Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to associate myself with those remarks. It is a great honour to have the opportunity to recognise and acknowledge the remarkable life of the Hon. Joe Riordan, AO. Joe received the award of Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to industrial relations, social justice and the community. But Joe's major focus was his family. He married his wife, Patricia, in 1955. His wife had been ill for some years prior to Joe's death, and Joe looked after and nursed his wife and did a remarkable job during that period. My condolences and, I am sure, the condolences of everyone here go to Patricia, to Bernie, to the siblings and to what he described as the love of his life, his grandchildren. Bernie indicated that when the grandchildren were born Joe told his kids: 'That's it for you lot. I've looked after you. I'm doing no more for you. The grandkids are what I'm going to look after.' He always looked after everybody, but he had a great soft touch for his grandchildren.

This was a man who was one of the most respected industrial relations practitioners in the country. If you walked into the room where he was, you knew that you were in the presence of someone of significant capabilities. He was a fantastic guy. He was absolutely brilliant at what he did. I had a long relationship with Joe Riordan. I first met Joe in 1978 in the Electricity Commission of New South Wales, when I was a delegate in the Electricity Commission and Joe Riordan was the deputy chair. Joe came to the Electricity Commission as the chair. He was a former right-wing Labor Party operative from the Federated Clerks Union, and I was a left-wing rank and file delegate for the Socialist Left in New South Wales. You would think, 'What would be the relationship between these two people?' I will tell you what it was: Joe Riordan was the first senior executive of the Electricity Commission who ever treated me with any respect. The industrial relations before he came to the Electricity Commission were an absolute war. There was just battling day in, day out, and it was the worst kind of industrial relations on both sides. Joe Riordan was appointed to try to assist to bring the Electricity Commission into the modern times of industrial relations, and he did a great job in doing that.

There were two well-known industrial practitioners at the funeral, apart from two prime ministers and many former state and federal ministers. Bob Hawke was there. Bob spoke extremely fondly of Joe. Paul Keating was there. So it really was a great show of respect for Joe Riordan. What was said about Joe was that he was just a great guy.

Joe had two nicknames in the Electricity Commission. His first nickname was 'Call Me Joe'. He was known as 'Call Me Joe' because in those days many of the bosses in the Electricity Commission still wanted to be called 'Mr So-and-so'—and a lot of them were Mr So-and-sos, I can tell you—but he was 'Call Me Joe'. His other nickname was 'Helicopter Joe', because every time there was a massive brawl on at the power station, the helicopter took off in Sydney and up came Joe, and we would sit down to try to work out the issues. He was the first person ever to do that.

In 1982 the state Liberal Party called for his sacking because he was undermining management structures in the Electricity Commission. This was probably one of the best things Joe ever did—to undermine the management structures in the Electricity Commission of New South Wales. He did a great job in bringing some democratic processes to industrial relations. He did a great job in treating people with respect, and I will always acknowledge and think fondly of Joe Riordan and what he did.

I mentioned to two well-known industrial practitioners who were at the funeral—Bert Evans, the former Chief Executive of the AIG and the old MTIA, and Roger Boland, his No. 2 at the AIG—that Joe Riordan helped humanise me. They thought that was rubbish. They did not think that was the case, and they could not understand that anybody could have done that in my early days of industrial operations in the Electricity Commission. But Joe was a great guy.

Not only was he the deputy chair of the Electricity Commission but he had a whole range of other roles. He was the chairman of the safety commission. He was the chairman of the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission. He was the chairman of WorkCover. Then he went on to be an industrial relations consultant. I know that as an industrial relations consultant Joe Riordan did more consultation for no money than any other consultant I knew.

Joe was always prepared to help the union movement and to help anyone who was in trouble—on both sides of fence—to try to work things through. I will be ever-grateful to Joe Riordan because, when I was the National Secretary of the AMWU, we had some well-known problems in Victoria with a group called Workers First. We had problems there that my union had never experienced before, and we would take all sorts of steps to try to deal with those issues that had arisen in Victoria.

We asked Joe Riordan and another highly respected industrial arbiter, Tom McDonald, the former National Secretary of the CFMEU, to go down to Victoria, have a look at the issues and prepare a report for the national council of the AMWU. That report was extremely professional, it was done in some really tough circumstances, and Joe Riordan and Tom McDonald played a huge role in ensuring that my union worked its way through the issues that were emerging in Victoria.

I want to indicate that Joe Riordan will always be in my memory. He has been around ever since I have been involved in industrial relations. He will be and is sadly missed by not only his family but the industrial relations community around this world. He was a man of great standing, a man of great stature, a man of high intelligence, a man who helped make Australia a better place not only for workers but for many employers and a man who can stand there with the giants of the Labor movement. Vale, Joe Riordan.