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

by leave—On behalf of Senator Brandis and the Nationals in the Senate, I move:

That the Senate records its deep regret at the death, on 6 April 2016, of the Honourable Dr Rex Alan Patterson, former minister and member for Dawson, places on record its appreciation of his long and highly distinguished service to the nation and tenders its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

Rex Patterson was born on 8 January 1927 in Bundaberg, Queensland, and grew up in the Bundaberg area in a cane farming family. As well as a strong student at Bundaberg High School, he was a very fine sportsman, playing competitively in tennis, cricket, rugby league and athletics—interests he long maintained and for which he was widely known. As soon as he turned 18 in 1945, he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force, serving until soon after the end of the war.

After studying commerce at the University of Queensland, and as a young man teaching in schools in Mackay and Proserpine and working as a drover on stock routes in northern Australia, in 1949 Rex Patterson joined the research staff of the federal Bureau of Agricultural Economics. He was to remain a public servant until 1966, along the way studying further at the Australian National University and, with the assistance of Fulbright and other fellowships, at the universities of Illinois and Chicago.

Rex Patterson's work for his PhD in agricultural economics led to practical policy change when he returned to Australia, with a major federal commitment to the development of beef roads—an example of how he maintained a balance of the academic and the practical. It was said in another context that he was:

… as familiar with the business end of a cane knife as he is with the principles of agricultural economics.

After serving as Assistant Director of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics from 1960 to 1964, he was appointed in 1964 as Director of Northern Development in the Department of National Development. His extensive experience from the 1940s to the 1960s in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, including many rough experiences in the outback, both reflected and deepened his commitment to northern development.

By 1965, he had come to the view that the greatest contribution he could make to this was by resigning from the public service and entering parliamentary politics as a Labor candidate. As he explained:

My reason for standing for Parliament is that I firmly believe the north will never be developed for the benefit of Australians and their children unless more voices which genuinely support the north are heard in the national Parliament.

During the campaign for the February 1966 by-election in the previously safe Country Party seat of Dawson, based on Mackay, Dr Patterson was energetically supported by the then Deputy Leader of the Labor Party, Gough Whitlam. The stunning swing to Labor that saw Dr Patterson elected led on to an intervention by him which, aided by Tom Burns, is widely regarded as saving Gough Whitlam from expulsion from the Labor Party following his reference to its federal executive as '12 witless men'.

Dr Patterson served from 1966 to 1972 as Labor's Shadow Minister for Primary Industry and National Development, time and again impressing with his command of the issues, especially of northern development, and often embarrassing ministers in successive coalition governments, including Prime Minister Gorton himself. An enthusiast for the Ord River scheme and for other projects, he particularly championed the importance of water conservation, dam construction, long-term rural finance and also beef roads and other transport infrastructure to support export of primary products. Seeking to encourage wheat, sugar and other exports to China, Dr Patterson took part in Gough Whitlam's mission to Beijing in 1971, just before Dr Kissinger's secret visit there which prepared the way for President Nixon's opening to China.

After the 1972 election, Senator Wriedt was appointed as Minister for Primary Industry in the Whitlam government and Dr Patterson was appointed Minister for Northern Development. To this was added, in October 1973, the position of Minister for the Northern Territory, in which role Dr Patterson was sworn in by Her Majesty the Queen—in what I understand is the only time that an Australian minister has been sworn in by the Queen herself rather than by the Governor-General.

In June 1975, he became the Minister for Northern Australia. In October 1975, just weeks before the dismissal of the Whitlam government—when Senator Wriedt succeeded Rex Connor as Minister for Minerals and Energy—Dr Patterson became Minister for Agriculture, and Paul Keating was appointed to the ministry and succeeded him as Minister for Northern Australia. During his service as a minister from 1972 to 1975, Dr Patterson's passionate commitment to northern development was strongly evident, as was his frustration with what it was possible to achieve.

He worked hard to promote sugar exports, including negotiating sugar agreements with several countries. He was also instrumental in promoting the construction of dams, beef roads and much else. He played a leadership role in the wake of the Australia Day floods in Brisbane in 1974. At the end of that year of natural disasters, his leadership in the reconstruction of Darwin after Cyclone Tracy devastated it on Christmas Day 1974 was later said by Major General Alan Stretton, who was entrusted with command of the reconstruction, as deserving greater public recognition than it received.

The straight-talking, independent streak that led Dr Patterson to resign from the Public Service and enter politics a decade before was again evidenced in repeated public disagreements with ministerial colleagues—on a government enforced minimum price for coal exports, which he opposed; on uranium mining, which he favoured; on sugar, an industry he was strongly committed to protecting and promoting; on the abolition of the superphosphate bounty, which he believed would damage agriculture and his own party's electoral standing; and on other issues as well.

Dr Patterson lost his own seat of Dawson to the National Party in the federal election of 1975. But his widely acknowledged expertise saw him subsequently work as an economic consultant, with a particular focus on international trade in commodities, and as a primary producer in his home region of Mackay. He served in many leadership positions in community organisations, reflecting his interest in sport, animal welfare and other activities.

For anyone who was involved in or aware of politics in the late 1960s and 1970s, it was impossible not to be aware of and greatly respect Dr Patterson's deep intellectual and practical understanding of issues, his impact and his passion. We mourn the passing of a man who made a profound contribution to his party, to the public life of this country and to the cause of Northern Australia—about which he cared so passionately and about which so many of us today also care so deeply.

Dr Patterson's wife, Eileen, whom he married in 1954, predeceased him. He is survived by their daughter, Jayne; his grandchildren, Peter and Jaime; and a great-grandson, Jack. We offer them and other family and close and loyal friends our deepest sympathy.