George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to add a few words of my own in appreciation of the service of Harry Evans. In an institution where the turnover of its members is rapid, and has become more rapid with the passage of the years, Harry Evans, Clerk of the Senate for 21 years, has increasingly become the embodiment and the font of institutional knowledge and institutional memory in this chamber—so much so that I think it is fair to say that, amongst those in the Australian population who watch carefully political affairs, Harry, more than any individual senator, has become the visible embodiment of the Senate. That is certainly the tradition that he has served, and he has served it with honour and distinction. In my association with Harry Evans I have always found him to be patient, erudite and somewhat idiosyncratic—some might even say a little quirky. He was a presence around this place that was at the same time elusive and pervasive.

My association with Harry has extended in particular to several occasions over the nearly a decade now that I have served in this chamber when Harry and I have both given papers on the Senate to schools of politics or legal conferences. There is one anecdote I would like to place on the record about an occasion when Harry was of tremendous assistance to me. In 2005 I was asked to give a paper to a constitutional law conference at the University of New South Wales on the Australian Senate and responsible government. I asked Harry for his advice and guidance in relation to a number of sources in writing that paper. We discussed the emergence of the Senate committee system. Other senators have spoken today about how the Senate committee system is one of the great glories of this chamber—a system unmatched in any other parliamentary chamber in the world.

Harry pointed out to me that the Senate committee system was actually established in 1970 as a result of an act of defiance by a government senator—the then Queensland Liberal Senator Ian Alexander Christie Wood. I might say that one of Harry’s specialisations is a deep knowledge of eccentric senators and obscure senators from ages past. Ian Alexander Christie Wood was a very eccentric Queensland Liberal senator who was first elected in 1949 and went on to serve in 14 parliaments until his retirement on 30 June 1978. Harry pointed out to me that it was because Senator Wood crossed the floor against the government of the day—it would have been the Gorton government—that the Senate committee system was established. I found this a delightful fact.

A little later in the morning after our conversation, Harry arrived at my office. He had been good enough to photocopy for me the Journals of the Senate of 11 June 1970, pages 189 to 190. The division list recorded in the Journals of the Senate of 11 June 1970 record indeed that when a motion to establish the Senate committee system was put by then Senator Lionel Murphy the motion was passed with 27 ayes and 26 noes, with the name of Senator Ian Alexander Christie Wood appearing on the division list for the ayes between Senator Willesee and Senator Wriedt. I repeated that anecdote at that constitutional law conference and it has since circulated among people who are interested in such obscure and recondite facts. I would like to thank Harry for reaching into the depths of his unmatched historical and institutional memory and retrieving what would have been an unremembered fact of Australian constitutional history which has profoundly changed for the better the way in which this chamber and this parliament operates. Harry, thank you for your counsel; thank you for your occasional admonishment; thank you for your service; and may I join other senators in wishing you well for a long and happy retirement.