Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House record its deep regret at the death on 26 January 2015 of the Honourable Thomas Uren AC, a former Minister and Member of this House for the Division of Reid from 1958 to 1990, place on record its appreciation of his long and meritorious public service, and tender its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

Tom Uren was a prisoner of war, a member of this parliament, a minister and a deputy leader of his party. Tom was born in Balmain, but then his family moved to Harbord, on the Northern Beaches, when he was at the age of five. He attended Manly Boys' Intermediate High School, he was a surf lifesaving champion at Freshwater and he played for Manly-Warringah in the Presidents Cup Rugby League competition. While it is true to say that Tom Uren grew up in my own electorate, I suspect his heart was always in Balmain.

He was an aspiring boxer, he was an outstanding athlete and he joined the Army at the age of 20 and subsequently deployed to Timor. He spent his 21st birthday, and the following three birthdays, as a prisoner of war of the Japanese. He lived through the brutality of the Burma-Thai railway, through daily extremes of suffering and privation, but he took from that experience the principle of Weary Dunlop: the fit looking after the sick, the young looking after the old and the rich looking after the poor. On one occasion while he was a prisoner of war, a Japanese guard was about to throw a prisoner from a bridge. Tom Uren risked the rage of the guards and their rifle butts. He confronted the guard and saved his comrade's life. After being transferred to Japan, he saw from a distance the sky turn crimson with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

Despite experiencing humanity at its worst, Tom Uren rejected hatred because, he said, hatred scars the soul. In word and in deed, he was anti-war. It was not a belief he developed in a coffee shop or in a lecture theatre; it was a belief he came to because of his own bitter experience. It was a sincere, passionate and lifelong belief. I first met Tom Uren at a Palm Sunday peace march in the mid-1980s. Once, as a minister, he was addressing an audience at Sydney university; he intervened to break up a fight between two students. The former boxer said: 'The only thing I fight for now is peace.'

He served our country all his days. In 1958 he entered federal parliament as the member for Reid and represented the electorate for 31 years, leaving as Father of the House. He became Minister for Urban and Regional Development in the Whitlam government and pioneered the protection of Australia's historic and natural heritage. He also served as a minister in the first two Hawke governments. When he retired, he was the Father of the House and he remained, long into his retirement, an active conservationist. He was indeed a strong supporter of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust and, in the lead-up to the formation of that trust under the Howard government, I joined him at some protest rallies in my electorate which he had come back to, at least to visit—against the policies of the government which he had earlier served, at least in that respect.

Tom Uren once reflected: 'I am a much gentler man than most people believe. There are two sides to me. I've got a gentler side and a harder side and as I've got older I've got much gentler.' This, of course, was his way of saying that he cared about and felt for people, but nevertheless he always fought for principle. He was a warrior in this House; but above all else, in war and in peace, he was a warrior for a better Australia. In his life and through his actions we saw valour, sacrifice, service to country and a love of others over self.

It is right that his party has extensively honoured him, but Tom Uren will always be remembered as more than simply a son of his party. He will be remembered as a great son of Australia. On behalf of everyone on this side of the House—and I am sure on behalf of all Australians—I extend to his widow, Christine, and to his family the deepest condolences of the government and of the Australian people.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a soldier and a prisoner of war Tom Uren saw the worst of war—the personal nightmare of the prison camps and the stained skies over Nagasaki—and he fought to build the best of civilisation after that war as a champion for peace, as a warrior for the working class and as a minister.

A working-class boy from Balmain who grew into a talented sportsmen and a gifted boxer, Tom spent his 20th birthday in his country's uniform and his 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th as a prisoner of the Japanese. None of us can truly imagine the hardship and the cruelty that the brave men of the Burma Railway knew but, like so many of his Australian comrades in camp, Tom never lost faith in his fellow man. In fact, the horror of those years only fed his faith in collectivism and in our enduring human duty to be our brother's keeper. When Tom looked at the British prisoners—the officers taking first choice of the food and accommodation—he saw the law of the jungle. Yet in the Australian camp, as Tom would often say—including in his maiden speech in the old chamber down the hill—the fit looked after the sick, the young looked after the old and the rich looked after the poor. For him that was the difference, and it was this noble philosophy that guided his political life.

As a minister in both the Whitlam and the Hawke governments Tom's great passion was for our national estate, reimagining and reconfiguring our inner cities and revitalising our regional centres. As Tom told the parliament, his guiding mission was to create and preserve things and places of great beauty for all Australians and for the Australians who follow us. His success, his legacy, lives around us.

Above and through all this, Tom was the keeper of Labor's conscience in often trying times. He was a moral centre. Tom was a fearless foe and a loyal friend. Many of my colleagues—the member for Grayndler in particular, but many of them—knew and loved Tom and will have their own personal tributes and stories to share. For me, the last words belong to Tom Uren from the final page of his memoir, Straight Left:

In my years of living, giving and serving our human family is the most rewarding achievement. When you walk down the street, the beauty of people's eyes and faces give you so many rewards …

Our condolences to his family, his friends and his loved ones. May he rest in peace.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join with the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in supporting this condolence motion for my friend and comrade Tom Uren. Tom Uren saw deprivation in his early years, and then the worst of humanity. Born into the Depression in 1921, he left school at the age of 13 because his father could not get employment. He was a great sportsman. He represented Manly, unfortunately, in rugby league, but he also fought for the Australian heavyweight boxing championship. He was also a surf lifesaving champion at Freshwater. He had a lot to look forward to; and then, of course, World War II intervened. He put his nation before himself and, like so many other young men and women of that time, he enlisted. He went to Timor and was captured. He served in Timor, in Singapore, on the Burma-Siam railway and in Japan as a prisoner of war of the Japanese. Those people who read Richard Flanagan's extraordinary book would respond to it as I did: you just wonder how these men came through that process without being bitter about the world and their place in it.

He was an extraordinary man. If he can be characterised by anything it is by his faith in humanity and his fellow man. He came through that process with love and used to speak—unusually for a man—about his love for people. It was genuine, and he received love in spades in return.

He was, in my view, the most significant grassroots campaigner in the history of the Australian Labor Party, given the longevity that the issues, be it the anti-Vietnam war moratoriums, which he and Jim Cairns led, his role on the environment—well ahead of the pack; well ahead of the intelligentsia—he understood a love for our natural and our built environment or whether it be issues of justice for our veterans. He was very proud that his last victory was to convince Prime Minister Gillard to grant justice to the surviving former prisoners of war of the Japanese. That occurred in 2012.

He leaves a tremendous legacy: the greening of Western Sydney, access to sewerage for people in our outer suburban communities, the first significant investment in public transport by a national government, the Australian Heritage Commission, the Register of the National Estate and the saving of the Sydney Harbour foreshores. Wherever you look around this country, particularly in outer suburbs and our regional cities, Tom Uren leaves a legacy of which he and his family can indeed be proud as both a minister in the Whitlam government and a minister in the Hawke government.

When he was nominated for the Companion of the Order of Australia I contacted Tony Abbott, the then Leader of the Opposition, and told him—as I told Bob Brown, the leader of the Australian Greens—that Prime Minister Gillard was supporting that nomination. All three of them enthusiastically and genuinely supported that nomination. He was someone who, in the noise of politics and conflict and petty squabbles that go on, soared above the political landscape—in this building and out there in the community.

To Christine, Ruby, Michael and Heather—and all of his family—I pass my condolences to you. His state funeral was a very historical event. I think it was wonderful to see Sir John Carrick, a good comrade of Tom's as a prisoner of war. They led parallel lives of different political viewpoints but both are people, for those of us who have come after them, to whom we owe eternal respect for what they did for our nation.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To many of us on this side of the parliament we cannot imagine a Labor Party without Tom Uren. My friend the member for Grayndler spoke very movingly about his great friend and mentor but, really, Tom was more like a father to the member for Grayndler than just a mentor. And so he was to many of us on this side of the parliament a great comrade, a great friend and a great mentor. Before I was the member for Sydney, before I was even the Labor candidate, he supported me in my preselection for the seat of Sydney. He was absolutely unstinting in his support of the member for Grayndler, of me and of many others on this side. He was a great inspiration, a great elder statesman and a very loving friend.

He had a great belief in the obligation of all of us to do what we can to help others. As a young, strong man in a prisoner-of-war camp Tom made sure that he always lifted the heavy end of the log as a matter of responsibility, because he could, and what his mates could not carry he would carry for them, and when they could not walk they would lean on him. Looking back, later in his life, he said that his great regret was not when those who were weaker than him needed his protection and strength, his great regret was that he felt pride at opportunity rather than humility. You understood the measure of him as a human being when he spoke about his love not just for his fellow prisoners of war but that he was able to translate that love even to his enemies, his wartime enemies.

He was left not with bitterness after the war but with an unshakable conviction of the importance of mutual support and collective action—taught to him by his great mentor and friend Weary Dunlop. He came home too with a deep dedication to the cause of peace. He saw those bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and they bred in him an unyielding revulsion of the idea of nuclear weapons.

He was also the first member of parliament to question Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, in August 1962, and was always a presence at those marches. He remained close—always, right through his life—to the government in Vietnam and travelled there many times. As the member for Grayndler said, his support was for the veterans of the war in Vietnam and Australian veterans of all wars, and he was very proud indeed of Prime Minister Gillard's agreement to provide compensation to all former prisoners of war.

Tom Uren was Minister for Urban and Regional Development in the Whitlam government, and the residents of Sydney have much to be grateful to him for: the preservation of the inner-city working-class communities, Glebe, Woolloomooloo and Millers Point, and our beautiful harbour foreshore. Tom had a vision that any Australian should be able to walk from headland to headland, along the harbour foreshore, that it should not be just the preserve of the rich, and he did all he could to see that vision come to fruition. But it was not just the beautiful harbour foreshore that he cared about—as the chair of the Parramatta Park Trust, he was absolutely dedicated to having green, open space for the residents of Western Sydney too.

He lived a long, rich and full life and never gave up his activism within the Labor Party and his activism within our community. He had many causes and many friendships beyond the Labor Party as well. He was called an honorary Josephite by the Josephite nuns. He was a great supporter of the work of Saint Mary MacKillop. He was a great supporter of the independence of Timor-Leste and counts the leaders of the independence movement among his closest friends. He would quote to us often the words of Martin Luther King, 'Hate distorts the personality and scars the soul. It is more injurious to the hater than the hated.'

If you could define such a long and rich and varied life by one philosophy, that philosophy that Weary Dunlop instilled in him of the strong looking after the week—of each of us having a responsibility to all of us—and that philosophy of Martin Luther King—that hate distorts the hater and damages the hater more than the hated—would be his two guiding tenets. To his wife Christine, daughter Ruby, and Michael and Heather, his children with his beloved first wife, Patricia, our thoughts are with you. We have all lost a great friend and a great comrade.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to add a few words of my own. Tom Uren was a great man of the Labor Party and, yet, sometimes he could reach out to the other side. And well I remember a trio of the then Mayor of Mosman, the late Barry O'Keefe, and myself and Tom Uren standing on the same stage protesting to save the angophora forest on the shores of Balmoral. Needless to say, we won. As a mark of respect I invite honourable members to rise in their places.

Honourable members having stood in their places—

I thank the House.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

) ( ): I associate myself with the remarks that have been made about the Honourable Tom Uren, particularly in light of the very fond relationship I know that the member for Grayndler had with Tom Uren over a lifetime. In doing so, I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

Question agreed to.