Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to honour a distinguished Australian who has recently retired from a significant position at one of our great cultural institutions, and that is Major General Steve Gower, who has recently concluded a distinguished career of some 16-plus years as director at the Australian War Memorial. That follows on from an also very distinguished career in the Australian military. He served in Vietnam but also went on to hold senior positions in the Defence Force. I could go through a range of them but I will not, at this stage, other than to say that he is an unusual man who has a very unusual achievement: he has been made an Officer of the Order of Australia in both the military division and the general division. That is not something that very many people, if any, could claim to have achieved.

As Minister for Veterans' Affairs I had the privilege of working with Major General Gower. I have to say that he was a man who always gave you full and frank advice. But he also always impressed you with his enormous knowledge, his breadth of understanding of the issues with respect to the institution he was responsible for, and a genuine passion and enthusiasm for the work he was doing. It is fair to say—others have said it, and I am happy to say it here—that over the last 16 years he took an institution that had always been at the centre of Australia's cultural identity and made it the vanguard of Australia's cultural identity into the future. He looked to new technologies, he looked to the future, he embraced that cultural identity and he developed it through the War Memorial.

He did a range of things in his time, and I will go through just a few of them now: major redevelopments of galleries, including the Second World War gallery, the aircraft hall, post-1945 conflicts to today, and the Hall of Valour, bringing them up to world-class standards using modern museum practice; the development of the Campbell precinct site development plan, which set the future development of the grounds; the construction of two buildings—ANZAC Hall and the CEW Bean Building—which has extended exhibition space considerably, the latter especially to accommodate contemporary conflicts; the acquisition and fit-out of Treloar D, the conservation storage facility at Mitchell; the development and introduction of Wartime, the official magazine of the Australian War Memorial; the introduction of the memorial's website; the memorial's induction into the Australian Tourism Awards prestigious Hall of Fame in 2003; the introduction of a national travelling exhibition program; and the reinstatement of the official commissions program, which has seen artists, photographers, cinematographers and curators travel to East Timor, the Solomon Islands, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Sinai.

These and a whole range of other initiatives have occurred on Steve's watch. They are testimony to his excellent work over the last 16 years and to the lasting imprint he will leave with respect to one of our greatest institutions, from a cultural perspective. He is a man who was well respected by the staff who have worked with him and for him over that time, and he leaves behind very huge shoes to fill.

Also, as they say, behind every man there is an even greater woman, and Steve's wife, Heather, certainly fits that bill. Heather, as I said to Steve when we were talking the other day, is by all accounts a great lady. She has been an absolute adornment and significant contributor to his role as director. I had the great pleasure of meeting and spending time with her on a number of occasions. She has not been well, and I know I send the best wishes of all here in the parliament to her.

At this time we should honour not only Steve's excellent work over his time as director but also Heather's excellent support of that work. Together, they have been a significant part of the development of the Australian War Memorial. Steve leaves this position in a situation in which he can be very rightly proud of the work he has done. He can move on from there knowing that future generations will remember his work and the significant contribution he has made.