John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I seek leave to move a motion relating to the death of former member and minister of the House of Representatives, the Honourable William (Bill) Lawrence Morrison, AO.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate records its deep regret at the death, on 15 February 2013, of the Honourable William (Bill) Lawrence Morrison, AO, former minister and member for St George, places on record its appreciation of his long and meritorious public service and tenders its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

Bill Morrison came into the parliament in 1969. He had been a diplomat in the Department of Foreign Affairs for 19 years and was elected for the seat of St George. He was part of a transformation in the profile of Labor politicians that occurred in that election. Many of those new faces had a professional background and tertiary education. In many ways, they were Gough Whitlam's men, handpicked and in his likeness. He welcomed them with pride, proclaiming to the parliament in April 1970:

Forty-four per cent of honourable members on this side of the chamber were not in the last Parliament. Due to changes on this side, this is the best qualified Parliament to sit in this place in terms of academic qualifications, lay experience and public service. I have noticed that nothing stirs the personal resentment of honourable members opposite as much as the possession of qualifications by honourable members on this side. I have already noticed, for example, that the honourable member for St George (Mr Morrison) seems to have attracted that same sense of outrage that used to be reserved for the honourable member for Dawson (Dr Patterson).

If Bill Morrison's diplomatic skills were welcomed in the Labor Party, his skills as a butcher, a trade he learned from his father, were once welcomed in the embassy in Moscow when he butchered a whole bullock brought in by the Argentinian ambassador for a barbecue.

He has the distinction of twice being expelled from the embassy in Moscow, in 1954 and in 1963, both times in retaliation for government actions in Canberra. Alan Ramsey last week told the story that on hearing of Petrov's defection Morrison, a young diplomat in the embassy in Moscow, bet Richard Woolcott that they would not be expelled and that he would drop his pants in Red Square if they were. They were and he did.

Bill Morrison's career in parliament was not long but it was full and impressive in its achievements. On entering parliament, he served immediately as deputy chair of the foreign affairs and defence committee, on which he brought to bear all his background in foreign policy. He also led Labor members out of the committee because of the refusal of the government to allow the committee to hold hearings and report in public, a move that was both radical and successful. Foreign policy loomed large in the years Bill Morrison was in parliament. He spoke and wrote extensively on our relations with South-East Asia and the United States, our recognition of China, our Middle East policy, our aid program—which he believed was poorly organised and poorly focused—and our defence arrangements. Having been an official Australian representative in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, he brought to the parliament an informed and critical voice about how we related to our region.

To look back at Bill Morrison's political career is to recall an era of issues fought with great intensity, with commitment and with clarity of purpose. He spoke often on foreign policy but particularly on Vietnam. It was an issue he returned to again and again and one that defined the Labor Party and separated it from the coalition. His speeches on foreign policy were always substantial, arguing legal issues and treaty obligations. But they also expressed the anger felt by many Australians about the war. How did Australia get into the war and how was it to get out of it? He supported the Vietnam moratorium. He believed the decision to go into Vietnam risked the lives of Australian soldiers and conscripts without proper cause and that Australia went into Vietnam on a lie and was extricating itself on a lie. On 14 April 1970, he argued:

It is a matter of some significance that in the several volumes of the documents on Vietnam published by the Department of External Affairs—and I have read each and every one of them—the much referred to official request from the Government of South Vietnam has never appeared.

It [Australia's contribution] was a public relations exercise, and Australian sons, brothers, fathers and husbands have died for a Madison Avenue victory.

In 1975, his anger over Vietnam was unabated. He said this:

The guilty men have raised themselves from the bloody mire of Australian involvement in Vietnam to point their fingers. But have the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Fraser) and the Leader of the National Country Party of Australia (Mr Anthony) forgotten the appalling My Lais of the Vietnam War, the searing deadliness of the napalm bombs, the deathdealing bombs that were dropped, not only on Hanoi but also on the rest of Vietnam by the United States of America? Their memories are conveniently short. Not once did they protest, and now they talk of humanitarian principles. These men who plunged Australia into war, these men who applauded killing, these men who applauded violence, these men who supported the United States' invasion of Cambodia and of Vietnam, not once protested about United States transgressions when evidence showed that both the Americans and the North Vietnamese had transgressed the 1954 Geneva agreements. Yet they talk about even-handedness. Not once was a protest made by them. They talk also of deception and of lies. These people belong to the very Parties that lied and lied and lied to the Australian people about Australia's involvement in Vietnam.

Bill Morrison, along with former Prime Minister Whitlam and the former foreign minister Don Willesee, was a driving force for the articulation of Labor foreign policy during his years in parliament. But he was also an effective local member who fought hard for the interests of his constituents. Perhaps the issue that stands out most is his work and advocacy about Sydney airport, as a member of the Select Committee on Aircraft Noise. He tried, unsuccessfully, to get the terms of reference expanded to include the need for a second airport for Sydney. But he did succeed in placing limits on noise which continue to benefit those under the flight path. The restrictions and noise abatement policies still operate at Mascot. His arguments about the need for a second airport, however, say something about the political gridlock on the issue.

With the election of the Whitlam government in December 1972, Bill Morrison was made a minister—firstly, for Science, a new portfolio and the first time Science was given its own department. He worked to bring to fruition the new Institute of Marine Science in Townsville. He personally went diving on the Great Barrier Reef to examine the damage caused by the crown-of-thorns starfish and subsequently gave large grants to scientific research on the problem. In 1974, he adamantly opposed suggestions of nuclear powers dumping nuclear waste in the Antarctic. He said:

We don't know enough about the physics and ecology of the Antarctic ice shelf. There is also the problem that for 250,000 years radioactive waste remains highly dangerous to the environment.

He was also made Minister for External Territories and later, after PNG's self-government, Minister Assisting the Minister for Foreign Affairs in matters relating to the Islands of the Pacific. This was a particularly active part of Bill Morrison's ministerial career and one of his most important legacies. The previous government had agreed to a date, 1 December 1973, for self-government for Papua New Guinea and the Labor Party concurred with that policy. It was consistent with their strong support for decolonisation and with very strong moves globally towards independence for British and European colonies in the 1960s and seventies. The United Nations, too, had asked Australia for a timetable for PNG's self-government and independence.

Under Bill Morrison's stewardship, the move to independence in PNG was orderly, considered and consultative, if perhaps somewhat rushed. He worked well with the leader of the assembly in PNG, Mr Michael Somare. Although the policy was largely bipartisan, it was not without controversy and, as independence approached on 16 December 1975, there was debate about the state of readiness of PNG. There was, at times, obdurate resistance in PNG itself, an expression of fear and conservatism on the part of expatriate planters and district offices. In answer to the criticism of haste, Bill Morrison was clear and determined. He said:

It was generally accepted that colonies should have a right of self determination … Those of us who had observed the struggles for independence in other parts of the world didn't want the unfortunate lessons of history repeated in Papua New Guinea. Nor did we want the unity to be achieved in Papua New Guinea to be a unity based on Australia as a common enemy.

In the last five months of the Whitlam government, Bill Morrison served as Minister for Defence. It was a short-lived appointment. He began managing the transition of Defence from five separate departments to a single entity and the winding down of our forces after the withdrawal from Vietnam. But there was little time to achieve anything before the dismissal of the government by John Kerr on 11 November.

Having won the seat of St George in 1969 by 69 votes, Bill Morrison lost it in 1975 by 56 votes; I think a more than creditable result in Labor's landslide defeat. He was out of parliament for five years. In 1980, he ran for and won the seat of St George, again supported by Gough Whitlam, who spoke in support of him at a pre-election rally. Let me quote Gough's words:

The next Government will be the Hayden Government, which will be the greatest government since Federation—with the possible exception of one. And the next Foreign Minister will be Bill Morrison who will be the greatest Foreign Minister—with the possible exception of one.

Well, sadly this was not to be. But Bill Morrison was neither bitter nor disillusioned. Echoing a sentiment he had expressed on arriving in parliament, he said:

I came into this Parliament with perhaps the idealistic notion that a parliamentarian had one of the higher vocations of life. I thought that we came here to represent our fellow men. I think there is no higher calling.

Bill Hayden was defence minister when five journalists were shot during the invasion of East Timor by Indonesian forces. The repercussions from this were still being felt in 2007, when he and former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam were called to the last of many inquiries into the deaths of the journalists. He testified that he had known of the shooting within hours, from cables sent to Canberra, but that he had not told the Prime Minister, who was caught up with pressing political crises—the blocking of supply and the loans affair.

Bill Morrison was a conservative on the issue of Indonesia and East Timor. He led a parliamentary delegation there in 1983 and was severely criticised for the subsequent report, stating that Indonesian control of the territory was 'final and irrevocable'. These findings were by no means unanimous. Bill Morrison supported the policy of the Hawke government for Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor, despite strong opposition within the Labor Party.

In 1985 Bill Morrison was made Australian Ambassador to Indonesia, following some years after his old friend and colleague Richard Woolcott. He supported the Indonesia-Australia agreement on the Timor Gap. He served as ambassador for four years before retiring in 1989.

There is an interesting postscript to Bill Morrison's public life. He and his wife, Marty, have worked in recent years for refugees through Rural Australians for Refugees. In the course of this work they took up the cause of Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks. For them, this support was a matter of principle. Bill Morrison told a Sydney newspaper that:

… while he was still a card-carrying member of the Labor Party, his party was, like the Howard government, "devoid of principle" and had failed to take a stand against the jailing of Habib and the other Australia citizen still detained at Guantanamo Bay, David Hicks.

He said:

I am appalled by the performance of both Australian political parties, both parties unfortunately. I think the Labor Party, the leadership of the Labor Party, has just let this thing go on without any protest, without any active intervention.

As with Vietnam, the war in Iraq and its consequences brought out his strongest feelings. In 1973, he had quoted Richard Nixon to argue for a more independent foreign policy for Australia:

… if domination by the aggressor can destroy the freedom of a nation, too much dependence on a protector can eventually erode its dignity.

Bill Morrison was, as always, blunt and direct and passionate in support of his beliefs. His was a life well lived.

Bill Morrison died on 15 February. My sincerest condolences are offered to his wife, Marty, and his children, extended family and friends.