James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Waste Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This evening I would like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to Steele Hall, who sadly passed away two months ago—a former member of this chamber, a former senator and a former member of the House of Assembly in South Australia and Premier of South Australia. He was an absolute titan of South Australian politics. Many of us would have been proud to have done but one of the many significant things that Steele Hall did in his career in politics. He was first elected to the parliament at the age of 30 and became Premier in 1968, before he'd turned 40. He had served as a minister in the Playford government. The Playford government was defeated in 1965, and Steele Hall led the Liberal Party back into government in 1968, defeating Don Dunstan following the latter's first term as Premier of South Australia.

As Premier, Steele Hall did two remarkable things on top of the many other significant achievements of his premiership. One is better known than the other. The first was that he reformed the electoral system in South Australia to put in place the proper and appropriate principles of one vote, one value. For a long, long time, there was disproportionate representation in South Australia, and that, beyond question, led to the people not getting the result that they had voted for. These reforms, of course, dramatically jeopardised Steele Hall's own longevity in the role of Premier, but nonetheless his principles and morals led him, during his time as Premier, to institute those reforms, which were part of the reason he lost the subsequent 1970 election.

The other very significant thing that he did was to stand up for the important principle of building a major dam for the security of South Australia's water supply, not in South Australia, an idea which was extremely parochially popular, but instead way up in the Snowy Mountains, where all the expert engineering and hydrological advice of the time said it should be built. That meant that his government, which was supported by an independent Speaker who had the balance of power in the parliament, fell because that independent Speaker represented the electorate where the proposed dam in South Australia, at Chowilla in the Riverland, would have been built. That independent member did not support confidence in the Hall government because of the government's insistence on instead pursuing what became the Dartmouth Dam construction—subsequently the Dartmouth-Hume water retention—in the Upper Snowy, which has been so vital to securing the water supply for South Australia ever since. The Dunstan government, who had said they'd build the Chowilla dam, subsequently, of course, came to realise the wisdom of Steele Hall's view on that and never proceeded to construct the Chowilla dam. So, in his two years as Premier, Steele Hall left a very significant legacy.

He was then elected to the Senate and served in the very infamous Senate that deferred the budget bills, leading to the dismissal of the Whitlam government, and, of course, he served in this chamber from 1981 until 1996 as the member for Boothby. His time as the member for Boothby was very significant and substantial as well. The modern electorate of Sturt has a number of suburbs that were then in the seat of Boothby, so I'm very honoured to represent parts of the city of Adelaide that Steele Hall represented for a long, long time. Indeed, he was a constituent of mine for the entirety of my time serving in this parliament up to his death.

My thoughts, of course, are with his family—particularly his wife, Joan, who herself served in the South Australian parliament, but also the rest of his family. It is a devastating loss to lose such a giant, such a titan of South Australian politics. He made an enormous contribution to his state and to his nation. I take the opportunity to pay tribute to him, to remember him and to thank him for his service in both parliaments and for the legacy that he leaves behind. Vale, Steele Hall.