Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today on behalf of the opposition on this condolence motion for Warwick Parer, a former member of our chamber who recently passed away at the age of 77. Warwick Parer served in this chamber for over 15 years, from 1984 until his departure in 2000, as a senator for Queensland representing the Liberal Party. He was a member of Prime Minister Howard's cabinet, serving as Minister for Resources and Energy from 1996 to 1998, and in that role he was a great champion of the industry. It was an industry in which he had extensive personal experience before entering politics. That passion for the mining industry may in part explain why the title of his memoirs was simply Mine.

That book includes a fascinating description of his early childhood in Papua New Guinea in the years before World War II. His father was a pilot who owned an airline company which served remote goldmines in PNG and, when the Japanese Army invaded, Warwick, then just six years old, was evacuated with his mother and siblings to Darling Downs in Queensland. As the Leader of the Government in the Senate has outlined, regrettably, his father was killed in action in New Guinea, which left his mother to single-handedly raise Warwick and his three siblings. Warwick Parer grew up in regional Queensland and graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Commerce.

Warwick Parer was proud of his family and his heritage. He married a fellow Queenslander, Kathi Martin, and moved to Melbourne to begin his career in business. Certainly he had an impressive business career prior to entering the Senate. He founded the Non-Destructive Testing Laboratories, an industrial X-ray company, in 1962; moved on to become the Victorian manager for Philips-Stanford Pty Ltd in 1966; and then became the commercial manager and assistant secretary of Utah Development Company in 1973, a position which saw him return to Queensland. Senators will recall that Utah was a company which was deeply involved in the expansion of the Australian coalmining industry in the 1970s and 1980s. In addition to being a senior executive of Utah, Warwick Parer took a role advocating on behalf of the industry, becoming chairman of Australian Coal Exporters in 1976.

He did come to politics later in life and his reputation was as a practical man. He was known for being a straight talker and, as Senator Abetz has mentioned, a prolific smoker. The version I heard was that he managed to set his parliamentary office alight after tipping ashes into his wastepaper bin. But then that may have been augmented with the effluxion of time. His political career culminated as Minister for Resources and Energy, where he oversaw the abolition of the three-mines policy for the uranium industry.

Senator Parer nominated his most significant achievements as minister as including the abolition of the export controls of minerals as well as chairing the first APEC ministers conference in Sydney. He was a keen fishermen, enjoying this pastime with his grandchildren. As his ministerial portfolio also included responsibility for fisheries, he was also able to make important decisions for the sector, including protecting Australia's bluefin tuna stock and ensuring the Navy upheld regulations against illegal fishing in Australia's Antarctic waters.

It is the case that Senator Parer's time as minister was cut short after a controversy over conflict of interest. Subsequently, he decided not to seek to return to the Howard government's ministry after the 1998 federal election. He served on the backbench for a further two years and then resigned in 2000.

After politics he fulfilled a number of important positions in both the public and private sectors, and he chaired, of course, that important review for the Council of Australian Governments of the international energy market which resulted in the 2002 Parer report on energy market reform. He was also chairman of the Stanwell Corporation, one of Queensland's major electricity generators. He was honoured in 2005 by being made a Member of the Order of Australia for service to the parliament and for his contribution to expanding export opportunities for the mining industry as well as for energy market reform.

Warwick Parer's passing was sudden and, as always, our thoughts go on this day to his family: his wife, Kathi; their children, Carol, Martine, Helen, Sonia, Warwick, Justin and Rowan; and their many grandchildren.