Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Hansard source

I want to rise tonight to pay tribute to a very prominent Canberran who recently passed away and who will be very well known in the Canberra community. That man was Jim Murphy. He was a man much loved around the Canberra community. He was most conspicuously a successful and prominent businessman in this community, but he was also so very much more.

He was born in 1947, the youngest of eight children. He left his home and came to Canberra in 1967. In 1969, he began to work at the Australian National University Staff Centre. At that time, he noticed the significant appreciation of wine by patrons of that establishment. From that grew a great interest in and association with the development and appreciation of wine as a business and pastime in the Canberra region. It became one of the great passions of his life.

People around Canberra today universally know the name Jim Murphy through his association with the selling of wine through Jim Murphy's Market Cellars. The business that he grew, initially from a tin shed at the ANU, later from Market Cellars at Fyshwick and, later again, from an outlet near the Canberra Airport, became almost the iconic retail outlet for wine and the place a person would go in the ACT to get good advice about the best choice of wine and about the wine industry.

If it were only for the fact that he had developed an appreciation of and a retail industry around wine in the ACT, Jim Murphy would not be marked today in this place and previously in a debate in the ACT Legislative Assembly. Jim Murphy, in a sense, took the platform of a successful business and became a person who changed so much about life in the ACT through his commitment, his passion and his generosity towards so many other activities in the ACT. For example, for five years he acted voluntarily as the chairperson of an organisation called CanTrade, whose object was to develop trade and other commercial opportunities for business in the ACT, a place that, I think it is fair to say, at that time certainly had an underdeveloped private sector in areas outside servicing of the federal government. In that role he enormously expanded opportunities for ACT business. When the then federal government in 1996 and 1997 caused some contraction of employment in the ACT, Jim led the charge—called initially Youth 500 and, later, Youth 1,000—to create jobs for young Canberrans for whom an unemployment rate in excess of 25 per cent was the reality. And he succeeded. He succeeded brilliantly in creating opportunities for younger Can­berrans. He played a crucial role in bringing the BRL Hardy venture to the ACT and was responsible largely for the creation of the concept of an ACT regional wine district, which today produces some of the very finest wines in the whole of Australia. Although he did not personally grow the grapes respon­sible for that, he certainly harnessed the potential of this region to create a viable and identifiable industry around the ACT. He established the Canberra Business Event Centre, which can be seen on the northern shores of Lake Burley Griffin, a venue that showcases the ACT's strengths in a spectacular setting.

He travelled extensively around Australia and, indeed, around the world. He led numerous trade missions to China, Japan and Ireland, among other places, to build commercial relationships for the ACT business community. I went with him on a trade delegation to Ireland a few years ago, where his dynamism was able to generate a great many opportunities for ACT busin­esses. When looking at the totality of his contribution, I do not think that any one person in the last 30 years has done so much for the creation of jobs in this region—sustainable jobs in the private sector—and for the promotion of business relations with the rest of Australia and internationally as has Jim Murphy.

He was, however, not content merely in promoting the development of business for its own sake. He used the success of his own business and his networks with other businesses in the ACT to create opportunities for a huge number of people around this region. He was a passionate supporter, for example, of the Open Family foundation, which provides outreach support to homeless youth. He supported the growth of teaching courses at the Australian Catholic University. He was a board member at Calvary Hospital. He was passionately interested in and a supporter of the Canberra Raiders and was on its board for a number of years. He supported numerous organisations and charities in this region. Literally tens of thousands of dollars every year left Jim Murphy's wallet to support businesses around this region. The extent of his generosity is almost legendary.

In 2003 he was awarded the Order of Australia, very deservedly, for his contri­bution to so many of those charities and worthy causes around the region. He almost had an inability to say no to somebody who came to his door with an important mission to put before him.

Jim passed away much too early, at the age of 63, last month after undergoing surgery for cancer at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. A measure of his mark on the Canberra community is the funeral that was held for him on 6 June at St Christopher's Cathedral, the largest of Canberra's churches. When I got there, almost half an hour before the start of the funeral service, there were no seats left in the cathedral and no standing room left in the cathedral. I could not even hear the service because there were so many people packed in the doorways of the cathedral that it became impossible to even participate. That is a measure of how much this man touched the ACT and its surrounding community. He was a man who truly dedicated his life to changing the outcomes and the prospects of people around him.

I express my deep sympathy and condolences to his wife, Margaret, and his sons, Adrian and Damian. I treasure very much my time with him in a number of contexts. I remember him particularly as a very passionate and proud supporter of the Liberal Party. Again, his generosity extended very much to that organisation. I share with a great many Canberrans a great sense of sadness at his passing but I know that he has left this world having made an indelible mark on the Canberra community. For that reason, I am extremely grateful to have known him and his kindness and his commitment to the people of this city.