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

On behalf of the opposition, I rise with sadness to acknowledge the passing of the Hon. Dr Rex Alan Patterson and convey our condolences to Dr Patterson's family and friends. Rex Patterson was a quintessential member of a great Labor generation—one of those who forged the path for the election of the Whitlam government—and brought to it significant expertise as well as a few idiosyncrasies. He had substantial academic qualifications and had risen to a senior level in the Public Service before disillusionment with the Liberal Party-Country Party government led him to seek Labor Party preselection in his home state of Queensland. He would take the seat of Dawson off the Country Party in a by-election in 1966, one of those transformative victories that paved the way for the eventual election of the Whitlam government in 1972.

Highly educated, the opportunity to serve in the ministry in areas complementary to his credentials demonstrated him to be a man of ideas and vision. A fighter for his causes, he was particularly strident in his views on agricultural matters, speaking as a man with both practical and academic experience of Australian rural life. But, above all, Rex Patterson understood that the role of governments is to take real action to help people.

Rex Patterson was a Queenslander through and through. Born in Bundaberg in 1927, sugar and, I am sure, many other commodities ran through his veins. Upon the completion of his secondary education at Bundaberg High School his first stop was the University of Queensland, where he completed a bachelor of commerce degree and distinguished himself as a fine sportsperson, most notably in cricket, tennis and athletics. He also served in the RAAF at the end of World War II. Following completion of his undergraduate degree, he went on to complete a masters degree in agricultural science and a doctorate in agricultural economics. This further study took him to the ANU and then to the first of two significant periods in the United States at the universities of Illinois and Chicago.

From 1949, Rex Patterson was employed by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural Economics, and between 1958 and 1960 he returned to the United States as a recipient of a Fulbright scholarship. He used this opportunity to study the development and economics of transport in Northern Australia. The Northern Territory News wrote:

Using data accumulated from his work in the north, and with the help of computers at the University of Illinois, he developed a technique of analysis for determining the most economic and effective methods of moving cattle. His findings demonstrated the need for significant infrastructure development, particularly the construction of beef roads. This became a focus of his professional work as a Commonwealth public servant as he rose to the position of Director of Northern Development.

Eventually, it was due to his ongoing frustration with the lack of commitment of the Liberal Party-Country Party government to these policies that he returned to Queensland to contest a by-election in the seat of Dawson. Rex Patterson was elected in the 1966 Dawson by-election, a watershed moment in Gough Whitlam's rise to prominence. He later held his seat, centred on Mackay, in the general election that year, at which Labor suffered significant losses elsewhere, and continued to be returned at elections until 1975, when he was finally unable to withstand the tide that swept Malcolm Fraser to power.

In a speech in the parliament Dr Patterson made clear his views on the Holt government and also set the agenda for the policies he pursued throughout his time in parliament. Putting the case for proactive policy development, he said:

The government's policy is to wait until an emergency comes and then do something about it. … I listened with amazement to the Prime Minister say that the drought has demonstrated a need for greater investment in rural areas, particularly to guard against a recurrence of drought from which we have had the good fortune to be relatively free for a long time. I do not know what circles the Prime Minister moves in, but apparently they are confined to some parts of southern Australia.

Dr Patterson's passionate commitment to Northern Australia, and to the development and realisation of Australia's potential, marked his parliamentary career. He saw that the pathway to future development for Australian agriculture, particularly in Northern Australia, was through opening up exports to our region. And whilst he may not have been an advocate for free trade in the way we would understand it today, Dr Patterson worked tirelessly to break down barriers to trade for Australian agriculture in particular. He was a member of the landmark trip to China taken by Gough Whitlam as opposition leader—famously condemned by the then Australian government but vindicated shortly thereafter by the visit of the President of the United States, Richard Nixon. Of trade with China, Rex Patterson said:

… the trade stakes, as far as Australia is concerned, are so high in the China game that these personal political consideration should be scrapped. The future economic welfare of the Australian economy and of the people in rural areas should be the only criterion.

Dr Patterson went to China with the principal objective of opening up the wheat market. Given his roots in Bundaberg and Mackay it should not be of any surprise that he returned with an opening of exports for sugar as well. This sits alongside successful efforts to open markets for sugar in other countries, including Malaysia. He also spoke of the importance of exports and predicted future demand for commodities, including milk and milk products as well as wool and wool technology.

In addition to beef roads, Dr Patterson was also a strong advocate of other infrastructure development schemes in northern Australia. He was a great proponent of the Ord River scheme and sought the development of other such schemes, particularly in northern Queensland. It was a source of great disappointment that many of his grand plans and ideas did not come to fruition—although this was never a consequence of lack of advocacy on his part. He was also a proponent of continued uranium mining in the Northern Territory. It was as the Minister for the Northern Territory that Rex Patterson had a direct and profound impact on the lives of tens of thousands of people. When sworn to the portfolio in 1973 he became the only Australian minister to have been sworn in by a reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The NT News greeted his appointment by saying that he knew 'the saddle, the springless seat of a Jeep and the remoteness of the outback far better than most Territorians'.

Dr Patterson made immediate progress on the pathway to self-government for the Territory and in the beef and mining industries. But it was in response to Cyclone Tracy, which struck on Christmas Day 1974, that Rex Patterson's skills as a minister came to the fore. With recent experience in control of and recovery from floods in Brisbane and other parts of Queensland, Dr Patterson took command of the government's response to this natural disaster of epic proportions and supported and facilitated the mass evacuation of Darwin, earning praise from the highest levels and later acknowledgement that he never received full recognition for the part he played in that emergency.

Rex Patterson was once described by the Bulletin as a 'prickly, independent man in a prickly portfolio which has little independence and a more imposing title than responsibilities'. This undersold the impact Dr Patterson had as a minister, but the character description did highlight some of the difficulties he encountered during his time in government, including with his colleagues. Most marked of these was with the other Rex—Rex Connor, the Minister for Minerals and Energy. A minister who strongly advocated development himself, Rex Connor clashed with Dr Patterson, particularly over coal prices in Queensland. It is deeply unfortunate that such quarrels between ministers, which were by no means isolated, contributed to the fortunes or lack thereof of the Whitlam government.

In October 1975 Rex Patterson became Australia's Minister for Agriculture, the portfolio in which he had served as shadow minister in opposition but that had to that point eluded him in government. However, the actions of Sir John Kerr in dismissing the government meant that Dr Patterson served a mere few weeks in that portfolio. It is beyond doubt that, were it not for the intervention of events beyond his control, Australia would have seen the drive and tenacity that typified Dr Patterson's approach to his previous responsibilities, exercised through the agricultural policy landscape. As with so many careers that came to a premature end, our country was deprived of the true potential of this minister. After losing his seat, the seat of Dawson, in the 1975 election, Rex Patterson remained working in the areas he loved. He was a consultant in agricultural economics and a primary producer.

In conclusion, I say this: Rex Patterson was a man who was respected where it counted. He dismissed governments that merely hoped to provide for the Australian people, decrying the attitude of the Liberal and Country parties, who 'hoped' but never acted. His life and service to our nation were filled by big ideas backed up by understanding and experience as well as accomplishment. Rex Patterson passed on 6 April in his home town of Mackay at the age of 89. We farewell him, and we extend our deepest sympathies to his daughter, Jayne, and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren as well as all his friends and colleagues.