Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I inform the House of the following deaths.

Leonard Joseph Keogh died on 10 October 2007; he represented the division of Bowman from 1969 to 1975 and 1983 to 1987. Dr Kenneth Lionel Fry died on 10 October 2007; he represented the division of Fraser from 1974 to 1984. Ms Helen Mayer died on 7 February 2008; she represented the division of Chisholm from 1983 to 1987. The Hon. Robert Lindsay Collins AO died on 21 September 2007; he was a former senator, who represented the Northern Territory from 1987 to 1998, and a minister. Mr Matt Price, the journalist, died on 25 November 2007. Mr Bernard Douglas (Bernie) Banton AM, a victim of asbestosis, mesothelioma and asbestos related pleural disease, died on 27 November 2007. The Hon. Sir Charles Walter Michael Court AK, KCMG, OBE, a former Premier of Western Australia, died on 22 December 2007. And Sir Edmund Percival Hillary KG, ONZ, KBE, New Zealand mountaineer and first-known climber to reach the summit of Mount Everest, died on 11 January 2008.

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

Mr Speaker, I would like to seek your indulgence to make some remarks about a number of those persons to whom you have just referred.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please proceed.

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

Bernie Banton died on 27 November 2007. He became the face of the campaign to achieve justice for the many sufferers of asbestos related diseases. He worked at the James Hardie facility located at Camellia in Sydney’s Western Suburbs. He worked there for six years in the late 1960s and early 1970s alongside other members of his family. As we know, exposure to just one asbestos fibre can be deadly. Those workers had constant, intensive exposure to asbestos dust day after day. Indeed, those workers were known at the time as the ‘snowmen’ because at work they were covered from head to toe in the white dust of asbestos, from the manufacture of kalite. When Bernie Banton left that job in 1974, there were 136 workers at that facility. As the years passed, one by one they fell victim to asbestos related diseases. As of 2006, only nine of these 136 former employees of the facility were still alive—only nine out of 136. That is a terrible and shocking statistic.

Bernie fought asbestosis, asbestos related pleural disease and finally mesothelioma. He settled his own compensation claim in 2000 but his real fight was only just beginning—the fight for justice for all the victims of asbestos related diseases. Alongside Greg Combet and the great support he received from the trade union movement, Bernie played a critical role in bringing James Hardie to justice through his contribution to negotiations and his high profile and effective public advocacy for justice.

Bernie’s own life was touched by tragedies beyond his own illnesses: the deaths of so many of his co-workers, the death of his own brother Ted from mesothelioma and the fact that his brother Albert currently has asbestosis. Despite the tragedies around him and in his own life, Bernie never became embittered. Instead, he thought about the lives of others who would suffer from these illnesses: fellow workers; their wives and mothers, who daily washed their dust-covered clothes; ordinary Australians who were exposed to asbestos; and the families who lost loved ones and lost their livelihoods as a result.

Bernie thought of what he could do to make sure that they would have support and help in the long years of battling declining health. He fought to make sure their families were not left nothing after they were gone. He became a familiar sight to Australians on our TV screens with his rasping voice and his oxygen tubes, fighting day in, day out for a fair go for working families. Bernie was determined not to give up the fight until it was won, until James Hardie did the right thing for the thousands of past and future victims of asbestos. It was an extraordinary contest, this genuine little Aussie battler, Bernie Banton, staring down the might of a mega corporation—and Bernie won. Backed by Greg Combet, backed by the trade union movement, he kept working for the cause of asbestos victims to the last days before he succumbed.

I will always remember my visit to Bernie just a few weeks before his death. Though facing death he was absolutely full of life, always asking how the campaign was running, asking what further could be done for those suffering from these dreadful diseases. He said to me: ‘Kevin, were it not for the unions, I never could have prevailed.’ He was a genuine Australian hero, an ordinary bloke with an extraordinary heart who led an extraordinary life—a man of faith, courage and conviction. In his fight for justice Bernie somehow reached out and touched the Australian soul, reminding us all of what it is to be Australian, reminding us all of the need to look out for one another and reminding us all that we need a fair go for all, not just for some.

Bernie became a living symbol of basic human decency, and this was reflected in the state funeral held for Bernie on 5 December last year, provided by the government of New South Wales. I believe that in the future kids will talk about the story of Bernie Banton. It will become part of Australian folklore, and I think that is a good thing. On behalf of the Australian parliament I extend our thoughts and prayers to the Banton family, to Karen and to Bernie’s five children.

I would also like to make some remarks about the passing of Matt Price. On the day after the election last year we received the terrible news of Matt Price’s death. He had become one of the nation’s great journalists, and he was still a relatively young man. John Hartigan from News Ltd described Matt in his 2007 Andrew Olle lecture as a ‘quality bloke’. I cannot think of a better description. He was a professional. He was witty. He was a first-class human being. He was a great Western Australian with a passion for sport.

Matt’s writing career began with a cadetship at the Albany Advertiser, a small paper in the south of Western Australia. He moved then to the Daily News in Perth, a paper that has since disappeared. This was followed with a stretch at Channel 9, a few years working in television bureaus in London and then back to Perth. In 1997 he joined the Australian and it was in the years following that that he rose to national prominence through his political writing. Those in the Canberra press gallery and members and senators on both sides of the House knew him as a friend, but he was a friend of so many people. In the days after his death, at his funeral in Perth and at his memorial in the Great Hall here in Parliament House, we heard many touching stories of the generosity and kindness of this thoroughly decent young man. He wrote on politics, he wrote on sport, but you knew he could write on just about anything and it would be quirky, informative, entertaining. He was terrific.

For those of us who served in this House before the election, I doubt that many parliamentary days passed without us picking up a copy of the Aus to read ‘The Sketch’ and to read Matt Price skewer one of us or the other—and, if it was not us that day, we would know it would be us the next day. Matt daily chronicled parliamentary events for the national daily. Matt sketched cartoons with words and there he did, tastefully, artfully, the task of disembowelling each of us, always with a smile. Matt always described this to me as one of the important character-building experiences of national political life. He was a great writer. His writing brought colour and warmth to the often dry debates in this chamber. The election campaign trail was not the same without him. For those of us returning to the House, it is hard to imagine this new parliamentary session without Matt Price.

Matt was destined to a long and distinguished career as one of the greats of Australian political journalism. It is sad for all of us as his friends and colleagues that we will never see him reach his full potential. But for Matt, the core of his being, the core of his life, the absolute core of his life, was his wonderful family. Many of us have spent time with them and see his life and his love for them radiated through each of them. So for Matt’s wife, Sue, and his kids, Jack, Matilda and Harry, your loss has been terrible. Our hearts go out to them, as we remember Matt and his contribution to our time in this place.

I would like to add to that, Mr Speaker, a contribution on the life of Sir Charles Court, a great Western Australian and a son of the Liberal Party. As Premier Carpenter said, no man has had as much influence in the development of Western Australia in the past 50 or 60 years as Sir Charles Court. It may be of some surprise to those opposite, but the first person ever to award me a prize in public speaking for anything was Sir Charles Court.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Community Services, Indigenous Affairs and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Abbott interjecting

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

As Tony Abbott has just said, he was capable of error. Sir Charles’s parliamentary career began in 1953 and extended to 1982. That is a long stretch. Sir Charles will be remembered for the key role he played in the development of the Western Australian mining industry, first as Minister for Industrial Development in the sixties and as Premier from 1974 to 1982.

Charles Court was a passionate advocate of Western Australia. He never shirked a fight with Canberra—it did not matter who ran Canberra, even when it included his Liberal Party counterpart Sir Robert Menzies. Sir Charles was always a great believer in the capacity and the economic potential of the Western Australian mining industry. He oversaw many years of rapid population growth and major economic development. As Premier he played a major role in the development of the Pilbara, gas exploration, development of the North West Shelf, the Kwinana industrial strip and the Ord River scheme. He also made a major contribution to the development of export markets, in particular in Japan. Charles Court brought great energy and commitment to his public life. He lived a long and distinguished life and his place in Australian history is truly assured. He is one of those giant figures in Australian politics, a person who decided never to come here but a person who shaped so much of what the nation is by his contribution in state politics—and the nation is, I believe, poorer for his passing.

Finally, with your indulgence, Mr Speaker, I wish to speak about Sir Edmund Hillary. Sir Edmund passed away on 11 January. He had a long life, one of remarkable achievements. Through his life he touched and inspired people around the world, first as a mountaineer but later as an environmentalist and as a great humanitarian. Sir Edmund began life working as a beekeeper—I didn’t know that—but his spirit of adventure and challenge led him to incredible feats. He was the first person, as we know from our primary school social studies books, together with Tenzing Norgay, to stand on the summit of Mount Everest, on 29 May 1953. To get to the summit back then took determination, dedication and, above all, human courage. We can see these same qualities in his life’s work.

Conquering Everest was just the first of many achievements. He was a writer and a man of great global environmental conscience. He was dedicated to helping also the people of Nepal. In the 1960s he founded the Himalayan Trust. The trust opened schools, hospitals and clinics for the people of Nepal. Later, in response to the threat of deforestation, he worked tirelessly to have the area around Everest declared a national park, enforced by legislation of the government of Nepal. The area is now listed as a World Heritage site.

On behalf of the Australian government and all members of this House, I extend my sympathy to Sir Edmund’s family, his loved ones and friends, and to the people of New Zealand. Sir Edmund Hillary, in so much of our thinking, equals New Zealand. He has been an enormously successful ambassador for our friends and allies across the Tasman, a great internationalist, a great humanitarian, and the world is poorer for his passing.

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

Mr Speaker, on indulgence also: firstly, I support very much the remarks of the Prime Minister in relation to the late Bernie Banton. Bernie was, in my opinion, a people’s hero in a country that desperately needed one. He died at the age of 61 from asbestos related mesothelioma. He will obviously be remembered as a great fighter for the right of workers to have safe workplaces. He sought justice for the victims of asbestos related diseases and won that $4½ billion compensation fund from James Hardie Industries to compensate these victims—and, as the Prime Minister so rightly said, he could not have done it without the support of the union movement.

Mr Banton’s full-time job was at a James Hardie owned factory in Sydney’s western suburbs where he worked making moulds from cement silica and asbestos. Less than 10 of the 137 employees of that plant are still alive today. He and his fellow workers at the factory were known as ‘snowmen’, because every day when they left work they were covered with white asbestos powder. One of his brothers, Ted, had already died of the disease, and another, Albert, also suffers from asbestosis, and all three worked at the James Hardie factory.

As we have heard, in 2004 he went every day to a special commission of inquiry into James Hardie’s use of asbestos. The inquiry recommended a negotiated settlement, which Bernie played a large part in securing. He fought not just for himself but for others—in fact, he fought for others more so than for himself. He wanted to make sure that others did not have to suffer the immense pain that mesothelioma causes. He played the pivotal role in negotiating the compensation fund from James Hardie Industries, and his success in this role represented the very best of what can be achieved when a group of people—in this case, supported by the unions—can achieve for working people.

Bernie will be remembered for his fighting spirit, his courage in the face of insurmountable barriers, and his sense of humour. When hearing of the rather large payout of a Hardie chief, Bernie said: ‘It’s taken my breath away, and I only have 20 per cent of it left.’ At his funeral, his brother Brian said that Bernie was able to forgive Hardie industries before he died. To forgive those who had caused him and others great pain is a testament to his character and one of the principal reasons he is remembered, and remembered so fondly, and regarded so highly. He is survived by his wife, Karen, his five children and 11 grandchildren.

I would also like to join the Prime Minister in condolence in relation to Matt Price. It is hard to speak about Matt without speaking about the so-called ‘spearing’ to which the Prime Minister referred, but it would not be possible for me to do that without it being at my expense. He was born in 1961 in Perth and, as we know, he died on 25 November 2007. The son of an accountant, he was educated in the Catholic school system. He was prodigiously talented. In fact, a very senior person in our former government regarded him as ‘the most outstanding journalist in the Canberra gallery’.

He could summarise a situation with great perception and often with an extraordinary sense of humour. He was always going to be a journalist. He had worked for the Albany Advertiser, the Perth Daily News, the Nine Network, and Sky News in London. He won the inaugural Paul Lyneham Award for Excellence in Press Gallery Journalism in 2003. His bio on the Australian website said:

Career highlights include covering the Lockerbie bombing, the Sydney Olympics and watching Fremantle win the AFL premiership. The latter hasn’t happened yet, but it will. Oh yes, it will.

I hear Julie Bishop laughing. When doctors found tumours in his brain in early October last year, Matt wrote a message to his friends telling them he was about to undergo exploratory brain surgery and about to enter ‘a long, dark tunnel’. He signed off with this message:

No pithy punchline, just the obvious observation—life is fragile, hug your loved ones.

Of all of the things that were said about him and the kind of person that he was, I think Mike Harvey’s description of how he came into the lives of him and his partner, Cynthia Banham, who suffered amazing injuries in the crash in Yogyakarta last year, is most telling. Mike Harvey said this:

Cynthia was in a week-long coma and her life was in the balance. Matt was everywhere for us. Every day he would be calling or visiting me or his family were cooking me dinners, just the little things that friends do to take the pressure off in such terrible circumstances.

We had many long conversations about the fragility of life during this time and his sense of spirit and optimism helped us both get through the most terrible six months.

He never imposed himself on us, not once. His emotional strength was a pillar for both of us.

Cynthia was out of hospital for the day, and Matt and Sue and the kids came, and he was excited for us, he was really, genuinely excited because it was such a step for us in our recovery process. That gave us great emotional strength. I don’t know what I would have done had he not been around to help me, to push me, to constantly be a shoulder to lean on. I will miss him terribly.

As the Prime Minister observed, the centre of Matt’s life was his family—nothing else and no-one else. He did not take us very seriously, nor did he take himself very seriously, and he will be remembered not for what he was but for who he was. The Prime Minister said that he did not achieve his full potential, and he did not, but he surely helped us achieve ours, and we will miss him greatly.

I also join in the condolence for Sir Charles Court. Sir Charles was a true giant of the 20th century, and today we remember in him a great Liberal leader. To correct the Prime Minister: he was not a ‘son’ of the Liberal Party; he was a father of the Liberal Party. He was a pioneer and a visionary, whose commitment to the state of Western Australia and to our country continues to reap rewards to this very day. In fact, every Australian who hears about our surplus and our very strong economic circumstances needs to reflect for a moment on the fact that that has been given to us in no small way by this man’s vision and determination to develop the resources sector in the state of Western Australia.

Sir Charles was born in Sussex, England on 29 September, 1911. He came to Australia with his parents as a baby. He was raised by parents of Labor leanings, who also taught their son the value of hard work and instilled in him the importance of family and maintaining high moral standards, values with which he would find himself very much at home in the Liberal Party. His drive and work ethic led Sir Charles to be the first of his family to enter a profession, accountancy, and he helped establish the firm of Hendry Rae and Court. Sir Charles joined the conservative movement in part due to his anger at the obstruction of the war effort, as he saw it, by militant unions. Sir Charles felt the call to duty and enlisted in the Army as a private in 1940 before rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and serving with distinction in the Pacific. Upon discharge in 1946, he entered the Western Australian parliament as the member for Nedlands.

Within three years of entering parliament, Sir Charles became Deputy Leader of the Opposition and, following the election of the Liberal Country Party government of David Brand in 1959, was appointed Minister for Industrial Development, the North West and Railways. It was at that time that Sir Charles began laying the foundations for the development of Western Australia’s enormous mineral resources. He was particularly successful in ensuring the Pilbara was opened up for iron ore exploration and the commercial exploitation of these vast reserves. One particular innovation was to ensure that mining companies paid for the pipelines, townships, railways and other infrastructure needed to service the mining fields. The capital required to finance this infrastructure necessitated the involvement of the big multinational companies, and Sir Charles was assiduous in his work to attract overseas investment to the west. In this regard, Sir Charles was well ahead of his contemporaries in ties with Asia, in particular with Japan. He was the principal driver behind Canberra’s decision to lift the ban on exporting iron ore. As Sir Robert Menzies, another fine Liberal leader, said: ‘Sir Charles was a remarkable man who would never take “no” for an answer.’ After the defeat of the Brand government in 1971, he was the natural choice to lead the opposition; indeed, he was a wise choice for the Liberal and National Country Party. It won back government from the Tonkin Labor government in 1974, and Sir Charles was to remain Premier until his retirement at the age of 70 in 1982. His commitment to developing Western Australia’s regions also saw the development of the North West Shelf gas reserves and the establishment of the Ord River scheme. Whilst both these projects were criticised in their infancy, Sir Charles’s vision has been vindicated in recent years. Western Australia is looked at with envy by the other states for the dynamism, entrepreneurial spirit and optimism of its people.

Among his personal interests, Sir Charles was an accomplished cornet player, performing in several orchestras including for the final Australian performances of Anna Pavlova. His love of the arts and education led to the restoration of Her Majesty’s Theatre, the establishment of Murdoch University and the Art Gallery of Western Australia. He was a man of enormous integrity and intelligence, who set the foundation stones for the prosperity of modern Western Australia and for the way in which it drives Australia’s national prosperity. He was the patriarch of a great, wonderful extended family, he was a patriarch of the Liberal Party of Australia and he was the patriarch of a modern, vibrant, prosperous Western Australia. He is survived by his wife, Judy, by his children, Victor, Barry, Ken, Richard and Geoffrey, and by 16 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.

I would also like to support the condolence for Sir Edmund Hillary. Sir Edmund Hillary devoted his life to exploring, mountaineering and helping the Nepalese people. He was truly devoted to helping others and built his life based on humility and generosity. He will be remembered first and foremost as the first man to climb Mount Everest, a feat achieved in May 1953 with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. Sir Edmund’s life demonstrated that the human spirit, inspired by the fragile yet powerful emotion of hope, can overcome any adversity. He lived the two qualities that are foundations to a successful life. The first is an unshakeable and powerful inspiration of hope to overcome anything, and the second is a life in the service of others. As such, he will be remembered as a true giant of our generation.

Sir Edmund’s achievements extended well beyond mountaineering and exploring. He devoted much of his life to helping the Sherpa people of Nepal to build hospitals, schools and bridges in the remote areas of the Himalayas. During the Second World War, Sir Edmund served in the New Zealand Air Force. He was appointed New Zealand High Commissioner to India, Nepal and Bangladesh in 1985. He also served as the Honorary President of the American Himalayan Foundation, which helps improve the living conditions in the Himalayas. I think the Prime Minister, when Leader of the Opposition, described himself as ‘having to climb an Everest’. Sir Edmund left us a popular expression which describes knowing that something is going to be extraordinarily difficult to achieve and overcome, but which can nevertheless be done. And so I say that we too will climb that Everest.

Sir Edmund is survived by his wife, Lady June Hillary, and his two children, Peter and Sarah. We offer our condolences not only to them but to the people of New Zealand for having given this great man to the world.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on indulgence: I wish to make some remarks about two men who died within days of each other—and both died too soon. The first, of course, is the journalist Matt Price. Matt Price was one of those amazing characters. As the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have said, he certainly made a mark on this place. He was the purple-shirted, colourful Western Australian larrikin who changed journalism in this country with his unique writing style. He would put a humorous label on everybody’s head and use his former sports journalist’s eye to call the play of the day. If it was just funny, that would have been good enough. But, beneath the humour, Matt Price always had penetrating insights. He always knew what was moving and what was important in Australian politics and he made sure, through humour, that it was read. If it were just us who rushed to read ‘the Sketch’ every day, that would make Matt Price a good journalist. But what made him a great journalist was that he was the interpreter of political events for Australians right around the country, the person they relied on to get an insight into what was happening in this place.

This was reinforced for me when the Prime Minister and I attended Matt Price’s funeral in Perth on 30 November last year and when the current Manager of Opposition Business, Joe Hockey, and I attended and spoke at Matt’s memorial at Parliament House on 13 December. At each event there were Australians who had never met Matt Price. They came because they felt like they knew him from reading what he wrote in the newspaper. They felt like he was a friend, and they mourned his loss. That Matt Price loved politics is known to all of us. It is particularly known to me because on election night I received a text message from him congratulating me on our victory in winning that election. Matt died the next day. That is a man who loved politics. But, beyond that, he was a man who loved life and had a generous and bounding spirit to go with it. At the memorial at Parliament House his family friend the Sunday Telegraph editor Neil Breen said the following—and it is just so true of Matt:

“Whenever your phone rang and you saw it was Matt calling, you’d laugh because you knew the world’s happiest man was on the other end of the line. You’d answer and his favourite greeting was, ‘Great man, mate, you’re the greatest.’ All phone calls would finish with, ‘OK, great man, got  to go, you’re the greatest.’ And off he would go to ring someone else and tell them they were the greatest.”

That was Matt Price—boundless energy, boundless love of life—and that was what made his succumbing to cancer so quickly and so young so difficult to take. Matt Price was born in 1961. He died on 25 November 2007. As someone also born in 1961 can I say with some emotion that it is too young to die. Of all the things Matt valued in life, the thing he valued and loved the most was his family. Our condolences go to his wife, Susie, and his children Jack, Matilda and Harry. We had the privilege of sharing the funeral with them in Perth, and it was tremendous to see them at the memorial service here in Canberra. But, of course, they are the ones who would most keenly be feeling the loss of Matt.

I would also like to briefly make some remarks about Bernie Banton. I do not claim to have known Bernie Banton well. I am looking forward to a speech which I am sure will be made at some point by the member for Charlton, Greg Combet, a man who knew Bernie Banton well and stood shoulder to shoulder with him in his fight for a modicum of justice for the victims of James Hardie. Can I say this about Bernie Banton, a man who, at the age of 61, also died too young: to face your own death with dignity is an accomplishment, but to face your own death with dignity and use your last days to fight for others is truly a heroic act. Bernie Banton was a hero. Our condolences go to his wife, Karen, and to his children, Dean, Melinda, Adam, Brent and Chris, who knew that about their husband and father.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a mark of respect to the memory of the deceased, I invite honourable members to rise in their places.

Honourable members having stood in their places—

I thank the House.