Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to associate the Nationals with this condolence motion to offer condolences to the family of the late Rt Hon. Reg Withers.

Reginald Withers entered the Senate in 1966 in a casual Liberal vacancy and then lost his seat later that year and re-entered politics to be re-elected in 1968. He remained in the Senate until his retirement in the 1987 double-dissolution election. Prior to his Senate life, Mr Withers served as a coder in the Royal Australian Navy before studying law and qualifying as a solicitor and barrister. He represented his local community as a councillor on the Bunbury Municipal Council. He returned to local government after retiring from the Senate and was Lord Mayor of Perth from 1991 until 1994. Reg Withers, we have heard today, was also the last Privy Councillor to serve in the Australian Senate and a former State President of the Liberal Party.

These are the bare facts of his life but we all know that Reg Withers was a key player in the dismissal of Whitlam's Labor government. As Leader of the Opposition in the Senate from December 1982 until the 1975 election, his tough character and belief in Liberal Party loyalty kept opposition senators in line during a time of what must have been intense political pressure.

I understand that Reg Withers was also a mentor to younger politicians and I note in passing that he even, late in life, participated in one of Senator Smith's preselections. With customary self-deprecation he once told The Age that 'I'm just a boy from Bunbury.' I have often noted in this place that there are those who play up all their qualities and there are those who play them down. I know never to underestimate the latter.

Reg Withers has been described as Whitlam's nemesis. He is credited with keeping potentially wavering Liberal senators together. As his son Simon stated: 'It was dad who brought Whitlam down. He had to hold those senators together while Gough was rampaging around the country.'

Instead of rejecting appropriation bills, Reg Withers's strategy was to defer them, ensuring they were available to procure supply under a Liberal government. Meanwhile the Whitlam government slowly ran out of money. It must have required enormous strength of character to keep a loose, nervous, often unhappy and wafer thin coalition of senators to oppose the government for many months until the government finally fell. He did whatever was needed and it was reportedly a close run thing, with several Liberals close to turning. It was claimed that it was this period in which he was anointed the moniker the 'toe cutter'.

After winning government Reg Withers had but a short time, three years, before Prime Minister Fraser dumped him from the ministry. On this occasion he said:

When the man who's carried the biggest knife in this country for the last ten years starts giving you a lecture about propriety, integrity and the need to resign, then he's either making a sick joke or playing you for a mug.

In the ensuing years Reg Withers crossed the floor 11 times, gaining the grudging respect of the tough Labor Finance Minister Peter Walsh.

Reg Withers was a tough player but he could also be funny. He told the Senate that two lawyers called Harders and Neaves ought to be sacked or immortalised somehow in limericks. He had a go in the Senate:

A negligent lawyer named Harders,

Had a head as empty as Mother Hubbard's larders.

Because he was so lax,

The Commissioner received no tax,

And the companies went to the bottom of the harbours.

He followed straightaway and of Mr Neaves, he said:

A foolish lawyer named Neaves,

Was so negligent he encouraged tax thieves.

Because he was so lax,

The Act on income tax

Now has another 80 leaves.

When former industry minister, Senator John Button made his valedictory speech, he spoke of a conversation he had with Reg Withers in 1976 after the Labor government had been defeated and he had become the Minister for Administrative Services. Button told the Senate:

In the first conversation we had I said, 'Reg, would it be possible for me to get a new typewriter in my office?' He looked at me and he said: 'I think so You are now where you ought to be, and I intend to see that you stay there. I see no reason why you shouldn't be happy'.

John Button also said that Reg Withers was most unfairly treated when he was removed from the Fraser ministry. Button recalled another conversation where he said:

'Reg, you know the line from the T.S. Eliot play: This last thing is the greatest treason, to do the right thing for the wrong reason. That's what happened to you, Reg. And he said to me: 'Who's T.S. Eliot?'

Former Liberal Senator Fred Chaney described Reg Withers as a very complex man with a great affection for history and more capacity to see what was happening in a longer term than his peers. One of my predecessors, former Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, Senator Stan Collard, said that he always admired Withers's knowledge of the standing orders. Collard told the Senate:

I remember that at a time such as this, when the parliament was about to rise and the then opposition, predictably, was doing what we have been doing for the last week—trying to hold things up—through some quirk and his very good knowledge of the standing orders, he caught the then opposition like a football team, running completely the wrong way, and he had the legislation and us out of this place in 10 or 15 minutes flat. It was a lesson for young backbenchers.

Reg Withers was a strategic thinker and an authentic career politician. He played a significant role in the nation's biggest historical political drama. He was a colourful character but his mission was always focused on public service. We have lost this great Australian and this complex man and our thoughts go to his family and close friends who realise this the most.