Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I first thank the Leader of the House for referring this matter to this chamber for discussion. I know a number of my colleagues intend to speak to it. It is not always the case that the passing of a former member is acknowledged by a condolence motion which is spoken to but, on this occasion, I very much wanted it to be. Bruce Cowan passed away on 7 April this year, and it is somewhat ironic that today is the inaugural memorial ceremony conducted by the Association of Former Members of the Parliament of Australia in recognition of those people, former members, who have passed away between the last parliament and this parliament. Bruce Cowan's name is recorded in the honour record of those deceased members and senators of the Australian parliament who were remembered today. I wanted to note of Bruce, somebody I knew well and with whom I served, that he was a particularly remarkable individual. While his name was David Bruce Cowan, he was Bruce. He was born in 1926. He was educated at Oxley Island Public School and Taree High School. He worked as a dairy farmer, a real estate agent and a stock and station agent before serving as an alderman on Taree Municipal Council, rising to the post of deputy mayor between 1959 and 1965. He had earlier been unsuccessful in tilts at the state parliament, but he was elected as member for Oxley in a by-election in 1965. He retained the seat through five elections, during which time he served as Minister for Agriculture and Minister for Water Resources in New South Wales. He resigned the seat in 1980 to contest the federal seat of Lyne. He was elected and he held that seat until his retirement.

What it does not state in recording those dates was that he served with my late father, who was a member of the New South Wales parliament and also a minister. They served contemporaneously. I still have photographs in my electorate office and in my home of Bruce and my father as they sat together in the legislative assembly of New South Wales. I thought it was somewhat ironic that at a later point in time Max Ruddock, who had also served in local government and in the state parliament, had one of his former colleagues, also a deputy mayor, in the federal parliament with his son. I came to see a lot of Bruce. I enjoyed his company. I think he had a very considerable contribution to make in public service.

As I reflected on this motion today, one of the observations that have been made about him that particularly impressed me was that he was a very strong coalitionist. In his maiden speech he said:

I am pleased to say that we have, particularly in the Federal coalition and in the New South Wales parliamentary National Country Party, of which I was a member, a very happy and very close association with anti-socialist policies which are so important to us.

He was a man of his time. I note the Labor Party do not claim to be socialist these days, but I am sure they do not mind being reminded of it. He was a person who gave very considerable public service. It was recognised on his retirement in comments from a former leader, Tim Fischer, who had also served with Bruce in the legislative assembly of New South Wales and in the federal parliament. He noted that Bruce had given some two decades of dedicated and determined service. He went on to say that the member for Lyne had also suffered a horrific personal tragedy, of which I think many of us are aware, in losing his wife, Marion. The former leader went on to say that Bruce:

… elected to carry on in the service of his electorate. I salute his service to this Parliament and to the widest range of community groups he represents. Nothing was too small or too large for Bruce to undertake. He finetuned my process of representation when I was a very young and new member of the New South Wales Parliament.

He went on to say:

In a sense he showed me the 'two-minute Tim' trick: the ability to be available in front of a post office or a council chamber and do a fair dinkum tour of one's electorate, being readily available to everybody.

Bruce was a man of the people. He served the people of the North Coast with particular dedication. I had the opportunity, particularly as a member of the parliamentary delegation to the United Kingdom and Ireland shortly after Marion's death in 1988, to travel with Bruce and with the late Glen Sheil as members of that delegation. He was great company to us. He was a fine mentor to those like my wife, Heather, who claims some Scots heritage. He and Glen Sheil both identified very much with that heritage. His service to the nation was recognised by the award of an OAM, I think richly deserved. I want to finalise my comments by noting that we all are very much concerned at the loss of him, at 85. I give my condolences to his now widow, Jan. Bruce was the father of Jane and Rosemary—the wife of my state parliamentary colleague and now New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell—and Mandy, Michael and Peter. He was the proud and loving grandfather of Tom, Will, Sheri, James, Xiao Lian and Xin Hu.

Bruce Cowan is a person whom you miss. I miss him. I reflect upon him as a fine former colleague. I am delighted, as I said, that the Leader of the House has given us an opportunity today to pay this tribute to him.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like the honourable member for Berowra, I extend my appreciation that the parliament has made a little time available for us to reflect on the life of Bruce Cowan. The previous speaker would have been in the federal parliament, I suspect, for the whole of the time that Bruce Cowan was a member of this House. Bruce Cowan's last term was my first term, so we crossed over by about three years. I have very fond memories of Bruce as a man. I got to know him briefly before I entered the federal parliament, but our relationship extended beyond the time of his retirement. Frequently when I went to the Taree or Port Macquarie area he made sure that he was around so that we could talk about issues. He was keenly interested in politics for all of his life, right up to his very last days.

When I attended his funeral service in Taree and listened to people talk about his life it reminded me of how similar his early life was to my own. I could see many similarities in the way in which we grew up and, I suspect, the sorts of things that led us into politics. Bruce Cowan was born on a dairy farm on Oxley Island. It would have been a battle. Dairy farming has always been hard work. I was also born on a small farm. It had ceased to be a dairy farm by the time I was born, but all the relics of the dairy industry were there. He had his start in the Junior Farmers organisation. So did I. That later became Rural Youth. It gave us, as farm children, a real opportunity to meet other young people in our district and to understand something about living and working with other people and broadening our own experience.

Bruce then went into local government, as I did. He became Deputy Mayor of Taree City Council, where he served with distinction. By that time he had actually left the farm and was operating a stock and station agency and real estate business in the town. He was very active in his community and on a whole range of agricultural issues—and was so all through his life. I was interested to hear again, at his funeral, people talking about the things that he had been doing only in the past weeks in support of local community organisations, especially the church where his funeral was held, and his keen interest in community affairs.

My fundamental description of Bruce Cowan, if I had to put it into one word, would be that this guy was a gentleman. He was a humble man, an able man, a man who cared about the people around him. He endured a great deal of hardship through his own life but always cared about others. He was keen to listen. He was always interested in the views of others. He certainly had his own views, but he was interested also to hear what other people had to say and was very keen to follow through on their concerns. It is also interesting that he never used speaking notes—he always spoke without notes and spoke from the heart. Speaking without notes enabled him to speak more freely than he otherwise would have been able to do. He certainly was a man of substance, but also he was a man of great warmth and great feeling.

Bruce is one of the few people to have served in all three tiers of government. As mentioned earlier, he was on the Taree council, serving as deputy mayor; he moved into the New South Wales parliament, where he served as a minister under two premiers; and then he moved into the federal parliament. I am sure he would have wished also to have been a minister in the federal parliament, but that was not to be. Nonetheless, he always had the respect of his colleagues in this place. Indeed, it would be hard to identify any political or personal foe that he ever really developed in his life. He respected his opponents and generally got on very well with them.

I met Bruce Cowan on the very first day I came to this parliament, at the airport in Sydney. The National Party was in a bit of trouble at the time because we had had a bad election result. Our leader had been defeated and the first job of new members of parliament coming to Canberra was to choose a new leader. Bruce had always been a lifelong friend of Ian Sinclair and felt deeply aggrieved that Ian had been deposed as leader. He felt that we needed to do the right thing and put Ian back as the leader of the party. He lobbied strongly and compassionately for that. His friendship with Ian lasted a very long time, right up to Bruce's death. Indeed, Ian and Rosemary were present at his funeral, along with a large number of state and federal political colleagues from New South Wales and interstate.

In about 1987 his wife Laura was killed in a car accident. That was another very difficult time for the Nationals because at about the same time Noel Hicks, the member for Riverina, lost his wife in a car accident. Both women were at the time going about their duties as the spouses of members of parliament. It did draw to the attention of all of us the dangers of travelling on country roads over very long distances. They are the risks that we all take as people who need to be active around our electorates all the time. Losing Laura was a huge blow to Bruce, but he later married Jan Churchill and Jan, with her wonderful personality, was able to help Bruce in his work as an MP and then right through the rest of his life.

The other thing we will always remember was Bruce's dedication and his commitment. He had two daughters, and one, Rosemary, is the wife of the new New South Wales Premier. Having met Bruce's grandsons, Tom and Will, I suspect there may end up being three generations of his family in politics. They are a wonderful couple of boys and I am sure they also have an enormous contribution to make in the future.

Bruce was recognised with an Order of Australia in 1991 for his service to government and the citizens of the Taree region. He had served 35 years in local, state and federal parliament—a remarkable record. He was a very fine man. I felt that his farewell service at St John's Anglican Church in Taree was one of the most impressive I have been to. The town turned out and his friends were there—and his friends naturally included some well-known and famous people. But everyone attended not to be in the company of famous people but because they respected Bruce as a man. They acknowledged the contribution he had made to Taree and district, and those of us who regarded him as a friend—virtually everyone who knew him—knew that we had lost someone we cherished very deeply. I extend my sympathies to Jan, and to his daughters Rosemary and Jane and their extended families. They can be very proud of Bruce for the role he has played and for the model and the lead he has provided for so many people.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the first day of a recent trek with the member for Cook and the member for Blaxland, some shocking news that came through in the middle of the jungle in Borneo was of the passing of Bruce Cowan, the former member for Lyne. It was the loss of a man who I considered a friend, both as a former member for Lyne and as a very active community member on the mid-North Coast of New South Wales. I endorse the comments of the Liberal member for Berowra, the Father of the House and the Leader of the Nationals, the member for Wide Bay. It is somewhat reflective and symbolic of Bruce himself that we have a spread of the field talking in his honour on this condolence motion—that is, in the order of a father, a leader, and a local member, the three aspects of Bruce's life that I think he considered to be of importance in that order.

He was a father first, and valued the wide family network that he had on the mid-North Coast and throughout New South Wales. Other speakers have mentioned that family network. As well, he was a community leader; even when he was outside the parliament, he was a leader of men. Right until his passing he was very active in many aspects of community life, sometimes hassling current local members to attend meetings, to address issues and, quite rightly, to remain focused on community life first and foremost.

As well, he had some incredible skills in his time as a local member. His 13 years in federal parliament and his time in the state parliament before that left the reputation of a man who had an incredible memory for names and some very gifted skills in engaging with community; facilitation skills, negotiating skills and, as a community builder, uniting skills that have left a legacy to this day. He is, I can confirm to the House, widely and broadly respected on the mid-North Coast of New South Wales, and his legacy certainly lingers well beyond his passing.

Friends and family of the late Bruce Cowan honoured Mr Cowan's record of service to the parliament at a memorial service on the mid-North Coast on 11 April. Personally, I was devastated not to be there because of this trek, but I have let Jan and the Cowan family know that he is certainly someone held in high regard by current sitting members. This condolence motion will be well received by the family.

Bruce, who passed away on 7 April, aged 85, served in the New South Wales parliament as the member for Oxley for 15 years before being elected to this place in 1980 and serving 13 years as a very good and well-respected member for the seat of Lyne up to his retirement in 1993. His contribution to community life, including eight years as an alderman on the Taree Municipal Council at the time—now Greater Taree City Council—was acknowledged with his appointment as a member of the Order of Australia in 1998, and the award of the Centenary Medal in 2001. They are small symbolic gestures of a lifetime of service to community. On behalf of the mid-North Coast and the electors of Lyne, I confirm that our community has lost a good man. Our thoughts, along with those of many in our community are with Mr Cowan's wife Jan and his family at this time.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

David Bruce Cowan AM, farmer's son, real estate and stock and station agent, Rotarian, member of both the New South Wales and federal parliaments, family man, local champion. Born at Taree in 1926 and known as Bruce, he was educated at Oxley Island Public School and Taree High before embarking on his working life. Mr Cowan's political life began when he joined the Country Party of Australia and he first became a member of the central executive in 1952. He served with distinction as state member for Oxley from 1965 to 1980 and federal member for Lyne from 1980 to his retirement in 1993. On top of his time in local government for Taree Council from 1957 to 1965, that is a fine record of service to public life, a record of distinction, of dedication, of—as is the motto of his beloved Rotary club and he enjoyed membership of the progressive Taree club for 37 years—service above self.

Bruce Cowan was eloquently remembered by New South Wales Nationals Chairman Christine Ferguson. 'Bruce was loved by all,' Mrs Ferguson said. 'He was one of those good old-fashioned Country Party-National Party people, quiet and unassuming. Someone who achieved great things for his community through hard work, through knowing the people he represented, through always being in touch with the grassroots of his electorate and the party he represented. He was above all else a gentleman.' This is a sentiment echoed by the Nationals leader in his tribute. Bruce Cowan, friend to all, local champion, may he rest in peace. He was also particularly proud of the Nationals success in the recent state election, especially the elevation to Premier of his son-in-law, Liberal leader Barry O'Farrell. My sincerest condolences and those of the National Party family go to Mr Cowan's extended family and friends.