Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute a statement on indulgence on the passing of former member for Greenway—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 18 : 03 to 18:19

I rise to contribute a statement on indulgence for the former member for Greenway, Russell Gorman, or Russ as he was regularly known, who passed away on 3 January this year, aged 90. Ordinarily, my friend and colleague the member for Greenway, Michelle Rowland, would lead this contribution, but she has just welcomed a new member of her family and is obviously unable to attend the sitting of parliament. She was particularly keen to record her condolences, as well, for Russ.

Both the member for Greenway and I remember Russ well, having both grown up in Blacktown. Russ was one of the first federal MPs we had ever gotten to know when we first joined the Labor Party back in the early nineties. The member for Greenway has often remarked that Russ had worked hard for the Labor Party and for the Blacktown City area before he moved to federal parliament in 1984, and she noted that Russ was very active in the local community and a great support to many people in the Greenway electorate, covering community groups and many local organisations. I certainly remember attending my very first Young Labor event in Russ's office back in 1989, when it was located in Westpoint Blacktown, and I have known him over that course of time.

He was truly a member for Western Sydney. He used to say: 'I come from the school of hard knocks and I studied at the university of experience. I came from the gutter and could return there, but I will be taking a few with me.' He certainly had a lot of earthy sayings and anecdotes and he would always share them with whoever was in earshot. When in parliament, Russ chose to sit in the back row of the chamber, under the Speaker's gallery, next to the chamber entrance from the executive wing. There was some method behind that decision: he figured he could buttonhole the Prime Minister or any other minister on their way in or out of the chamber and make his constituent representations directly to them. He campaigned, as has been said to me, on the smell of an oily rag. In fact, he became a self-taught offset printer and then applied those skills to print his own election material at his home garage, even in the early hours of the morning, sometimes to the annoyance of his neighbours. When he would get any grief from them he would say, 'Well, if I am awake, they may as well be.'

Steve Frost, who worked in Russ's office when he was in federal parliament, remarked to me, 'As a staffer, Russ treated me like a son whilst I was working with him, opening up experiences and opportunities that few other staffers had the opportunity to enjoy.' Russ was very generous with the constituents who visited Canberra, always taking time to entertain them in the members' guests dining room. He was a very old-school politician, in the full breadth of that expression. He was not afraid of getting people offside trying to achieve what he believed was right, fair and just. He also loved to tell a joke and would have a crowd in stitches.

As a young Labor Party member myself back in that time, I remember his reports to the Blacktown branch of the ALP. He was always direct, avuncular and straightforward. If he did not know an answer to a tricky question, he would be blunt in acknowledging very quickly that he did not know the answer, but he would always follow up with branch members. That is one of the reasons why he was so well regarded among the branches within the Greenway electorate—bearing in mind that he was first elected in 1983 into the seat of Chifley but, through a redistribution, he then became the member for Greenway in 1984. Russ never professed to be a perfect person; he was very frank about himself, his place and his approach to things. What you saw was what you got with him, and people held him in very high regard for that.

I know he is going to be missed by family and fondly remembered by others, and I extend my condolences to those family and friends. I know that there will be a lot of people in the ALP in Western Sydney who would want those condolences recorded in parliament. May he rest in peace.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to make some comments about Russ Gorman. I am grateful to the House magazine of 4 October 1989, which records a piece about Russ, and it reminds me that he was born a long time ago—on 20 July 1926. So he passed away at the age of 90. I recall reading comments he made at his retirement from the parliament in 1996. One of the reasons he gave for moving on was that he was a bit crook. Well, if he was a bit crook then, I am suspecting he must have had a really good retirement. He was not an ordinary man in any sense. I served with Russ from 1987 to 1996. He was of a type, and in that period of the parliament there were a number of people who served who, in the history of the Labor Party, will be known for the way in which they approached their work and for, sometimes, doing some fairly outlandish things, and Russ was among them. Looking through the list of people who stood for the election in 1987 who served in the parliament with Russ from New South Wales, they sort of fit this mould—hard men, and they were men, who did not mind telling it how it was and, in fact, did tell it how it was more often than not. There were people like Ted Grace, whom some of you will remember; and of course an old mate of mine and a bit of a notorious character around here for some of his behaviour, Eric Fitzgibbon—the member for Hunter's father. He was a character, as was Russ. But there were others and there were some magnificent people who served this parliament during that period, and Russ had a role in that place.

He did not see himself as a quintessential parliamentarian. Indeed, on his retirement he gave a speech which was noteworthy because he said: 'I must say that I will hold a record in this place for having made the least number of speeches in the 13 years that I have been here. I think that will be a record that will stand for some considerable time. This is my second major speech; you could say my maiden speech was the other one. Apart from a few remarks about reports, this is the only other speech that I have made.' So he had a view about this place and he expressed his view quite strongly. At the time, Bill Mandle wrote an article about Russ in The Canberra Times: 'The honourable member for Greenway got up and said he has only ever made two speeches … and he said, "I will give $1,000 to any member here who has made a speech which has influenced the course of legislation. It just does not work. The Prime Minister has his riding orders as a result of cabinet decision; speeches are worth zilch. There is not much point in making speeches here. I find this place a huge, colossal bore—I honestly do. When I think of question time, I think of little kids fighting in the playground. If the good fairy came along and said to me that you can have one wish, I would come down here in the dark of night and slash, down would go the House of Representatives and slash, down would go the Senate."'

So he did not have a great belief in the oratory that we often think we can partake of when we are in the parliament. Nevertheless, he was a very effective member for his constituents. He did sit where sat in the parliament so he could nobble the ministers and the Prime Minister as they came into the place, and he was not short of a word when it was required. He did not stand back when he thought he needed to make sure his view was understood.

While born such a long time ago, Russ was—as were a number of people who served during that period—a veteran of the Second World War. He contributed to our great country as a serviceman. He was not an educated person in the same sense that you or I might be—those of us in this place now. Sadly in a way, if you do not have a degree you are not really accountable; you are not seen as being with it. We do not have many blue-collar workers in this place. During that parliament we had them, and Russ was one of them. He epitomised the attitude of the many blue-collar workers around the country at the time.

He did not have a great deal of love for authority. That was very clear in the way he approached the place. I want to quote from Alan Ramsey's article, from 7 November 1987 in TheSydney Morning Herald, in which he is talking about a private meeting of the Labor Party in which Russ made a few comments. At one point Russ provoked the then Treasurer, Paul Keating, who was minded to make some comments about Russ's intervention. Russ, to provoke the Treasurer, was equally frank. He said, 'If youse blokes', he said at one point in a broad verbal sweep of the cabinet, 'would stop stroking'—forgive me! I really cannot say it.

An honourable member: Go on.

'Stop stroking' blah 'and get out there in the electorate, you will find out what the people really think of you.' And there were other colourful remarks. I am pleased I did not have the gall to actually say what he really said, because I would embarrass myself—which is unusual, I have to say.

An honourable member: I suspect we might all be pleased.

An honourable member: That's unheard of!

Russ was a unique person, and he gave life to the views, views which I think would be held by many today, of those many people we say are not inclined to be attached to the political class. Here was a man who spoke his mind, who saw his job being a working man to represent the people he was elected by in the two electorates that he served, and he did it well. He did it well.

He did not see himself as a potential minister; he saw himself as a member of the parliament doing a job representing the interests of his electors, which is something we all aspire to. He did it in a different way, no doubt, to all of us, but nevertheless he was a unique individual. He displayed traits—he had traits that some of us in this parliament might find difficult to deal with. With social media and all the rest of it, I think we could probably be thinking maybe it was better then, in many ways. You could work in a place like this—Russ could work here and be effective. He did not see himself as the person who had to be down there, doing the doorstops every morning; he saw himself as getting things in his electorate by working through the executive of the government of the time because he had the opportunity to serve in two of the best governments of this country—that is, the Hawke government and the Keating government. He was very much a Keating supporter. He supported Paul Keating in the two leadership ballots that I was involved in. I voted for Bob Hawke both times; he voted for Paul Keating both times. That is the way it was. It was a lively contest in our place then, and the parliament was all the better for it in my view. We did not shrink—there was no shrinking from actually button-holing people and having a discussion about what it was you thought was appropriate. Russ was one of those people.

I say to his family and friends and those who knew him, those members of the great labour movement: with you we grieve. He made a contribution in his own significant way to this place, and we were the better for having him here.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a mark of respect, I invite the honourable members to rise in their places.

Honourable members having stood in their places—

I thank the chamber.

Debate adjourned.