Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

I noticed that. John Wheeldon was elected as a senator for Western Australia in 1965, representing the Australian Labor Party. He served as a senator for 16 years, until his retirement on 30 June 1981. There are only a couple of senators still serving today who had the privilege of serving with Senator Wheeldon, including Senators Ray and Watson. Regrettably, neither Senator Evans nor I had that privilege.

John Wheeldon served at an interesting time in Australia’s history. He served during the time of the Vietnam War, and witnessed first hand the events leading to the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975. He had a deep and abiding interest in international affairs. He was, as Senator Evans has just noted, a fierce opponent of our involvement in the Vietnam War and made a visit to North Vietnam in the mid 1960s, at the invitation of the North Vietnam peace committee, when the war was at its height. In 1967 he also visited the United States, campaigning against that war. In parliament, he served as a member and chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee and the joint committees on foreign affairs and defence.

John Wheeldon’s esteemed political career also included time as Minister for Repatriation and Compensation from 1974 to 1975 and later in 1975 as the Minister for Social Security in the Whitlam government. His ministerial career would have been much longer had the Whitlam government survived more than one term. He served as a member of the opposition shadow ministry in 1976.

Senator Wheeldon was particularly proud of his involvement in a report on human rights in the then Soviet Union which gave timely exposure to a range of very significant humanitarian issues in that country. In common with a number of Senate colleagues, he also served as parliamentary adviser to the United Nations General Assembly in New York during his last year in parliament.

Following his retirement as a senator, John Wheeldon was approached by Rupert Murdoch and offered a position on the Australian. He was chief editorial writer for the Australian from 1981 to 1995—a position many of us might aspire to following our political careers. With his encyclopaedic knowledge of world politics, he specialised in editorials on foreign affairs and politics. During his time with theAustralian, editorials in that newspaper covered a number of key international events, including Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms of the Soviet Union.

Editorials written while John Wheeldon was at the Australian stated among other things that, for example, ‘claiming a moral monopoly’ on environmental issues would not be of assistance to the ALP; and in support of free trade that ‘undoing the harm of protectionism will take time and pain, but less pain than preserving the industrial basket cases’. So he followed in a long tradition of free trade that is evident among Western Australians from both sides of politics.

John Wheeldon will be remembered for his vast knowledge of and passion for world politics, his dry and incisive wit and his intellect both during his time as a senator for Western Australia and in his career outside of politics as a lawyer and journalist. On behalf of the government, I offer condolences to his wife, Judith, daughter, Miriam, and sons, Andrew and James.