Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House record its deep regret at the passing, on 20 November last year, of the Hon. Dr Donald James (Don) Grimes AO, a former senator for Tasmania, Minister for Social Security, Minister for Community Services and ambassador to the Netherlands, and place on record its appreciation of his service to Australia, and offer its heartfelt sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

All of us would recall the wonder, awe and trepidation of the first time we came in here to speak in this place. It's a moment that we would never forget, but none of us may have had the experience of Don Grimes. Arriving in the chamber for his first speech, he was greeted by the Labor leader in the Senate, Lionel Murphy, who deftly took the speech off him and said, 'You'll perform better thinking on your feet.' Without notes, Don Grimes gave a word-perfect first speech. Maybe that was because he knew what he wanted to say and knew what he wanted to do in public life. Maybe that's why the man with less than four years in the cabinet can be remembered as a minister of real consequence.

Don Grimes grew up in Albury. He was the son of a railway fitter and turner and a nurse. After his mother died during his teenage years, Don and his sister moved to Sydney to live with their aunty. In Sydney, attending Fort Street, he thrived. He played all three football codes and was accepted to study medicine at the University of Sydney. It was there that serendipity intervened, and he studied under Dr Peter Baume. In ways neither imagined, Australia would benefit from the trust that developed between the two. Don completed his internship at the Royal Hobart and then became a general practice locum throughout Tasmania. He felt comfortable, if not called, to work in communities right across Tasmania, and he ultimately settled in Launceston.

Don Grimes's path to parliament was unlikely. In 1974 he was chosen to be third on the Labor ticket for a half-Senate election—in those days there were five seats up for grabs in total. But that year there was a double dissolution election instead, and another candidate on the ticket pulled out. He then became fifth on the party ticket for the full Senate and he won. He entered parliament at the start of the second term of the Whitlam government, and it was at this time that he hardened his political credentials. As Senator John Button later put it, 'Don Grimes found the political processes of the Whitlam government very unusual. He didn't believe in what he called the utopian Left or in symbolism and noisy issues, to quote him. He saw this as "the means by which you turn your ideas into realities and your visions into practicalities", he said.'

In the 7½ years of the Fraser government, Don Grimes was the shadow minister for social security. It was a portfolio that accounted for one-third of the budget and, without the computing power of today, was a monumental paper-driven bureaucracy. He used that time to absorb the details and nuances of that complex portfolio.

On election to government, Don Grimes was the deputy Senate leader, part of Bob Hawke's leadership group in a cabinet of just 13. It was there he drove three profound changes that live on today. The first was the implementation of the assets test for the pension. Don Grimes believed in equity and a strong safety net that was sustainable. He met very heavy opposition, but it is to his credit that, even today, the foundations he laid still remain. As the social services minister who reformed those asset tests parameters six years ago, I understand the importance and complexity as well as the risk associated with what he achieved. I thank him for his legacy, as well as the significance of the foundation.

The second was in disability services. He established the Disability Advisory Council, because people with disabilities were not part of the policy conversations that were shaping their lives. All too often, it was institutions who spoke for them, and sometimes not with their interests at heart. He was responsible for the Disability Services Act, which, for the first time, linked government funding of organisations to outcomes for people with a disability.

His third most significant achievement related to Australia's response to the AIDS epidemic. As a physician, Don Grimes understood epidemiology. He knew Australia had to move quickly on AIDS, but he was also aware of the fear and prejudice that could hinder Australia's response. With the health minister not part of the cabinet, it fell to him, working with the health minister, Neal Blewett, to convince the cabinet to act. It helped immensely that he was a doctor. And they had an ally in Dr Peter Baume, who was on the opposition front bench, who said, 'You take care of Labor and you leave the Libs to me.'

Don Grimes was the first minister to answer a question in parliament on AIDS and the first minister to raise AIDS in cabinet. As he later told Troy Bramston: 'I had lots of conversations about AIDS. Hawke and Keating and some others initially were very suspicious about the seriousness of AIDS and HIV. We talked it over and, as a government, we handled that issue very well.' True that is. It is to the everlasting credit of Don Grimes, Neal Blewett and Peter Baume that Australia did handle it so well. Untold thousands of lives were saved.

For Don Grimes, life spectacularly intervened in the second term of the Hawke government when he had a massive heart attack. To use the vernacular of that time, he had 'an appointment with the Black+Decker'—open heart surgery, a triple bypass—and it did change him. He quit the cigarettes, cut back on the alcohol and became a daily walker, and he kept it up and lived another 36 years—a lesson to us all. It was possibly during one of those walks that he had an epiphany. He said, 'If you stand up on Black Mountain, you'll see all these roads leading to Canberra, but it's an illusion. In fact, all these roads are leading away from Canberra, and that is the more important direction to go.' Fair point.

On leaving the parliament, Don Grimes served as the Australian Ambassador to the Netherlands, and as ambassador he chaired the WHO's committee on AIDS in prisons. In keeping with his outward-looking ethos, Don Grimes returned to Australia and chaired the Australian National Council on AIDS. His deputy chair was Dr Peter Baume, continuing a long bipartisan partnership between the two doctors.

Don Grimes was a very practical man, a man of great consequence, of whom we in this place, on both sides of the House, can be very proud that he served here and achieved all the things that he has. His family and his party can be proud of his contribution, and we particularly thank his family for his great service to our country. On behalf of the government, I extend to his children, Roger, Jan, Jenny, Sally and Ben, and his wider family the condolences of the government and the parliament and the gratitude of the Australian people. May he rest in peace.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What possible hope was there for a boy growing up in a house where there was little to read but copies of Hansard? A council librarian was able to steer the young Don Grimes towards broader pastures, but those household Hansards did the job for this son of a nurse, and a fitter and turner. By the time he made his own debut in Hansard as a general practitioner and Labor branch secretary turned senator for Tasmania, he hit the ground running.

It wasn't long until he was combining his medical experience with his political values, going in to bat in the debate on the Whitlam government's two Medibank bills. Health care, he said, was a core element of social security and, as such, ought to be funded from progressive taxation. Bear in mind that, at that time, some tried mounting the argument that the Medibank bills amounted to communism. As his colleagues soon learned, he was not afraid to criticise his own side as well. Nevertheless, this egalitarian, whose sense of politics had been fired by the Vietnam War, eventually became Whitlam's shadow minister for social security. He set out his plans for fundamental social security reform, underpinned by the Labor principle that it was not a privilege but a right that ensured all Australians could live in freedom and dignity.

Throughout the term of the Fraser government, Don embarked on the noble cause of making Labor electable again. With the election of the Hawke government, Don became social security minister, then community affairs minister. He made good on an election pledge by creating the Disability Advisory Council of Australia. He called it a new deal for people with disabilities, one that provided a proper recognition of their rights and dignity and opportunity for the fullest possible participation in the community.

Alongside health minister Neal Blewett, Don was also part of our response to the emergence of AIDS. Don was one of the key reasons that Australia managed so much more humanely than so many other countries. I believe our response was the best in the world, and countless lives were saved.

The years were not always smooth. There were challenges and disagreements from time to time within the party. There was even a heart attack. This, he was at pains to point out, happened after a very good dinner with Bob Hawke, Peter Walsh, Paul Keating and John Dawkins, to which Don added, 'He didn't blame them for it.'

Don Grimes made a difference. Michael Tate called him the 'quiet revolutionary' for his contribution to social policy. Neal Blewett declared him the architect of much of Labor's social reform agenda. Rosemary Crowley said that he was a very strong feminist. As she took stock of all that Don had achieved, Susan Ryan said:

He has done all of those things without great fuss, without pomposity or high-flown rhetoric … he is kind, decent and humane.

He was true to these qualities in his rich life beyond this place, including a stint as ambassador to the Netherlands and fitting recognition as an Officer of the Order of Australia. Throughout it all, he carried with him the sentiment at the heart of his farewell to the Senate when he said:

It is considered fairly old-fashioned to talk about a loving and caring society. In fact, it is fashionable to suggest that we no longer have that sort of society; that it is impossible to develop and improve society in that direction. I believe very firmly that that is not true.

He finished by expressing his confidence that his fellow senators would keep working to improve society. Don couldn't resist adding the qualifier:

… probably even more efficiently in my absence.

Of course, that bit of self-deprecation was not justified. Don was very much loved in our party, and everyone on this side of the House wants to pay tribute to him.

Don was too much of a realist to believe in utopias, but he did very much believe in a better Australia. May his children Roger, Jan, Jenny, Sally and Ben feel consoled by the knowledge that Don used his life to make so much of a positive difference. May he rest in peace.

Question agreed to.