Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Hansard source

Like many of my colleagues, I say that the news last Tuesday of the passing of our former Prime Minister, the Hon. Edward Gough Whitlam AC, QC, has left a hollowness and a sadness that has been felt deeply across the country. And, like many of my colleagues, my office received that day and the day after many, many calls and contacts from local Labor Party members and local residents who wanted to record their respect for him and their sadness on his passing. His legacy of reform is immense and was transformative, and, while strongly contested, stands today, in my view, as the basis of our society. And he did it all in three years. He changed Australians' view of ourselves. He opened our eyes to the future and gave us a confidence, a belief in ourselves, that has stood us in good stead.

Also, as so many other regional senators and members have commented, Gough was a champion of the regions. Further, he was determined to redress discrimination against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and to put in place structures to protect our environmental values.

Senator Faulkner has spoken fulsomely and graciously today about the astonishing record of the Whitlam government, and today I want to take this opportunity to direct my comments to and to reflect on two pieces of history where Gough's passion for fairness and justice intersected with my part of Australia, Far North Queensland.

In 1974, Mr John Koowarta, an Aboriginal man of the Wik nation and the Aurukun region of Cape York Peninsula, and a number of other traditional owners were planning to purchase the Archer River cattle station. They had been successful in gaining approval for funding from the Aboriginal Land Fund Commission, which was established by Whitlam in that year following the royal commission that was completed the previous year.

The Queensland Premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, directed the Queensland minister for lands not to approve the sale. Queensland cabinet policy at the time was to not allow Aboriginal people to own large tracts of land, and it was deemed that the Archer River cattle station was a large tract of land, which it was. This shameful act resulted in protracted legal action, firstly in the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, where John Koowarta's complaint about racial discrimination was upheld. Queensland then took the matter to the Supreme Court and then took a matter against the Australian government arguing that it was not within the power of the Australian government to actually legislate around racial discrimination. Vindictively, then, the Bjelke-Petersen government declared the cattle station a national park, as a final measure to block the ownership of John Koowarta and other traditional owners. These horrible, terrible events cemented a friendship between Gough Whitlam and John Koowarta that lasted throughout John Koowarta's life. In 1991, Gough travelled to Aurukun to attend the funeral of John Koowarta, an amazing leader and a person whose friendship Gough, I know, valued very much. It was on that day that I was able, and very fortunate, to meet him.

I also pay tribute to Gough's leadership that resulted in the protection of the Great Barrier Reef. It seems almost inconceivable that in 1973 the Queensland government planned to drill for oil on the Great Barrier Reef. As you would expect, huge debate ensued—as it did, can I say, in 2000, when the former Howard government attempted to do the same. However, huge debate ensued in 1973. That was the time when the Queensland environment minister of the day made the astonishing statement that, 'Even if there was a spill it would be okay, because as every schoolboy knows, oil floats on water.' Therefore, if there was a spill, it was not going to affect the corals under the sea. Whitlam responded by legislating the Seas and Submerged Lands Act, which gave the Commonwealth authority over the states in matters concerning seas around Australia. This legislation was the method by which the Australian government blocked the Bjelke-Petersen government's plans to allow oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef.

At the same time, Whitlam was acting on the international stage, building the legal framework for the protection of Australia's environment. In 1974 the Australian government ratified the World Heritage Convention, which gave the government the tool to protect exceptionally valuable cultural or natural heritage sites. By ratifying this convention the Whitlam government gave future Commonwealth governments the power to protect sites designated as World Heritage Sites or sites by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. Then, in 1975, Whitlam created the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The protection of the Great Barrier Reef is often attributed to Malcolm Fraser, because it was in 1981 that the Great Barrier Reef was inscribed on the World Heritage list. But it was certainly under Whitlam's watch that, initially, protection from oil drilling and then the ratification of the World Heritage Convention occurred. If this had not happened, it would have been impossible for Fraser to take those actions.

Events such as these were happening around me when I was a teenager from Far North Queensland attending boarding school in Brisbane. I think the perspective I bring is very much about growing up in a very conservative state—and the animosity between Bjelke-Petersen and Whitlam was legendary—so it is through that prism that I make these comments today. Gough Whitlam was the person who most strongly influenced my thinking about politics, about human rights and justice, about women in society, about environmental protection and about discrimination—particularly discrimination against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. These issues were simply not part of the public debate in the part of the world that I came from. We did not have the language to have informed conversations around these fundamental issues that are very much part of a progressive agenda. For me, listening to Gough Whitlam was like peeling the scales from my eyes—I had never even contemplated these sorts of conversations. Certainly I was of an age where I was open to hearing alternative views from what I was hearing around me, but it was his ability to make the argument so powerful that, in my view, made his leadership so successful.

Many colleagues have talked about Blue Poles, and it is also an important part of my thinking about this time. I was a boarder in grade 12 at a conservative boarding school in Brisbane when $1.1 million, if my recollection is correct, was spent to buy a painting. Like many senators' fathers, mine was also somewhat bemused or confused about why you would spend such a large amount of money on a painting that did not have anything you could recognise in it, but by this stage my views were moving very much to a more open way of thinking. Gough—quite sensibly, in my view—declared that Blue Poles would tour, so the Brisbane City Hall had Blue Poles in the hall for people to see, and the school took us to have a look at it because it was fairly contentious. Whilst by this stage I had thought, 'I am going to defend this, because that is a good thing to do,' I did not understand art at all. This is probably the first piece of modern art I had ever had a look at, and I was prepared to just go in and defend it—then I saw this painting, and it changed my views. That purchase allowed me and allowed millions of Australians to think differently about modern art. He was a master to do that. If that was the plan and he knew it would be contentious, he changed the way Australians view modern art.

He did take large sections of the community with him on his reforming journey. He was not afraid of ideas and was not afraid of engaging in the debates that changed our nation. One of the most proud moments of my career in the Senate to date is the introduction into the Senate of the legislation to bring in the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It is another transformative Labor policy, and when I stood over there and brought that legislation into the chamber, sitting in the adviser's box was an adviser from the department advising me. In a beautiful sense of balance, that same adviser, when she started work in the Whitlam government, had worked on designing an insurance based scheme for people with disability. So it gave me an immense sense of completion that we were able to bring into this place and bring into law a system that supports people with disability, ensures discrimination against people with disability does not occur and, importantly, gives people with disability and ability to achieve their aspirations. I acknowledged on that day and I acknowledge again today that this good policy had its genesis in the Whitlam years.

The loss which I feel, the loss which I believe is felt by the Labor family, pales against the loss that will be felt by the Whitlam family. We thank you, the children of Gough and Margaret Whitlam, for sharing your parents with us for so long. Our task now is to defend the legacy of Edward Gough Whitlam. Vale Gough.