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

I rise tonight to pay tribute to Ralph James Dunnet Hunt, who was born at Narrabri on 31 March 1928 into a long-established grazing family.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He didn't have a good start then, did he?

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

No, he did not—he started before the Depression and probably saw a few along the way. Ralph's interest in politics was evidently fostered around the kitchen table, with his father, Claude, being one of the central characters in the formation of the Australian Country Party in northern New South Wales. His initial foray into party politics was during his school years, when he boarded at the Scots College in Sydney. It prompted him to join the then fledgling Liberal Party. But, on his return home, a Country Party representative visited the family farm to encourage Ralph's dad to pull together a local branch. Fortuitously, Claude suggested that Ralph would be just the man for the job, and so began a lifelong commitment to the party. He would have been in his early 20s at that time. Ralph joined the party in 1950 and was on the Central Council of the Country Party of Australia, New South Wales, by 1953. In the same year, he took the chairman's role in the Gwydir Federal Electorate Council—the body for the federal seat. It was a position he held until 1969. Between 1956 and 1968 he served his local community as councillor on the Boomi Shire Council and he also held the position of vice-president of the council between 1962 and 1968. About the same time, between 1964 and 1969, Ralph served as the New South Wales party chairman, and in 1968 and 1969 he served as the federal party chairman. It is unusual for someone to hold those two roles simultaneously.

Also during this time as New South Wales party chairman, he got right behind the idea of establishing the youth wing of the party and worked hard to see it come to fruition. In 1965 the Young Country Party was formed in New South Wales. This was a few years after it had been formed in southern Queensland. In his role as executor of the organisation of the party, you would think that he had taken on enough roles, but in 1969 he contested the by-election for the seat of Gwydir. He won the seat and held it for the next 20 years, until his retirement in 1989.

He was initially appointed Minister for the Interior in the Gorton-Anthony ministry in February 1971 and held that position until the defeat of the government in 1972, with the start of the Whitlam era. That was the period in which I knew him well in a number of capacities. I was active in the Young Country Party and in 1969 I was actually its state president in Queensland. We were agitating to get a seat on the federal council of the party because we knew the youth were going to have to have a voice in the party. To have a role in the decision making, they had to have a voice. So I took off for the federal council meeting as an observer in 1969. I remember typing up the submission in what is now the Hyatt. It was quite an experience for me because, in those days, the giants of the party were Charles Cutler, the education minister and Deputy Premier of New South Wales, and John McEwen—Black Jack McEwen. They were heady days. In fact, I remember the two of them having a fight at that meeting—which Ralph was chairing, of course, as the federal president—about the first money that was going into high school science blocks and libraries. It was the first time this money was moving into the state high school system. I remember the two of them having a blazing row, but when it really got down to their respective arguments, it was all about whether the corridors of the Dubbo High School needed to be 4-foot six or 4-foot nine wide. It was a very interesting introduction to politics under his chairmanship.

At that meeting Ralph said, 'Look, Paul, you can't move that motion because you're not yet a member of the council.' I was feeling quite despondent, having come all that way to present the case. But Kevin Lyons, who was the Deputy Premier of Tasmania and a member of the Centre Party, as they called the Country Party in Tasmania, said to Ralph, 'No, I'll move it.' So I got my day in court, so to speak, to argue the case for the youth party to have a seat on the council. I presented the case but I did not win it. Nevertheless, Ralph was a very fair man. He certainly nurtured a youth movement in politics, initially in New South Wales and then throughout the Commonwealth.

I grew to know him at the time he became minister and at the various state and federal conferences we attended. The second capacity in which I met him was in my home town of Bundaberg. We were going through a bad economic downturn, and it was decided to form a development board—but not one of these flash-in-the-pan ones where you raise a bit of money on the spur of the moment at a meeting one night, you have spent it the next year and then it all fizzles out the year after. In fact, we engaged someone that honourable members would be familiar with, Everald Compton, who in those days had Compton and Associates, which was a fundraising organisation. We decided that, if we were going to have a development board, it was going to be the best in Queensland, so we decided we would raise the money for the first five years so there would be no doubt that the thing would get off to a flying start. But we needed a big launch pad. We needed to impress on the local district how important this new board would be. So we put it to Ralph Hunt, who was the Minister for the Interior at the time; we asked whether he would come up and launch it, and indeed he did. It had the required effect: hundreds of people came on board and it was a model among development boards for many years to come.

Returning to his career, 1972 to 1975 was the Whitlam era, and that was a tough time for all those Country Party members. But, at the end of that period, Malcolm Fraser and Doug Anthony came to office in 1975, and they appointed Ralph Hunt to be Minister for Health. Fraser said to him, 'I've got a good one for you, Ralph: Health and Medibank.' Ralph responded by saying he had never made a speech in parliament on either of those two subjects. 'Good,' replied Fraser. 'Then they can't quote anything back to you.' In December 1979 he was made Minister for Transport, and his portfolio was expanded in 1982 to make him Minister for Transport and Construction. Ralph Hunt oversaw the massive highway development under the famous 3c-per-litre levy on all vehicle fuels. He became deputy leader of the party between 1984 and 1987 and retired from parliament in 1989.

At that point, you would think, Mr Deputy Speaker, he would probably have had enough. He had worked on the land, he had worked in his local council, he had worked in the administration of the party, he had worked in parliament and he had been a minister. You would think he would want to walk away; he had done his bit. I am sure we see in all three major parties in this parliament that there are some people who enjoy the fruits of being part of a party and then, when they come to retirement, they walk away, not doing anything to enhance the role of those who follow them. But not so with Ralph Hunt. His commitment to the party went on, and he served as federal treasurer of the party from 1987 to the year 2000. He was instrumental in the development of our federal secretariat, John McEwen House, and that was at the time a very risky financial move. Ralph and a handful of people really steered the party through that very important phase, which gave the National Party—no longer the Country Party by that stage—a very fine national headquarters.

In 1990 Ralph was made an officer of the Order of Australia in recognition of his work in the parliament. Last year, after 60 years of service, at our federal conference we awarded him a rare honour, the Earle Page Medal for Meritorious Service. The Nationals federal president, John Tanner, paid tribute to Ralph's work and legacy over recent days, saying that he would 'be remembered as a tireless servant of the people of regional Australia and a champion of the Nationals'. I can echo those sentiments, because I think a man's worth cannot be gauged just by dates and titles he has held. Ralph was much more than that. He was a farmer. He was a worker. He was a much-loved family man, a good husband to Mim—whom he married in 1953—and a wonderful father to his three children. On behalf of my family, my colleagues and the party itself I offer my sincere condolences to Ralph's family and hope they realise the incredible impact he had. He was more than just a participant; he was a champion, and I salute him.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is indeed a great honour for me to be speaking here tonight on this condolence motion in memory of the life of the Hon. Ralph Hunt. I will not go into the detail in the House. The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition very eloquently went through Ralph's accomplishments, and my colleague the member for Hinkler has done a very fine job of that.

Ralph Hunt represented the seat of Gwydir, which was abolished in 2007. The former seat of Gwydir fits wholly and solely inside the seat of Parkes, so I am now representing the same area of New South Wales that Ralph did. My recollections of my earlier years are entirely of Ralph Hunt being the member for 20 years, from my time in primary school until the first time I ever voted in a federal election. I am proud to say that I voted for Ralph Hunt. Following Ralph Hunt and his successor John Anderson in this place means that sometimes I have to pinch myself to realise I am in the role that they had. My memory of Ralph Hunt from when I was growing up was of someone who was very much respected, someone who was considered a true champion for the area that he represented. To find myself in that same position is a very humbling experience.

Ralph's road to federal parliament was not dissimilar to my own. He started off his public life as a councillor of Boomi Shire Council and he was also the chairman of the Gwydir Electorate Council. I am very proud to say that I was also a shire councillor and chairman of the Gwydir Electorate Council before I came to this place. Ralph was very much loved and adored by nearly everyone he represented, except probably the owners of hire car companies. He had a fearsome reputation of being a very fast driver on what can only be described as substandard roads. I know that when Ralph retired the hire car firm in Moree heaved a sigh of relief that he would no longer be knocking their vehicles around to the extent that he had. Ralph Hunt spent a large part of his life living on the farm property Dunumbral, which is between Lightning Ridge and Collarenebri and quite an isolated place. To represent an area the size that he did pre mobile phones, pre internet and pre computers was a remarkable achievement. To be the deputy leader of a party and a cabinet minister from a property at Collarenebri was a remarkable achievement.

Ralph rose to great heights in this place, being a minister in two different governments. He was also a great champion of the Country Party and later the National Party and a very much loved member of the north-west of New South Wales. I would like to express my sincere condolences to Mim and Ralph's family, including Ralph's brother John, who now lives at Narrabri. I know him quite well. As the current member for Parkes, formerly Gwydir, I would like to pay my respects.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Food Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Anybody who does not like the fact that I am in parliament or wishes that I were not here will need to blame Ralph Hunt. I knew Ralph Hunt, but I did not know him at all well until after he had left politics, and then I got to know him very well indeed. Ralph was somebody who put his money where his mouth was. After 20 years in politics and, as you have heard from other people, a very full life otherwise in local government and various other things, Ralph did a lot of things for which he got no recompense, and probably no recognition, but he did them because he believed that he should. When Ian Causley, a former member of the federal parliament, was Minister for Lands in New South Wales back in the early 1990s he formed the Western Lands Advisory Board, and he asked Ralph to chair it. Ralph did that and I was one of the first members on it. For the next few years I got to know an absolute gentleman very well.

As my leader, the member for Wide Bay, said yesterday during the condolence motion, Ralph was one of nature's gentlemen. He was a gentleman in politics. He was very tough but he was a gentleman at all times. He just believed that he had a duty to help agriculture and he had a duty to help people. He chaired a western lands board but he had never owned land in the western lands. He had certainly been the member for a lot of the western division in New South Wales. In fact, I remember Ralph telling me that when Bourke was added to the seat of Gwydir the then mayor of Bourke took him into one of the hotels. He said: 'I'm trying to make the right impression, as you do. This big chap walked up, said something to the mayor and the mayor king hit him, and bang, he went out like a light.' Ralph said he thought to himself: 'This is not going to be a good look. Front page: "Candidate for Gwydir involved in brawl,"' at a particular hotel in Bourke. He said: 'Everybody in the pub yelled out, ''Good on you, Wally, the bloke deserved it,'' and so we were heroes.'

Ralph was one of nature's gentlemen and a lovely man. Ralph was actually a redhead, but I guess he had lost most of his red hair when we knew him. But the red hair was as true on him as it is on most redheads: he certainly could get stirred up. I knew a couple of blokes who went to school with him at Scots in Sydney and they said that the red hair belonged on him. He was a tough bloke, even though he was a gentleman.

More than anything, the more I got to know Ralph the more I thought, 'Whatever parliament does, it must make you aware of everybody you look after and are responsible for.' We had an awful lot of fun, and he taught me a heck of a lot about the side of politics that is not talked about very much, about how people in politics can be of different persuasions but still be very good friends, as rigorous as it might get. Even with somebody like Ralph, who you might think everything went well for, he and Mim had issues. I do not mean between them, but they had family issues and things they had to deal with that would have put stress upon anybody, and they dealt with them magnificently. Their children would go through hell and back for them, pretty much as they did for one another and for their family.

For the National Party I guess Ralph was—to use a Labor saying—a 'true believer'. He did a lot towards McEwen House. He and Doug Anthony were very good mates. Ralph would be on the phone and would be talking to Doug and they would be trying to coerce someone to do something. It would not matter much who it was for and Ralph would say, 'I rang him last time, Doug; it's your turn to ring this time and stir him up and get him going.' As time goes on, you always think that it was simpler before you. But they had very clear lines of demarcation, if I can put it that way. They stood by one another. He and Peter Nixon and Ian Sinclair were a very tough and motivated crew. They all worked together. They worked with the Liberals very well. I would like to think that Mim knew how much we all appreciated everything Ralph did for the Australian parliament, for the coalition and for the National Party. He gave his heart and soul to it. After he left—after he walked away from this place—he still gave his heart and soul to the people he had represented for all those years. He still did things that the rest of us hope to do after we leave here. He was a very unselfish man and I am very proud to have known him.

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

Ralph James Dunnet Hunt was a man who built up his outstanding reputation through dedication and hard work but most of all his sense of staying true to himself and his country values. A farmer and grazier, Mr Hunt served on the Boomi Shire Council on the Moree Plains from 1956 to 1968 and, after the retirement of Ian Allan in 1969, served in the House of Representatives from 7 June 1969 until his retirement on 24 February 1989. Mr Hunt originally started out in the Country Party, which then became the National Country Party in 1975, before broadening to the National Party of Australia in 1982.

In Mr Hunt's inaugural speech on 21 August 1969 he declared that he joined the party to lend his support to the sound national policies of this committee but also to help ensure that those who live outside the great metropolitan areas of this country enjoy their full share of this new and exciting era of development and prosperity. This was an exciting time for Mr Hunt and for his electorate of Gwydir, a Federation seat. He was to represent his electorate with an agricultural background which was vast. He served it with distinction and honour for more than two decades, with the clear objective to see that those regional areas were helped so that they would make an increasing contribution to an even greater nation in the future. This is the attitude of a man of integrity, an attitude that flows through the roots of the entire National Party. His passion for and commitment to regional Australia is what makes me proud to be a Nationals member following in his footsteps.

Mr Hunt held four portfolios while serving in the House of Representatives. From 1971 to 1972, he was the Minister for the Interior. From 1975 to 1979, he was Minister for Health. From 1979 to 1982, he was Minister for Transport. From 1982 to 1983, he was Minister for Transport and Construction. He continued a high standard as Deputy Leader of the Nationals and that benchmark has been emulated by all of those who have followed: Bruce Lloyd, John Anderson, Mark Vaile, Warren Truss and now Senator Nigel Scullion.

However, what saddens me is that the amount of dedication and energy that one man put into regional Australia is sometimes ignored today. One of Mr Hunt's greatest passions was equality and fairness for country students, things that are not always achieved in the present. Hailing from a farming background, Mr Hunt knew the importance of advanced education in rural areas not only for the men and women living in towns but for the ones who decided to go back and manage their properties. While there has been a great leap in rural education since 1969, with more colleges, universities and schools opening in regional Australia, there is still a large education barrier dividing regional and metropolitan students.

Here are the words of Mr Hunt's successor in Gwydir, John Anderson: 'From the night of 21 August 1969 there followed all but 20 years of dedicated service to the people of Gwydir and to the people of this nation. I am constantly reminded, both in this place and at home in the electorate, of the regard in which he was held and the thankfulness which people feel for the contribution that he made'. At this time, the Nationals in particular extend our deepest sympathy to Ralph's wife Miriam and their three children. His family was his greatest achievement. I thank them for giving our party so much of Ralph's wonderful life. Ralph's energy for and commitment to public life, to the Nationals and to regional Australia will be evident for years to come. His legacy will be long lasting. May he rest in peace.

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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

Honourable members having stood in their places—

Debate adjourned.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That further proceedings be conducted in the House.

Question agreed to.