Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Oh, and Senator Calvert; sorry, Mr President! But he was incredibly helpful and gave me very good advice. I had one situation which was a constitutional issue and could have affected me personally, and he spent a great deal of time seeking appropriate legal advice and appropriate assistance. When he gave me that advice I was sure that it was sound and appropriately sourced and I took his advice, and he ended up being correct. It was a time when I needed his advice and he gave it to me.

Like many other servants of the Senate, and I said this previously of Anne Lynch—and there are others who are still here but, to avoid the risk of offending anybody, I will only speak about those who have left the Senate—he would patiently answer, with the same grace and dignity, the same question that you had asked three or four times, instead of sarcastically telling you to read Odgers or to remember what you had been told the last three times you asked that question. The same question would be answered patiently and politely. It always amazes me that the Senate staff can be so patient with those of us who sometimes fail on the details of Senate process. Alan Cumming Thom was very much a Senate man. He believed in the role of the Senate, he fought for the role of the Senate and he served senators well.

He had interests outside the Senate: he was a keen cricketer in his youth, and a hockey player. I do not think he would have thought it was cricket when his wife, Mary, was taken from him. Some time after she died, I happened to meet him in Manuka and he told me how much he missed her and how different his life was without her. But, having said that, he told me about his family, focusing in typical Alan Cumming Thom style on the positive rather than the negative, and the positive was his family.

He was a gentle man and a gentleman. He had strong views, strong convictions. He was a dedicated servant of the parliament. I think the public often do not understand the incredible role that members of the parliamentary staff, particularly the clerks, deputy clerks and the committee secretaries, in both houses, play in ensuring we have a stable democracy. We take it for granted. When this place was opened—it is appropriate to talk about it because it was 20 years ago this week—Sir Ninian Stephen got up and said, ‘We share with only a very few other countries in the world the longest unbroken democracy on this planet,’ something that took me aback, because we forget that so often; we take it for granted in Australia. People groan about voting, but we do have a stable democracy, and one part of that stable democracy is the role that people like Alan Cumming Thom have played over the history of this place, a tradition that is continued by the staff of the Senate and the staff of the parliament. So often, until a time like this when somebody leaves us, we forget to express our gratitude and also to explain to the public just how important a role these people play in ensuring that we have a stable democracy and that it works to the best of all our ability.

So he was a gentle man and, as I said, he played an important role in ensuring that we have this strong, robust parliamentary system. With apologies to Shakespeare, I say: his life was gentle and the elements so mixed in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world, ‘This was a Senate man.’