark and Tim Mahony. I was with Tim Mahony yesterday at the airport in Sydney and again in Canberra; unfortunately he is unable to be here today. All the staff loved Peter. They worked very, very hard for him and they are obviously very sad at his passing and that they cannot be here today.

I would like to read a small passage from Peter’s first speech in this place. Those who attended his funeral would have got the feeling that he had great respect for his parents and the way in which they brought him up. He also had great feeling for his children, Josh and Greg, who are unable to be here today. At Peter’s funeral, they were a tribute to their father. The way they spoke and the way they presented themselves and represented their family at Peter’s funeral were an absolute tribute to their father. I would like to conclude with the final paragraph of Peter’s maiden speech, back on 9 May 1996:

To my father and mother, both deceased, thanks for the strength and guidance that brought me here to this place. May my colleagues in the 38th Parliament of Australia embrace the feeling my parents had for this country and represent all Australians: those with skills and those without, those with means and those without. Unless we provide for all, with real opportunities and not just handouts, then the profits, the growth and dividends we create are a fraud, a mirage.

Peter Andren was a great Australian and his loss is a great loss. It is a great loss to his family, obviously. It is a great loss to the people of Calare, who he dearly loved. It is a great loss to country representation in relation to issues, and it is a great loss to this parliament. I thank Peter for being my friend and I am sure the member for Kennedy and many others in this place will recall Peter with great fondness. It is a tragedy that he has left us, but his memory will live on as his having been a true Independent of the people and a true representative of people in this place.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to join in this motion of condolence on the death of the former member for Calare, Peter Andren. He certainly made a very substantial contribution to this parliament in a unique way. It has been said by many that he was perhaps the only true Independent in the parliament, in that he came into this House without any prior association with a political party and he vehemently upheld his independence right through his time in the parliament.

As we have heard, he came into this House in 1996 as the member for Calare, taking the seat from Labor during the landslide election result that year. I campaigned against him in Calare during that election. I spent some time in Orange and in other places, but I have to admit that I left the electorate with the view that we were facing a very formidable opponent. Peter was very well known and very well liked throughout his electorate. People liked him personally; others supported him because of the notion that Independents might have some influence in the parliament or perhaps one day even have a balance of power. He certainly held the view that he had a role in putting forward views in a forthright way and in ensuring that the whole House was kept on its toes. He certainly sometimes drew the ire of members of this place. His views were sometimes controversial. He was a particularly regular commentator on issues such as members’ pay and superannuation, and he usually gave the media the grab they were looking for. He was, as some have said, a conscience of the parliament in relation to that issue and a number of others.

We tried hard to defeat him in elections, with spectacularly unsuccessful results. I sometimes felt that Labor were perhaps a little half-hearted in their campaigns in Calare, probably because of some degree of realism that it was going to be a difficult seat to win but also because of the fact that, generally, Peter Andren’s views were perhaps more comfortably embraced by the other side of the House than by us. Nonetheless, there were times when everyone in this chamber tasted the ire of his views, which he presented always in a courteous but aggressive and thoughtful way.

In 2001 his popularity reached something of a peak when he got 75 per cent of the two-party vote. However, as others have said, whilst he was popular he was not a populist. Some of the views that he espoused would have been opposed by 75 per cent of the people in his electorate. Yet they respected him to such an extent that they were prepared to support him. He was, I think, an example of somebody who did not seek popularity. It came because of the work that he did and because of his willingness to stand up for causes that he believed in.

Peter was struck down by a particularly virulent cancer that gave him and his family little warning of its arrival and precious little time to adjust to what now seems, tragically, to have been inevitable. I hope that one day we can say that this and these kinds of cancer will not be a death warrant, as they seem to be today. The work of many Australian and international researchers gives us some hope that there may be some successes in coming years. The sad thing was that someone like Peter, who had made his decision not to seek re-election for this House but indeed to pursue an alternative course, did not live to see the election following his retirement. He did not have an opportunity to enjoy any of the good things of retirement that no doubt would have been very much in his heart in the more difficult times of his parliamentary career. Peter often, and certainly proudly, wore his badge as an Independent, which I know he felt sometimes to be liberating but at other times immensely frustrating. I think his intention in running for the Senate was to endeavour to be in a place where he might as an Independent have potentially more influence in policy setting. Whether he would have been successful we will never know, but it is a tragedy that his life was cut short and that he did not have the opportunity to enjoy the pleasures of retirement.

After Peter’s death, my colleague John Cobb became the member for Calare, assisted slightly by a redistribution. John particularly asks that his sympathy be attached to this condolence motion. He has the honour to succeed Peter as the member for Calare, and that in itself will be a daunting task. I would like to place on record that my deepest sympathy goes to his partner, Valerie, and sons, Greg and Josh, to his many family members and relatives, to his friends, to his constituents, who grieve his loss, and to Australians who appreciated his forthright views on such a wide range of important issues.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was quite fascinated during all of my time in this place with Peter Andren. There was a precedent for him. I knew Doug Jennings, a very close friend of mine, who was in the state house. Both were men of compelling morality. They had a sense of duty and responsibility. Morality is the word that keeps leaping to my mind. My colleague the member for New England said, as every speaker has said, that Peter took positions which were most unpopular. Personally, I pleaded with him both on the refugees question, on which I disagreed with him, and on the war in Iraq, on which I disagreed with him, as I pointed out the political unwisdom of doing what he was doing because there was no doubt that it was enormously damaging to him politically. But that was not where he was coming from. He was not thinking in terms of politics at all and his attitude was if he got beaten he got beaten.

Before I became an Independent in this place, I asked the library to check something: up until Ted Mack, no Independent had ever been re-elected in this place, so if you became an Independent you knew you would get one shot at it and that was it. Peter also knew that. I spoke to him before I became an Independent. When I became an Independent he had only had one term, so he was looking down the gun barrel of no more terms. He could have got—and I feel very confident in saying this—a Labor endorsement or a Liberal endorsement at any time. He could have consolidated his position in this place and had that seat forever. But that was not what he chose to do. It was the same as with the issues that I referred to before, Iraq and refugees. For many years Peter refused to take superannuation. He and Bjelke-Petersen are the only two I know of that ever had a real moral position on such things.

Finally, on his decision to run for the Senate, again I was the person that passionately arg-ued with him. I said that he was going to be a contributor forever if he stayed in this place whereas if he ran for the Senate I did not think that his chances were very good. Again that was not where Peter was coming from. It was from a sense of morality and duty. As I have said, in public life, in 34 years as a member of parliament, Peter was a per-son—and Doug Jennings was the only other one that I can think of—that acted at all times out of a very—and I cannot give any other explanation other than to say this—deep love of their country and a very strong belief in doing what is the right thing to do. His position was, and I hope no-one interprets this as a political statement, that until the crossbenchers had the power we would not have a democracy—as he saw a democracy anyway. The argument was put out there and there were people, like me and the member for New England, that adopted that argu-ment. Whether we are right or whether we are wrong is not important, except that he had a perspective different from that which every-body else had and he was prepared to follow that perspective even though it left him with no superannuation and no seat in par-liament. He had no job to go back to and no qualifications to take him back to a job, so at all times he was looking down into his open grave—and similarly with the Senate run.

I must join my colleague in saying I felt very strongly about Snowy Hydro. I am writing a history of Australia. You cannot write a history of Australia without writing about the Snowy. While I had very strong passions about it, there is really no doubt in my mind that the Snowy would have been sold if it had not been for Peter Andren. Australia’s greatest asset would have been gone if it had not been for Peter. Some 80 per cent of Australians believed in that too, but I did not have the confidence to put up a fight while my colleague from New England may or may not have had the confidence. Peter most certainly did. He believed, I suppose, that it was really the right thing to do so he was going to do it and we stepped in behind him and then a whole stack of people all over Australia were leading and taking their own convictions forward.

Having said all of those things, one asks what you say about the life of Peter Andren. I cannot help but say that what leapt to my mind was Ralph Honner, the great leader at Kokoda of the 39th Battalion, which rescued and saved this country. His final statement in his last address on Kokoda Day was that ‘they will always be to me smiling kids forever’. My last image of Peter is this. One of our advertisements was of him in my ringer’s hat laughing at me with his hands open. I think of Peter like I think of those people who saved Australia, the boys up on Kokoda. The image that leaps to my mind is of a laughing kid forever. It is terribly tragic that he has died young, but there is another way of looking at him: a hero that should provide inspiration to every single one of us in this place.

Honourable members having stood in their places—

Debate (on motion by Mr Albanese) adjourned.