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

I very much wanted to be associated with this condolence motion. Lionel Bowen retired from this parliament 22 years ago, and I dare say I am one of the few members of the House of Representatives who had the great privilege of serving with him. In a sense, I always felt a very special personal linkage with him, notwithstanding the fact that we served on different sides of the House.

Lionel Bowen was born in Sydney on 28 December 1922. He left school at 14 but completed his studies at night school and later obtained a law degree from my old alma mater, the University of Sydney. In those difficult times, many people achieved a great deal, despite the considerable disadvantage that they suffered in early life. My own father's career was similar in the sense that he had to earn scholarships and places in school and university in order to succeed. Lionel Bowen practised as a solicitor, as I did, working primarily in the area of local government. His firm, Bowen & Packham, was across the road from my firm, Berne Murray & Tout. There was a time when lawyers had to frequent each other's offices, usually to get moratorium certificates signed or certificates in relation to leases that a client of yours had received independent advice on, and frequently I attended Lionel's office—long before he became a member of parliament. That firm continued as Bowen & Gerathy at a later point in time.

From 1948 to 1962, Lionel Bowen was an alderman of Randwick Municipal Council. He was mayor between 1950 and 1951, and 1955 and 1956. I saw some synergies with the Ruddock family. My father entered local government—the Shire of Hornsby—in 1952, I think, and was there until he was elected to parliament in 1964. He also served a single term as mayor and another term as acting mayor. Lionel Bowen was elected to the Parliament of New South Wales and served there as the member for Randwick. Over that time, 1962 to 1969, he served with my late father. I made an error earlier: my father served from 1962 in the state parliament, until 1976. Lionel was elected to the House of Representatives as the member for Kingsford-Smith in 1969 serving until his retirement shortly before the 1990 election. My father aspired to serve in the federal parliament. That was never to be. My wife used to say that I walked in his shoes in a sense with a much easier path albeit almost 39 years ago.

I served with Lionel Bowen from 1973 until 1990 as a member of the House of Representatives and I had the opportunity of seeing him serve as Postmaster-General from 1972 to 1974, Special Minister of State from 1973 to 1975, minister assisting the Prime Minister from 1973 to 1974, minister assisting the Prime Minister in matters relating to the Public Service from 1974 to 1975, and Minister for Manufacturing Industry between June 1975 and November 1975. That was while Labor was in government, and then it moved into opposition and in December 1977 he was elected the Labor Party's deputy leader. He was in that post until April 1990. He was Deputy Prime Minister from March 1983 to April 1990. He served as Minister for Trade, as Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Commonwealth-State Relations, as Vice-President of the Executive Council and as Attorney-General from 1984 to 1990. In 1989 he passed Ben Chifley's record as the longest serving minister in governments of the Australian Labor Party.

I had the great privilege in 1977 to be elected chairman of the Joint Select Committee on the Family Law Act, to review the act that had been introduced by Lionel Murphy. It was a very significant committee but what was most significant for me was that Lionel Bowen was the Labor Party's deputy leader and Lionel Bowen, as its shadow Attorney-General, saw fit to serve on that committee of the parliament. There is often some sensitivity by people who have served at a senior level and go back and serve on parliamentary committees. I think Lionel Bowen is an example of one gentleman who believed it was important to contribute to the parliament and the debates and the discussions in which we were involved and to contribute at the very highest level, whatever one's position in the parliament. I look back at some of the very kind remarks he made about me as chairman of that committee but I felt greatly privileged to be able to have him serving beside me in reviewing legislation that had been extraordinarily controversial in its time and in putting in place positive recommendations that survive even to today.

I think it is a great tribute, and I do not think this has been referred to before, that one of our significant courts buildings in Sydney is named after Lionel Bowen. I think he deserved it. I think that was right and proper. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1991. He served Australia for 42 years across three levels of government. I think somebody who was able to serve in the very diverse ways he did and who could see the very significant achievements that he had been able to make in government progressed deserves commendation for the great contribution he made to Australia. To his wife, Claire, to whom I have written and whom I saw on the occasion of the state funeral, I extend the condolences of the Ruddock family and I do so to all of the Bowen family.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to follow on from the remarks made by the member for Berowra and note the fact that across the parliament there has been unanimous respect for and acknowledgement of the contribution that was made by Lionel Bowen. As the member for Kingsford Smith, now serving in a seat that Lionel Bowen won after his time in both local and state politics, it is a very great privilege for me to be standing here with Lionel Bowen as one of my predecessors. It is also a great privilege for me to be able to reflect on the contribution that he made not only in the parliament but also in the electorate more broadly.

Lionel Bowen's career was a highly distinguished one, which is even the more remarkable given the humble conditions and circumstances under which he grew up. It is appropriate for me to note again just some of those achievements of high office. He was the Deputy Prime Minister from 1983 to 1990; the Attorney-General for a significant period of time; the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Commonwealth-State Relations; the Minister for Trade; the Deputy Leader of the Opposition; the Special Minister of State; the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister; the Postmaster-General—his first appointment under the Whitlam government; the state member for Randwick for a number of years; the first Labor Alderman of the Randwick City Council; and, of course, a founding director of the Randwick Labor Club. His achievements are noted. They are recognised as being the mark of someone who had tremendous capacity and who gave himself to the service both of the Labor Party and of the country.

I want to reflect on some of the remarks that have been made by those people who worked with Lionel Bowen in his time. Bob Hawke, the former Prime Minister, said:

From his own intrinsic talents and characteristics emerged this remarkable man who now together we remember and we honour.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating said:

Australia has been fortunate in having the conscientious service of someone so committed to the values of justice and equity and the public good in general.

Humility was written all over his calling card.

I noted the remarks of Johno Johnson, who has been a long-time loyal servant of the Labor Party, when he remarked of Lionel Bowen, whom he knew very well:

Office meant nothing to him unless he could serve people.

It is also the case that the qualities that Lionel Bowen displayed, qualities both of humility and of capacity, are rare. They are rare in this place, to be frank, and they are also rare in life in general. Here was somebody who was sure of himself but had a down-to-earth nature that not only was noted by his colleagues and his contemporaries but was something which is always reflected upon by anybody you meet, as I do as the current local member for Kingsford Smith, by anybody who met him on any occasion. He was someone whom they could relate to, who they felt connected with them and listened to them, who was able to empathise with them—and I will go on to say why I think that was the case—but who also had something to offer them by way of observation, assistance, if they were a constituent seeking help, and analysis by someone who was extremely capable and had considerable intellectual abilities.

I think one of the keys to understanding someone's career and character is to look to their early life. In the case of Lionel Bowen there is much that instructs us there. He certainly was born in what we would now describe as fairly challenging circumstances. He was an only child and, ultimately, the only child of a single mum. He left school at 14 to support the family and then worked overtime to become a solicitor and ultimately a politician, serving his local community for generations and generations. He was diagnosed with rheumatic fever at an early age, and it is probably fair to say that this would have had some influence on him as a young man. He trained as an artillery signalman but was taken out of active service because of the condition, and so ended up in the war working as an orderly at Sydney Hospital unloading the wounded from the ships. Here again is an experience that I know, from what his family have communicated, had some impact on him. He was a child of the Depression but also, in his adolescence, late teens and early 20s, a child of the World War II generation, and that certainly left its mark upon him.

The Bowen family are very well known in the electorate of Kingsford Smith. To Lionel's wife, Claire, and to their children and grandchildren, I again extend my warmest sympathies at the loss of Lionel. There is no doubt that they were aware of the tremendous capacity and character that Lionel had, but I think it would have come home to them even more vividly when we all gathered, along with former prime ministers, at St Mary's Cathedral for the state funeral. Recognition of the contribution he made was appropriately given. Lionel's son Tony remarked to me that he died in his favourite season, Easter, a time which reflected his religious adherence and when his great pursuit, the track, is also starting to gear up into full swing at the racing carnival.

After growing up in the circumstances in which he did, he ended up as a married man living in his three-bedroomed house in Kensington with some 10 people for a number of years, until the second-storey extension was added in 1974. In his time he played the role in the Labor Party of a constant, loyal, diligent and active participant in the political affairs of the party, and subsequently of the nation, at the highest level.

There are some aspects of Bowen's career that have not been remarked on up until now, and I would like to pay a brief tribute to them. One is the fact that he was very active in his early period in the parliament on issues concerning Cambodia, and subsequently the progress of the Cambodian nation following the terrible reign of the Khmer Rouge. Members opposite may recall some of that involvement. He was probably the first federal politician to suggest that a peacekeeping force be sent to Cambodia, something which at the time people looked at somewhat askance. Yet it is an example of how he identified with the people in that country, who had suffered such a great deal.

Lionel Bowen was someone who was both humble and confident. He was a very acute assessor of people's characters and as a deputy to Prime Minister Hawke, and in work with other prime ministers, he served in a way that gave them the opportunity to lead to the fullest of their abilities. That was truly a mark of his service here in the parliament and to the Labor Party.

I want to make one personal reflection, as I think it is appropriate to do so in this condolence motion. My first interaction with Lionel Bowen was when he was Attorney-General and approached me to sit on the 1998 Constitutional Convention. I thought that did some very good work, but ultimately we were not able to settle those issues, which were and remain very important to Australians. It was always a mystery to me as to why Lionel Bowen had approached me, and I subsequently found out that a couple of his sons—particularly Peter, but also Tony and, I think, the other kids—had listened to a lot of Midnight Oil in his house at Kensington over the years, and eventually it seemed as though Lionel's ears were pricked up as well.

I have to say that when I came into the party and the parliament I was welcomed both by the Bowen family and by Lionel. He was there to provide sage advice—and it certainly was sage advice—and I was extremely appreciative of the relationship that I was able to develop with him, even though I did not know him as well as many others. He made an extraordinary contribution to his community, to the Labor Party and to the Labor governments that he served, and he made an extraordinary contribution to the nation. He will be very well remembered.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an honour to join in the condolence motion for the late Hon. Lionel Bowen. I first met Lionel Bowen in 1995. He at that point was, of course, a former Deputy Prime Minister and a lion of the labour movement. I was a very junior ALP branch member of, at that point, seven years standing in the ALP—a young man who had yet to be elected to his local council and without a profile in the party. In what would become over the years a very typical mistake, I found myself sitting next to Lionel Bowen at a dinner to celebrate the election of the Carr Labor government. This mistake was due to an official assuming that I was his son and therefore seating me on the official table next to the former Deputy Prime Minister. I soon worked out that this mistake had occurred and suggested that I might take my leave and go and find a more appropriate seat at the very large function—a seat more befitting a very junior Labor Party branch member than the official table with the newly elected Premier and the former Deputy Prime Minister. Of course, Lionel would not hear a word of that. He insisted that I remain in my seat and spent considerable time chatting to me about matters of common interest. Lionel was always quick to encourage and loath to criticise. He enjoyed taking the time to chat. He shared his views with humility. He was keenly interested in the rejuvenation of the Labor Party after his retirement, and he had not an arrogant bone in his body.

The mistake that that official made on that evening was the beginning of my relationship with Lionel Bowen. Of course, a few years after that the ravages of the pernicious disease of Alzheimer's began slowly to take their toll on Lionel. But it has been very common at functions or meetings since I have entered parliament for people to come up to me and tell me that they went to school with my father or used to work for my father. I was initially quite surprised that so many people worked for the NRMA, until I realised after a number of these incidents that they were confused. But I would find that as a result of regularly being assumed to be related to Lionel Bowen I learnt a lot more about him even than in my own interactions with him. I would obviously tell disappointed interlocutors that in fact I was not Lionel Bowen's son, but they would invariably go on to tell me a story about Lionel, and invariably those stories would reflect on his humility, his integrity and his decency.

Lionel Bowen had, I think, the Chifley-like qualities of a great Labor politician: humility combined with passion and determination. His humility sometimes led him to be underestimated, but the record shows how wrong those who underestimated him were. He is one of the handful of people in Australian history to have served in all three levels of government: local, state and federal. He was a mayor at 28, going on at one point to be the longest serving Labor minister in Australia's history, a record subsequently surpassed only by Paul Keating, Kim Beazley and Gareth Evans. He was Deputy Leader of the Australian Labor Party for more than half his time in the federal parliament, and he came very close to becoming our leader in 1977, losing that ballot by six votes in the caucus. It is an interesting question of historical record as to what might have happened if he had in fact won that ballot. I suspect that his down-to-earth nature and his passion would have made him a very successful Labor leader, and the political history of Australia over the last 30 years may well have taken a very different turn.

His length of service and his high office does not tell the full story of his achievements and his passion. He was not a high-profile politician, despite his very high office. His role was often as a counsel and a sage behind the scenes. He was involved in the very difficult and emotional meeting in which Bill Hayden handed the leadership over to Bob Hawke. He took the view that it was the right thing for the Labor Party for him to waive his right under Labor Party conventions to name his portfolio, ceding the foreign affairs portfolio in opposition—very clearly, at that point, soon to be the government—to Bill Hayden.

He was driven to pursue social justice at least in part because of his childhood poverty. It has often been mentioned in his obituaries that his father was an alcoholic who abandoned the family when Lionel was at a young age. His mother also had to care for her brother, who had an acquired brain injury. Her father had passed away a few years before in the great Spanish influenza pandemic—which also killed my great grandmother. The family was borne into great poverty in that period. This, I think, informed his view that—as one of his sons eloquently said in a eulogy at the local church—'nobody should be wiped out simply due to his or her frailty'. That was a view Lionel Bowen kept throughout his political life and also his personal life. As I said, it has been commonly mentioned that his father abandoned the family. What is less mentioned is that at the place where his father is buried a gravestone marking the burial place reads: 'From your loving son Lionel'. His forgiveness of his father says more about him than any words we can muster here in this House.

Lionel Bowen is lost to us, but his records, his achievements and his great, great qualities live on as an inspiration. I extend my condolences to the family, as I have personally, and I record my personal admiration and the inspiration Lionel Bowen provided to many of my generation—even those of us who do not share his surname!—in this House.

Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Lionel Bowen was one of the great parliamentarians, not only of the last century but since Federation. He was a man of enormous ability but always remained unpretentious and a genuine true believer in the principles of the Labor movement, and it is most fitting that the Australian parliament is honouring his memory in this motion. I am certainly proud of the fact that the Bowens—Lionel and his wife, Claire—and my parents, Doug and Lorna, were very good friends. In fact, Lionel and my father, Doug, virtually shared their political careers in the Labor Party together. When they joined the party Ben Chifley was its leader. Lionel entered the New South Wales parliament in 1962, and that was the year my father was elected to the Senate. Lionel came to Canberra in 1969. Just three years later—in December 1972, as we can remember, with the election of the Whitlam government—both of them became ministers. Lionel was the Postmaster-General and my father was Minister for the Media. In fact, in those early stages of the Whitlam ministry, they shared the one secretary of their respective departments, and Lionel and Doug sat next to each other in that first cabinet and remained good mates throughout.

In mid-1975, my father followed Lionel as Special Minister of State and he recalls Lionel as being someone who was always on top of his brief, as a good lawyer, not only in terms of detail but also in terms of tactics. For example, not long after Malcolm Fraser deposed Bill Snedden as Leader of the Opposition, Lionel warned those more complacent members of the Senate to watch it, because he would not be in the least surprised if Mr Fraser moved to block supply later in that year, and political history tells us that that is in fact what happened, leading to the dismissal of the Whitlam government on 11 November 1975. Lionel was one of the first members of the government who predicted that course of action.

Labor of course then went into opposition, but eight years later, in 1983, Bob Hawke won government. Lionel became his Deputy Prime Minister, and was probably one of the most loyal deputy prime ministers, in terms of riding shotgun for the Prime Minister, that Australia has ever seen. He also held the office of Attorney-General. At that time, my father was President of the Senate. They had a number of close mates, including Bob Hawke, Mick Young, Clyde Holding, John Brown and Ben Humphreys. My father tells me that they frequently dined together and that, if the walls of the Old Parliament House could speak, they would indeed tell quite a few stories, all of those men being larrikins in their own right. They kept in touch after parliament but, just as an indication of the personalities, my father recalls going around to see Prime Minister Hawke. In the small corridors of Old Parliament House, there outside the Prime Minister's office were Prime Minister Hawke, Minister Howe, John Brown, Mick Young and Lionel, all in deep concentrated thought and serious conversation. My father thought we were about to confront a national crisis, given the intensity of this conversation. But as he got closer to them he heard them say, 'Yeah, but who d'you think's going to win in the sixth?'

In the late 1980s, my father went to London as high commissioner and he speaks of the tremendous standing of Lionel on both sides of the British parliament. My father related to me one visit which I am sure Lionel's wife, Claire, will remember, where Claire and Lionel accompanied my father and mother to the town of Lyndhurst in Hampshire, where Lionel unveiled a wall mural depicting the early life of Arthur Phillip, who became Australia's first governor. Arthur Phillip had undertaken farming for a brief period when he retired as a captain of the Navy before being reappointed to captain the First Fleet to Australia.

From my point of view, I was greatly honoured to serve in the office of Attorney-General, an office that Lionel held with distinction. Indeed, in many ways I tried to emulate Lionel's principled and balanced style, and I can assure Lionel's family that respect for his legacy endures to this day in the Attorney-General's Department. But for time constraints, one could list Lionel's remarkable achievements and recall many humorous anecdotes about him. Lionel Bowen was indeed unique, modest, self-effacing and a devoted family man, a loyal and reliable friend, a proud representative of his country and a truly magnificent Australian. I also join my colleagues in paying my respects and indeed those of my family to the memory of such a great and distinguished man. Claire and her family must be very proud of him indeed.

Debate adjourned.