Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm honoured to be able to make a contribution on this condolence motion for the late Andrew Peacock. As one of the few members of this place who served with Andrew, it's a particular honour to do so. Much has been said about Andrew's considerable contribution to Australia as a member of parliament, as a minister, as Leader of the Opposition and as our ambassador to the United States of America. He served in several ministries, including five years as the Minister for Foreign Affairs, but he is best remembered for his critical role in the independence of Papua New Guinea when he was the Minister for Territories.

It is sometimes said that a person's reputation is enhanced—or diminished—by comparison with whom they replace and with whom succeeds them. On any reckoning, Andrew Peacock had enormous shoes to fill in 1966, when, at the age of 27, he replaced Sir Robert Menzies, who had served as the member for Kooyong for 32 years, 17 of which were as Prime Minister of Australia. It is fair to say that Andrew Peacock filled those shoes as well as anybody possibly could.

Much has been said about Andrew's love of the turf, a passion we both share. I clearly recall the 1974 Melbourne Cup, as it was the first time I attended that famous race at Flemington. As history records, Andrew's horse Leilani was sent out as favourite, having won the Turnbull Stakes, the Toorak Handicap, the Caulfield Cup and the LKS Mackinnon Stakes that spring. The New Zealand bred mare was given a perfect run by jockey Peter Cook, crossing the field to settle behind the runaway leader, High Sail, as the field swept out past the post the first time. As they passed the 1,200-metre mark, legendary race caller Bert Bryant observed: 'Leilani's getting a charm run if she's good enough. There should be no excuses.' But as followers of the turf know, the only certainty on a racecourse is the uncertainty. After hitting the front with 100 metres to run, Leilani was run down by her stablemate Think Big in the shadows of the post.

Andrew never forgot that loss. Speaking many years later, he recalled:

… I have had a lot of fun in my life. I have had a lot to do. I even got 52 per cent in an election once and lost it. I have had a few disappointments. I can tell you there is no more distressing, depressing moment than having the favourite that runs second in the Melbourne Cup. Whatever the tribulation in life may be, nothing is quintessentially as bad as that. It was 1974, and I still feel pissed off about it—

Forgive the expression! I'm quoting—

You put on a brave face and go through life saying, 'well that's it,' but it is part of that great allure that Les Carlyon calls 'chasing a dream'. Les had some phrase in one of his books that said 'If you believe that two and two makes four and everything that calculates always levels out like that, then forget about the turf because racing is about dreams and those fractions do not matter'.

Little did I know, as I watched the two Bart Cummings trained horses fight out the finish at Flemington on the first Tuesday of November in 1974, that two decades later I would be a parliamentary colleague of the dapper owner of Leilani.

When I arrived here some 30 years ago I encountered a warm, generous man interested in assisting a new member. By then John Hewson was the Leader of the Opposition. The old Howard-Peacock rivalry had seemingly run its course. I recall Andrew's advice at the end of my first week, as we sat together on the 6.30 am flight back to Melbourne on the Friday morning. Having sat until 11 pm the night before, as was customary at the time, I told Andrew I didn't know how I'd be able to survive the long hours. He said: 'Do something at about 5 pm in the afternoon. Have a cuppa or go for a walk and tell yourself that the day is only half over.' I'm not sure that the advice was very helpful, but to this day I recall him saying that. Thankfully the sitting hours are much more reasonable these days.

Andrew had a serious interest in policy. He was the shadow Attorney-General in my early years, and we had many discussions about policy relating to the legal system and legal matters. He could also be a prankster. In those days the parliament's public address system was commonly used to message members. During one of Paul Keating's two challenges against Bob Hawke, several of us were sitting in the opposition lobby, in the evening, whiling away the hours until the 11.00 adjournment was reached. Andrew phoned the parliament's telephone switchboard, asking that a message be broadcast asking Mr Keating to come to the Prime Minister's office immediately. This was much to the amusement of Andrew's colleagues when it was broadcast around the House. Whether Mr Keating, who was challenging Mr Hawke at that time, took any notice of it, I don't know, but it was certainly amusing.

I visited Andrew on several occasions when he was our ambassador in Washington. On the first occasion I was there it was as part of a delegation that attended a reception at the residence. As the group of us entered the residence Andrew pulled me aside and ushered me into his study, saying there was something important he needed to discuss, while the other members proceeded to drinks. What was so important, I wondered? Sitting down in a lounge chair he proceeded to play the taped replays of the previous week's races at Flemington—tapes, presumably, having been flown over in diplomatic bags to Washington—discussing the merits of various horses and how they might go in the next few weeks in Flemington.

On another visit, Margie, who's here today, and I were invited to lunch at the residence. We'd just commenced the meal when a maid came in to tell Andrew he was wanted on the phone. 'Not now. Tell them to phone back later,' he brusquely replied. A few minutes later, the maid returned. 'Ambassador, it's Ms MacLaine,' she said. Looking slightly sheepish, Andrew announced that he had to take the phone call, leaving Margie and me to enjoy lunch together, for most of the time.

There was a serious side to Andrew Peacock. I was at the embassy on another visit when he was negotiating to exempt Australian meat exports from proposed US tariffs, something he achieved in part because of his very vast and extensive contacts with so many members of the US administration and Congress when he was our representative in Washington. Contrary to what is sometimes perceived or conveyed as the popular image, I found Andrew more conservative on many issues than often thought. He was a considered, sincere man who contributed greatly to this nation. I express my condolences to his family and friends. May he rest in peace.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great privilege to follow the member for Menzies in this condolence motion to the great late the Hon. Andrew Peacock AC. Andrew Peacock, among many of his distinguished achievements, was the leader of our great party on two occasions. He was the member for the federal electorate of Kooyong from 1966 to 1994 and he had an illustrious ministerial career as foreign affairs minister and, later, as ambassador for our great country to the United States.

As foreign affairs minister he was distinguished in his role, particularly in taking strong stands in defence of free people everywhere. As the Prime Minister noted in his press release at the sad passing of Andrew Peacock:

He was a distinguished minister for foreign affairs who built deep relationships across the region.

He was vocal in his denunciation of the Pol Pot regime in Kampuchea, despising what he called that 'loathsome regime'.

Andrew Peacock was also critical in discussions on the formation of the independence of Papua New Guinea. At every point, he was a man who understood principle and understood the importance of our common humanity.

He also understood the very nature of centralised political systems and the risks that they pose. If you go back and look at his first speech in the House of Representatives, he made a particular point of talking about what was occurring at the time in Vietnam, particularly the relationship and objectives of China in the region. He said: 'In September 1965 Lin Biao, the Vice Premier of Red China'—as it was then called, at least by some, rhetorically—'and the Minister for National Defense said, "Win Asia, Africa and Latin America through wars of national liberation, and the United States and its Western allies will be surrounded, will be encircled, and will be overwhelmed." Where is all this to begin? It has already begun, and the place in which it has begun is in Vietnam.'

What Andrew Peacock understood was that central political systems that are focused on empowering the state at the expense of individuals and families and communities only have one ambition, which is to bring other people encircled within their net, and to empower those central systems. That's one of the reasons, among many others, he was a Liberal. Andrew Peacock was a Liberal because he understood the power and empowerment of the individual and of families and communities as the ballast against the state but, more critically, as the foundation of the success of a nation.

I only ever met Andrew Peacock once. It was at the farewell to my predecessor, Andrew Robb. Andrew Peacock and other luminaries attended the farewell at the Sandringham Yacht Club to say goodbye to Andrew Robb from his position as the member for Goldstein. The one thing that struck me when that occurred about five years ago was that everything that everyone says about Andrew Peacock was there: the panache, the style, the humanity and his warmth towards others. As people have remarked, he made others feel good.

He also probably felt at home. Everybody knows full well that he was the 'Cult from Kooyong', something that the present member for Kooyong likes to highlight from time to time—or at least seeks to replicate. But everybody forgets—at least some of his obituaries properly acknowledge this—that Andrew Peacock's first primary school was Elsternwick, which is in the great electorate of Goldstein. He was a Brightonian at heart. He carried the values of the Goldstein electorate: a forward-looking, modern liberal vision for Australia, and the values entrenched in the idea of building the success of our nation from the citizen up. He was a forward-looking modern liberal who understood and was a successor in many ways to the great Menzies—not just in name and not just in office but also in the values that he aspired to and carried forward for the success of our great nation. That is one of the many things that we are indebted to him for.

Andrew Peacock was known by many other titles, some of which sometimes seemed to be dismissive. But when you actually go through his speeches, it's quite clear that he was a man of substance, principles and values. It's just that at the time, perhaps, other people saw them as less important than other ones that came along. Again, going back to his first speech, and again talking about the context of Vietnam, he said at the time, 'We cannot learn from history unless we are free to learn and we cannot act upon these lessons unless we are free to act. The question that arises, therefore, is whether our freedom is in danger. That is the basic question and issue between the government and the opposition from which all other issues flow.' He was a man of principle who understood that public policy and the objectives of our country must flow from that foundational principle. That is something we should recognise and celebrate.

In his first speech, he also acknowledged the intellectual traditions and foundations not just of our great party but of the liberalism that sits at the heart of the Australian compact, of the Australian social contract. He referred to John Stuart Mill, who, he made the point, embodied the principle that:

The doctrine of non‐​intervention, to be a legitimate principle of morality, must be accepted by all governments. The despots must consent to be bound by it as well as the free States. Unless they do, the profession of it by free countries comes but to this miserable issue, that the wrong side may help the wrong, but the right must not help the right.

What Andrew Peacock understood was that Liberalism was a reflective proposition; it reflected on humanity and people's capacity to be able to live out the full success of their lives.

He also understood the darker side of humanity and that we needed to recognise the threats that occurred and the challenges that have been faced as part of addressing the future of our country, but it should not come at the expense of celebrating our own nation's achievements. In one of his Australia Day messages he said, 'The building of modern Australia has been an extraordinary achievement to which the Aboriginal and European settlers have contributed unique qualities from their civilisations. It has been an achievement attained by hard work, courage and faith and not without pain. Racism and other forms of discrimination and environmental damage have been part of that pain'.

The Speaker read out a note from Andrew Peacock's daughter Ann Peacock at the condolence motion in the House earlier in the week, making the point that Andrew Peacock demonstrated his values not just in the debates of his time when he served in this place; he continued to advocate for causes that he believed in and held dear following his time in this place, including on an issue that you and I were involved with, Deputy Speaker Zimmerman: marriage equality.

At heart, Andrew Peacock lived that Menzien value of liberalism, which is for a 'lively mind and a forward-looking heart'. Those values continue on through his successors and his family, who hold those values today. I see them every day, living with a lively mind and a forward-looking heart, particularly his daughter Ann—not just on her Instagram page but when she visits the Goldstein electorate, as she often does. She is always welcome and we love seeing her at local events. Ann, as well as the rest of the family, continue the Peacock tradition, which they should be so proud of. While the memory of Andrew Peacock will live on in our minds and hearts, it lives on in practice in their values as a family, and we wish them all the best and offer our condolences through this difficult time.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to speak in this condolence motion for Andrew Peacock and perhaps contemporise his career a little, as well as recognise some of the foreign affairs contributions that he made. Andrew Peacock reached across from a political career to a career in diplomacy—something that very few of us manage to do effectively. Andrew Peacock was in the same year as my father at school in Melbourne. There is a bit of a story about that school. In 1838 my family moved onto the land that is now Scotch College and farmed that land for a period until the school was established. My father had a close connection to the school for that reason, and my family followed Andrew Peacock's career.

At the age of four, I was in a very small outpost called Wakunai and my first political recollection of any type was listening to shortwave radio and getting the results of the 1972 federal election in Australia. I remember the oscillation of my parents moods as different administrations were voted in and out. Needless to say, 1972 was a tragedy for them and 1975 a cause of great elation for the tiny island of Bougainville, where I was going to school.

At that time, you were either a Peacock supporter or you weren't. I think if Andrew Peacock were here today he would have a significant online following—an Instagram account to rival the member for Bonner! That kind of following wasn't possible back then, but I think it's not unreasonable to say that we hadn't exactly had among Liberal leaders anyone who would have been a YouTube sensation until we had Andrew Peacock, who had a huge personal following that I remember in the seventies—and I count my mother among them.

Although many willed Andrew Peacock to be not only a leader but a prime minister, I think his greatest contribution came after politics. He took a really strong position against the Pol Pot regime. He visited Papua New Guinea, our nearest northern neighbour, dozens of times. The independence of Papua New Guinea must have been one of the most challenging foreign policy questions for this nation. Andrew Peacock was there at the time of independence, an extremely traumatic period when Australia, in a very short time, withdrew its support for and involvement with that country—many would say too quickly and at the UN's behest. And the result was significant convulsions and uncertainty in the period immediately after. At the time, I was an eight-year-old living in the very remote Southern Highlands administrative capital of Mendi. I recall Michael Somare visiting as I got out of school in grade 3. I used to get down and sniff the turbo engine fumes for something to do in a town of that size in the middle of New Guinea. They were crowding the airport and there was a huge local movement of people tearing up the new Papua New Guinea flag. This is what Andrew Peacock and, to an even more significant extent, Michael Somare faced in convincing that great nation that it could be independent, that it could be free of Australia. Many local people were instinctively desperate to keep Australia connected for a range of really interesting cultural reasons, but it was people like Peacock who would have worked with those PNG leaders at the time to convince them that independence, for better or worse, was the right thing to do—and sometimes you may have to go backwards slightly in order to go forwards. However we judge how it was done, it was achieved with the work of both sides of this chamber and Andrew Peacock doing his very important work politically and, subsequently, in a diplomatic role.

My only other observation is that Andrew Peacock was one of the few Australian politicians who went on to get involved in American politics, and there he also had a significant impact. While I can't say I was a fly on the wall, I can imagine him being congratulated by George W Bush after his election victory. All presidents are surrounded by Americans who support them for obvious reasons. Andrew Peacock would have been one of those people George W Bush could have looked in the eye and said, 'I thank you for what you've done in helping me because I'm pretty sure you're one of the few in this room who aren't here asking me for anything in return.' And I'm sure Andrew Peacock probably said, 'Mr President, I am. I hope you can be a two-term president.' For his achievements in both diplomacy and politics, this entire building remembers Andrew Peacock.

Trent Zimmerman (North Sydney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hadn't intended to speak on this motion, but I have to say that listening to the excellent contributions that have been made in memory of Andrew Peacock this morning has triggered some memories from my formative years in politics. It was during the 1980s that my interest in politics was taking shape and form. I have to say that one of my great inspirations in that journey was my grandmother who lived in Brisbane. It's fair to say that she was (1) an avid liberal; and (2) an equally avid Peacock person, if I can put it that way. With all due respect to one of my greatest constituents, former Prime Minister Howard, my grandmother was always fond of saying, 'Voters want to vote for someone who looks good, and that's Mr Peacock.'

It was an incredible period in Australian politics. In fact, I recall—I stand to be corrected—that the very first polling booth I worked on was in 1984 as a 15- or 16-year-old. I just wandered up to my local Stanmore Public School and offered my services to help the rather thin array of volunteers in that dead red area of Sydney who were handing out for Mr Peacock. I had the privilege of doing so again in 1990, when I was then a signed-up member of the Young Liberals. On that occasion I was sent to a polling booth in the middle of the Glebe public housing estate. I have to say, it wasn't a booth that recorded a high vote for the potential prime ministership of Andrew Peacock!

But it was also that election in 1990 when I think I attended my first major public campaign rally. It is worth reflecting on the fact that, in those days, election campaigns were more rambunctious and more open to community engagement. We saw our leaders in that day hold mass public rallies—or we hoped they were mass public rallies, depending on your success in getting people along. I vividly recall attending a public rally in Hurstville Westfield that Mr Peacock spoke at, and then subsequently one in Martin Place. It was events like the public rally in Martin Place which probably brought around their demise—which followed, I think, soon after the 1993 election, where we saw the difficulties of those big rallies. In Martin Place I vividly recall some Wilderness Society protesters dressed as koalas jumping on stage, attempting to bowl Andrew Peacock over, only to be thwarted by the then shadow minister for the environment, Senator Chris Puplick, who, in an usual display of physical prowess, managed to hold back those koalas from taking over the stage.

It was an extraordinary time in Australian politics and an extraordinary time for the Liberal Party. I recall that even as a teenager. It's fair to say that it's often overlooked when we think about the legacy of the Hawke government, regarded as one of Australia's most popular prime ministers, that in fact in 1984, just a little over a year after his election, Andrew Peacock almost achieved the unthinkable, and that was to successfully at the ballot box depose Prime Minister Hawke. In 1990 it showed the variation around the country, because, again, Mr Peacock did exceptionally well—I think, from memory—in Victoria. If that vote had held across the country, he would have become Prime Minister in that year.

But it was a difficult period for the Liberal Party because it was a decade where leadership divisions held back the party's potential. It was a salutary lesson for all of us, one I think has sadly been lost in more recent times, but hopefully remembered again. It also reflected a philosophical debate within the Liberal Party about its future direction, a debate that probably, after the end of the Fraser government, needed to be had.

I want to conclude by saying that I think Andrew Peacock's contribution over the lifetime that he was involved in politics is one that's hard to see replicated again in this era, (1) because of its longevity; and (2) just simply because of the depth and breadth of interest that Andrew Peacock had. It was also unusual to see someone elected to public office and to have been involved in the Liberal Party at such a young age. I remember, as a New South Wales Young Liberal president, admiring the fact that he was originally a Victorian Young Liberal president himself, but went on to become state president of the Victorian division, still in his 20s, before he was elected to parliament not long after. That, to me, stood out as an extraordinary achievement.

I also reflect on the fact that his career was not just a parliamentary one. He did go on to serve Australia with such great adeptness in the United States as our ambassador, in that extraordinary act of, I think, reconciliation and generosity on the part of Prime Minister John Howard to appoint him to arguably what is Australia's most important diplomatic role. Of course, he had a deep and strong affection for the United States because of its significance to Australia.

He also had a deep and strong affection for Americans themselves, sometimes famously so. Of course, he was to spend his last years with the love and in the care of his American wife, in Texas. But, as one of the previous speakers alluded to, he was also famous for his relationship with a very prominent American actress, and I'll finish by telling this story of a federal council meeting in the early 1990s. I think it was held at the Sheraton in Brisbane. Much to the excitement of federal council delegates, Andrew Peacock arrived with Shirley MacLaine. There were a lot of celebrity-spotters hoping for the opportunity to meet this great legend of the United States. For reasons which I won't even guess at, Andrew Peacock and Shirley MacLaine checked into the Sheraton in Brisbane and were not seen again for the rest of federal council!

I want to conclude just by saying that all of us have a lot to learn from the incredible example set by Andrew Peacock across his career. I know my predecessor Joe Hockey knew him closely and particularly reaffirmed that relationship during his own time as ambassador, and I am sure he would want to be associated with this motion as well. Rest in peace, Andrew Peacock.

Debate adjourned.