Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in memory of two members of my constituency who have recently passed away. Denis and Daphne Guy grew up in adjacent villages in Hertfordshire, just north of London. During the Second World War, Denis trained as a pilot in the Royal Air Force, eventually joining No. 79 Squadron in Burma in the last weeks of the war. Although a RAF squadron, it contained many Australians and New Zealanders. The young Denis observed the way the Anzacs treated each other, concluding that they must come from a fairer and more humane society than the one in which he had grown up.

After the war, Denis stayed in the RAF, becoming a flying instructor, and married Daphne in 1947. They had a son and daughter, David and Diane. Denis spent two years recovering from TB and was then invalided out of the RAF, retraining as a technician in radio and, subsequently, television. In 1961, the family decided to emigrate to Australia. Denis and Daphne were compelled by their sense that Australia offered economic and educational opportunities, especially for their children. They were right. David and Diane both attended John Curtin High School and the University of Western Australia.

Denis chose to settle in Perth because of its favourable climate—and he was right there too, because despite his earlier health problems he lived healthily until the age of 89. When the Guy family arrived in Fremantle, television was an exciting new technology and jobs were plentiful. The family lived in rental accommodation in central Fremantle but worked hard to save the deposit for a home. It was a time of financial strain, but the family recalls a household characterised by affection and laughter. At weekends they would go to the Winterfold estate in Beaconsfield and see what progress had been made on their new house, which they were able to occupy in 1963. Denis and Daphne spent the rest of their lives there while Denis worked for various television repair firms and Daphne was employed in the accounts section of the Mills and Ware biscuit company.

This story could be repeated countless times in my electorate and across this country, yet I would urge members to hold it in their minds as we go about our work. Denis and Daphne Guy were not famous or rich, but their contribution to my electorate and this country should be acknowledged and celebrated. Without the efforts of ordinary citizens like these—native-born or from elsewhere—nothing we do or say here can have any affect beyond it. We need to retain those qualities of Australian life and values which attracted Denis and Daphne as migrants to this country so many years ago. Their lives here reflected an implicit social contract—this country offering its citizens, old and new, opportunity and acceptance in return for hard work and social commitment. That contract must be reaffirmed by every generation of Australians and reflected in our work as representatives.

Recently a simple and low-key commemoration of the lives of Denis and Daphne Guy was held in the family home with many of the people who knew them well. I am proud to have represented them here.