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

Gordon Neil Bilney, who died on Sunday aged 73, was a straightshooter and someone with whom you knew where you stood. So said Noel Hicks from Griffith this morning when I telephoned him to talk about the Australian Labor Party's late member for Kingston, to whom we appropriately pay tribute again today. Mr Hicks was the National Country's and the National Party's member for Riverina from 1980 to 1998, spanning the time that Mr Bilney was in the federal parliament. 'I got on well with him,' Mr Hicks recalled. 'Even though we were on opposite sides of politics, I had the greatest respect for him. He was down to earth and he represented the people he served very well. His diplomatic experience was an asset when he came to parliament.'

Gordon Bilney was born in Renmark, South Australia, on 21 June 1939. His first career was as a dentist before becoming a diplomat. He served as the deputy permanent representative of Australia to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development from 1975 to 1978 and as the Australian High Commissioner to the West Indies from 1980 to 1982. Elected to federal parliament for the South Australian seat of Kingston at the 1983 election, the sixth person to serve that electorate, which was formed in 1949, Mr Bilney won all subsequent elections until defeated by the Liberal candidate Susan Jeanes at the 1996 election.

While in parliament, Mr Bilney served as the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel from 1990 to 1993. During his time as minister he lifted the ban on homosexuals in the ranks of the Defence Force. From 1993 to 1996 he served as the Minister for Development Cooperation and Pacific Island Affairs—the first time a minister had been specifically dedicated to this position. Mr Hicks served with Mr Bilney, who chaired the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade during the 1980s and recalled his colleague as 'always being on top of the subject and one who contributed very well'. Mr Hicks asked me to extend his sincere condolences to Gordon's wife, Sandra, children, Carolyn, Sarah and Nicholas, and grandchildren, Madeleine, Charlotte, Beatrice, Adele and Emma. May he rest in peace.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great honour to speak on the condolence motion for Gordon Bilney. When we talk about those who have passed, we obviously cast our own minds back to our memories and it reminds me of when I first joined the party in the years of the Keating government. When I first started in the party it was the apex of Gordon Bilney's career. He was minister for the Pacific Islands at the time and part of that great group of Centre Left thinkers in the Labor Party—people like Mick Young, Bill Hayden, Chris Schacht and others, who really were a force to be reckoned with in the Hawke and Keating years.

They were not just a political force but an intellectual force. Certainly that group of men and women were to be admired. Rosemary Crowley was also part of that group. The group originated in South Australia and there was a distinctive style about them all. Gordon was an even more colourful part of that colourful tradition.

When we look at his career, he went from dentist to diplomat and was a marginal seat candidate, politician, character, mate of Mick Young's, forthright, intelligent, robust and ebullient—a dedicated character who was not afraid to put his case and make an articulate presentation. But, as we have heard from the member for Riverina, he was respected by his opponents. It was still that rare time in politics where you could have great battles but great friendships as well. I know from my own time on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee how important the Pacific is. I remember Gordon as the first minister to make a real impact in the area, raising Australia's influence in and care for that area and putting our involvement in that area front and centre in government affairs. As we just heard, he made a distinctive contribution as Minister for Defence Science and Personnel in removing discrimination. At that time discrimination, both civil and otherwise, was rife in the community towards gay and lesbian people. Gordon was one of those people who applied intellect and he applied the great Labor tradition of fairness and applied that in practice—he had the courage to apply that in legislation.

I had a limited amount to do with Gordon—I was at the opposite end of the great city of Adelaide, in the northern suburbs, trying to re-elect men like Neal Blewett and others, including Martyn Evans—but many of my friends worked on Gordon's campaigns and we heard rather interesting and sometimes wild stories about campaigning down there. It was a very marginal seat in those days and I am glad to say the current member for Kingston has made it safe, in Gordon's memory.

Gordon was rare because he did not just have to fight off Liberals—he had to fight off Janine Haines from the Democrats, who was a formidable candidate in South Australia at that time. It should not be forgotten that some years later the Democrats got about 23 per cent state-wide in South Australia, so they were a powerful middle force and drew from the traditional base of both parties—they drew from the small business base of the Liberals and from Labor's base as well. To fight off that challenge took a great deal of energy, colour, wit and intelligence.

I remember visiting Gordon's office and there was a wall full of black-and-white bromides, back in the days when you had to have black-and-white photos—or bromides—for your pamphlets. Gordon was in each one of them at a community event or at a school. Such is the life of a marginal seat MP. I vividly remember one of Gordon on his hands and knees planting a small tree with some kids at a local school or a local park. While we might focus on his life as a minister, as a raconteur and as a diplomat, we should not forget that he did not mind getting his hands dirty.

Gordon was very much a colourful voice of the south. He was a great campaigner and I think my generation learnt a great deal off him, particularly my friend John Bistrovic, who was mentioned in Senator Farrell's speech—a speech that I think captured some of the colour of Gordon's political career.

I know he learnt off Gordon a great deal of what he knows about campaigning. Some of those stories of the 1996 campaign when Gordon was defeated—not on the basis of his own candidacy but perhaps he was swept away in the tide against Labor after 13 years of government—I suspect should remain unsaid.

I never realised that Gordon was a dentist. I guess he went, in the life of a marginal seat-holder, from pulling other people's teeth to pulling his own. He really was representative of a time in Australia where people had very varied careers before they entered this place, and they brought all of that with them—and they brought all of the colour with them, at a time when we were not afraid to have people who were representing us in the very highest levels of civil society—people like diplomats and dentists—in our parliament. I do not think the political parties are rejecting these people; I think that, more and more, people see the conflict in politics and the demands it makes on your life—and in particular on your family's life—and are rejecting it as a career. I think that is a sad thing because the more Gordon Bilneys we have, the more colour this building has and the more life it has in it.

Gordon's career is a testament to the Labor movement, to all of its colour and to the dynamic and robust and occasionally cantankerous nature of the Labor movement. He will be sorely missed, I know. It is with great sadness that we mourn his passing. My condolences go to his family, and to his partner Sandy. Vale.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great sadness that I rise to speak about Gordon Bilney in this condolence motion—sadness that he has passed away and we will never again be able to enjoy those colourful conversations with him; those discussions about politics or about the latest book he has read or about a good drop of red wine and the region it came from. It is also a time to reflect on his life and the many contributions he made to public life and to his friends—some of which my colleague the member for Wakefield has mentioned.

As we heard, Gordon was married to Sandy Colhoun and he had two daughters, Caroline and Sarah, and a son, Nicholas. They will no doubt miss him far more than most, being his closest family. As we heard yesterday from the Prime Minister and others, Gordon was born in Renmark and he was the son of school teachers, so he had education running through his veins. I suppose that is where he got his politics from as well—that sense of fairness and opportunity for all from his school-teacher parents. He was educated at Norwood High School and Prince Alfred College, and then entered Adelaide University to do dentistry, following which he became a practising dentist. He started his career as a dentist but then went back to school. He had a keen interest in foreign affairs. Right up to the last years of his life he was keen on discussing foreign affairs and knowing what was happening in the world and various regions. He went back to university to study this area and then went into the department that he wanted to work in, the Department of Foreign Affairs.

As the member for Wakefield said, Gordon was a very colourful character. We had many characters in the Labor Party. He came from that era of the Mick Youngs and the Chris Schachts and the Bill Haydens, and the Bob Hawke era. He was one of many of those colourful characters that came from a particular part of the ALP—the Centre-Left, which was very prominent both in state parliament in South Australia and state politics in the Labor Party, and up here in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Gordon became an adviser to Gough Whitlam. Gough hand-picked him to be an adviser on foreign affairs because of his key knowledge and expertise in this area. He later served as Deputy Permanent Representative of Australia to the OECD from 1975 to 1978 and as the Australian High Commissioner to the West Indies from 1980 to 1982. While he was serving in Kingston, Jamaica, as a diplomat in 1981, he was asked to stand for the federal seat of Kingston. After some thought, he did decide to become the Labor Party candidate for that seat. In 1983 he defeated the incumbent Liberal MP, Grant Chapman, who went on to become a senator. Gordon was re-elected to the same seat in 1984, 1987, 1990 and 1993. He was defeated by a very thin margin in the 1996 landslide. It had nothing to do with his performance as a member of parliament; it was just the big swing away from the then Labor government to the Liberals.

There is a very interesting story which made the front page of our local paper in South Australia, the Advertiser, at that time. Gordon was invited to go to the opening of a community centre or something by a particular community group in his electorate. Gordon had worked tirelessly over many years to secure funding for the group and they eventually managed to build this community centre or whatever it was—only for Gordon to find the head of this particular group writing an endorsement for his opponent in the 1996 election. The invitation to the opening had come in before that election, although the event was not until after the election. Despite having lost the seat, Gordon still turned up and they thanked him. He got on the podium and said thank you to everyone, but then—and we heard this yesterday—he said that one of the great things about no longer being an MP was:

… I need no longer be polite to the nincompoops, bigots, curmudgeons and twerps who infest local government bodies and committees such as yours.

And he pointed out the head of the group. That was the character of the man. That was what we saw in Gordon.

In 1998 I ran for the seat of Hindmarsh for the very first time. It was supposed to be an unwinnable seat for Labor, requiring an 8.1 per cent swing. I ended up being in front by about 600 votes on polling night, although the count went on for a few days afterwards. On one of those few days, I went out to dinner with my former boss, Senator Bolkus, and we bumped into Gordon in one of the restaurants at the top end of Rundle Street. He was so excited that we had nearly won Hindmarsh and were still in with a chance. He came up to me and told me what a great job I had done as a candidate, gave me some advice and spoke about a whole range of other things. I told him that we had a particular person—mentioned earlier—who had worked on his campaign working on my team. He said, 'That makes a lot of sense; that is why you did so well.'

He was always keen to talk about politics. He was always keen to know what was going on here in the House. I saw him from time to time. Occasionally I attended lunch with a group of prominent ex-politicians, known as the Hagar group, at the T Chow restaurant in Adelaide. Gordon was a regular at the Hagar lunches. He was always keen to hear about what was happening and what was going on and he was right up to date with everything. Last time I attended, they had asked me to be there as a guest speaker to talk a bit about what was taking place up here. Gordon was right up to date with all the policies, all the legislation and, in fact, the in-house machinations of our political party.

Gordon was a prolific reader. He loved reading. The books he referred me to were always great reads. I always knew that, if Gordon referred me to a book, it was a ripper of a read. I will never forget one book he referred me to. I saw him at the ALP Christmas show a few years back and he said to me, 'I have to talk to you.' I went up to him and he said, 'I have this great book that I have just finished reading; you must read it.' I put it in the back of my head and forgot about it. A few weeks later, I saw him again and he asked, 'Have you read the book?' I apologised and said, 'No, I haven't.'

At that point I wrote it down. It was a book by Jeffrey Eugenides called Middlesex. He was right. He gave me a book which he knew I would absolutely love. This book is about the history of the Greeks, a novel about a family which left Asia Minor at the turn of the last century for the United States after they had been ousted from Asia Minor. This goes to show the type of person Gordon was. He connected me and my background to this book. You can just imagine him reading this book thinking, 'This is a great book for Georganas; he'll love it.' It was a great book and I had great pleasure in talking with him many times about this wonderful book, which won the Booker prize back then.

We are all going to sorely miss Gordon, especially at the Hagar lunches, at which I would be present once or twice a year, together with many other people from South Australian such as Colin McKey; Chris Schacht; Ralph Clerk; John Hill; Rosemary Crowley, who was a regular attender; Terry Groom; and my good friend Kevin Vaughn, whose electorate office was right next door. He speaks about signs appearing in the 1993 campaign. They were unauthorised signs about the GST, and he tells me they had no idea who was putting them up, but we have suspicions about where they came from. He told me that story this morning.

Gordon was a wonderful, colourful character, a friend of many in South Australia, a friend of many Labor Party members and a friend of many South Australians, especially in the southern suburbs, whom he represented with pride for many years. He was a great member of parliament, as we have heard, and not just on the ministerial side. To win so many times in a wafer-thin marginal seat shows the calibre of the man and how he connected with the people in the south. Our condolences go to Sandy, to his two daughters and son, and to his family. Gordon will be sorely missed by everyone in South Australia who had anything to do with him and his colourful discussions, debates and intellect.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand it is the wish of honourable members to signify their respect and sympathy by rising in their places.

Question agreed to, honourable members standing in their places.

I thank honourable members.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That further proceedings be conducted in the House.

Question agreed to.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 10:23