Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

It was with great sadness that I heard on Friday of the passing of the former member for Hindmarsh, a great South Australian, Clyde Cameron, in the early hours of that day, in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in my home town of Adelaide. I want to say a few things in this place about this man, who was a great South Australian and a great servant of the Australian working people. Clyde Cameron was many things: he was a shearer, a union organiser, an industrial advocate and a historian—or, as Mike Rann recently observed, a ‘prolific chronicler of Labor Party history’. He was the representative of the people of Hindmarsh for 31 years—a seat which is now held in this place by the member for Hindmarsh, Steve Georganas. He was a cabinet minister. But, above all, he was a staunch defender of working people and their welfare. Clive Cameron was a man who made a towering contribution to our movement and he was an iconic figure in the South Australian branch.

Clyde Cameron was born in Murray Bridge in 1913 and his first job was as a shearer at Ashmore Station in South Australia after leaving school at the age of 14. From a very young age he had a commitment to improving the lot of the people who he represented and from whence he came. After a period of unemployment during the Great Depression, Clyde Cameron was elected as an organiser for the Australian Workers Union in South Australia and became the state secretary of that union in 1941. He was elected to federal parliament in 1949 and spent 23 years in opposition—a record which I am sure very few here would like to hold—before becoming a minister in the first Whitlam government. Before Clyde Cameron’s death this past Friday, he was the last of the members of parliament elected in 1949. His record of winning 13 consecutive elections for the seat of Hindmarsh before retiring, after 31 years, in 1975 is one of considerable achievement.

As Senator Faulkner has pointed out, Clyde Cameron made history when he argued the case for the appointment of former High Court Justice Mary Gaudron to prosecute the case for equal pay for female workers in the arbitration commission. He was a leading advocate of pension increases, for the provision of child care to support working women and he greatly improved the pay and conditions of public service workers during his term as Minister for Labour and Immigration. Dame Roma Mitchell, yet another great South Australian, said at one of Clyde’s book launches that he made a lot of good friends and he kept them for a long time. He also made a lot of fierce enemies and kept them for a long time.

Clyde Cameron, along with Don Dunstan and others, helped pioneer multiculturalism in Australia and, as others in this place have talked about, his association with Gough Whitlam and his keen understanding of the machinery of our party brought about the necessary reform that was required for Labor to win office after so many years in opposition. Of course no reflection on Clyde Cameron’s life would be complete without acknowledging the famous falling out that Clyde Cameron and Gough Whitlam had. As John Bannon has observed, it was not so much the sacking of Cameron but the manner in which it was done. Cameron’s humiliating treatment was never forgiven. Certainly Clyde Cameron’s career was a controversial one, but his reputation as the hard man of the Labor Party was belied by the friendships he cultivated on the conservative side of politics. I note, also, notable names include James Killen, John Gorton and Mary Downer.

I have known Clyde Cameron at somewhat of a distance from when I joined the party as a much younger person, when I was a student at Adelaide university. Clyde would still attend the various party fora that I attended. He was kind enough to write to me after my first speech in this place; he wrote to me congratulating me on some of the issues that I had raised and expressing his views about them. I remember being incredibly touched and moved that somebody who was such a significant figure in our movement would take the time to read the first speech of a Senate backbencher. Last year, or perhaps the year before, I was fortunate enough to be at a dinner where Clyde Cameron was presented with lifetime membership of the South Australian Labor Party. He certainly remained active in the South Australian party and community, right up until he fell acutely ill last month. There were a great many fundraisers, Labor Party events and community events over the years that I have attended where Clyde Cameron has attended. In 1995 Clyde was made an Officer of the Order of Australia. He spent his retirement in Adelaide’s West Lakes and has never stopped being an integral part of the Labor Party in South Australia. He passed away on Friday aged 95. I understand that at the time he was Australia’s oldest former parliamentarian. He is survived by his wife of 40 years, Doris, and his two sons, Warren and Noel, and a daughter, Tanya. I extend my condolences to his family and place on record my gratitude and recognition for the enormous contribution of this great South Australian.

Question agreed to, honourable senators standing in their places.