George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate records its deep sorrow at the death, on 15 August 2017, of the Honourable Brian Francis Gibson, AM, places on record its gratitude and admiration for his service to the Parliament and the nation, and tenders its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

Brian Francis Gibson was born in Ascot Vale in Victoria on 4 November 1936. He was the eldest of 10 children of Kingsley Melbourne Gibson and his wife Agnes. After completing his secondary education at St Patrick's College in Ballarat, Brian followed his father into a career in forestry, undertaking further study by way of a Bachelor of Science in Forestry and a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne. From 1957 until 1972 he worked with the Forests Commission of Victoria, and it was during his early years with the commission that he married Pauline Veronica James, with whom he had three children, Sharon, Kieran and David.

The beginning of Brian's association with Tasmania came in 1972 when he was recruited by the paper and pulping firm Australian Newsprint Mills in the town of Boyer. Before taking up this new role, however, Brian travelled to Jamaica with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization to lend his expertise to a forestry project in that nation. Returning to Tasmania, he went on to serve as Managing Director of Australian Newsprint Mills from 1980 to 1989 and as President of the National Association of Forest Industries from 1987 to 1991. These were years during which the polarising disputes between conservationists and the Tasmanian forestry sector were particularly acute, and Brian's time at the helm of the industry's peak advocacy body no doubt coloured his views on the impediments to his state's future prosperity. He was no friend of the Greens. In his maiden speech, he lamented the fact that, although the environmental movement had successfully widened our understanding of the need for environmental consciousness, unfortunately the extremists of the movement had been successful in creating unnecessary concern about particular issues, and the political decisions which had arisen had done great harm to our economy and the investment climate.

Brian Gibson won preselection by the Tasmanian division of the Liberal Party and was elected to the Senate at the 1993 federal election, taking the place of the retiring Liberal senator for Tasmania, Shirley Walters, whose death we mourned only recently. In his maiden speech in this place, Brian paid tribute to the significant contributions of his predecessor but sought to assure his colleagues that they 'should not expect the same frequency of interjections from this seat', an assurance which I am sure all honourable senators who served with him would agree he lived up to. But that did nothing to diminish the significance of his contribution to the parliament. He was an exquisitely polite man.

At 56 years of age, Brian had already had an enormously successful career in business when he took his place in this chamber. He had been chief executive of Australian Newsprint Mills for nearly a decade and was also an independent director of several large corporations, including being chairman of the Hydro-Electric Commission. In 1988, he had been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to the forestry industry. Being responsible for managing Australian Newsprint Mills, one of Australia's few internationally competitive manufacturers in that sector, was, Brian observed, 'a good position from which to observe and understand the Australian economy'. In his maiden speech he made no secret of his intention to use his precious time in this place directing his energies towards reforming the economy and the business of government. It was microeconomic reform in particular which was for Brian an issue of moral concern, for he was adamant that it was only through increased productivity, together with fiscal restraint, that Australia could remain prosperous—wise words, indeed—not, as he insisted, for ourselves but for our children and their children, 'so that they have options available to them to devote what they wish to leisure, to the arts and to the environment, to those less well off in the world'.

Drawing upon a lifetime of managerial and business experience, Brian Gibson quickly established a reputation within the Liberal Party as a forceful and well-informed advocate for economic reform. Just 10 months into his first term, in May 1994, he was appointed parliamentary secretary to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Richard Alston, and from December 1994 he served as parliamentary secretary to the shadow Treasurer, Peter Costello. Reflecting on his time in parliament in the twilight of his Senate career, Brian Gibson identified his time in opposition as among the most productive years in which he was able to apply his economic and business expertise to the broad scope of significant legislative change then being pursued by the Keating government. Based on his reflections, it is clear that he saw himself as an economic reformist first and a partisan politician second, and he noted that he was proud to play a part in the formulation of national competition policy and the work of the newly minted Productivity Commission.

Following John Howard's election victory in 1996, Brian Gibson joined the first Howard government as Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, a particularly important role for a newly elected government determined to embark upon a course of significant economic reform. He had responsibility, among other things, for the corporations law and the Australian Securities Commission, as it was then known.

However, sadly, his time in the ministry was short lived. In October 1996, just seven months into the life of the Howard government, the Prime Minister formed the view, on a strict reading of his new code of conduct, that Brian should resign from the ministry because it had been revealed that he had signed a statutory instrument related to banking which affected a bank in which he held a small parcel of shares but by which he could not, in any way, have gained advantage. I had cause some years into my Senate career to reflect on the circumstances that led to Brian Gibson's resignation and the foreshortening of what would have been a very significant career in executive government at the forefront of economic reform. I gave a speech on the subject of ministerial responsibility to the ANU College of Law, and I recalled that many thought at the time that Brian Gibson's dismissal was unwarranted in the circumstances, but those were the early days of the government, and the Prime Minister was no doubt concerned to reinforce the public perception that his new code of conduct was unforgiving in its strictness. Subsequently, amendments were made which would allow an appropriate flexibility without compromising its purpose—to some extent, no doubt, in response to the injustice of the Gibson case.

As I also said about the circumstances of Brian Gibson's resignation, no suggestion of dishonesty was made by anyone, because such a suggestion would have been risible. A more careful, more honest, more punctilious man than Brian Gibson it would have been impossible to know. And it is a great tragedy that an overzealous application of that document by a then inexperienced Prime Minister had that effect. The view I then expressed and express again today would, I think, be shared by virtually everyone, including, I dare say, Mr Howard himself.

The injustice of Brian Gibson's resignation was taken up again by many of his Senate colleagues on the occasion of his valedictory, as was the characteristic stoicism that he had displayed in the aftermath. Reflecting on the episode, Senator Boswell observed that the dignity with which Brian exited the front bench will go down as one of the highlights of his career. A lesser person could have said: 'That's enough; I've had a gutful. You go and do it yourself now.' But he did not. He 'knuckled down and made a considerable contribution'. But perhaps the most poignant reflection on Brian Gibson's contribution to this place came from a political foe and a former senator who would be familiar to many in this place, none other than the Hon. Stephen Conroy, who said of Brian, simply, that his resignation was Australia's loss.

I had a personal association with Brian Gibson, relatively fleeting, but one that meant a lot to me. When I was first elected to the Senate, some 17 years ago, I had the good fortune to be allocated a seat beside Senator Gibson, up there where he and I sat, where Senator McKenzie and Senator Canavan currently sit. The coalition in those days had the practice of seating new senators beside older, more experienced senators. We'd not met before, and our association was relatively brief because he resigned from the Senate in February 2002. But, in the less than two years during which I got to know Brian Gibson, particularly as a new and inexperienced and enthusiastic younger senator, he was very kind to me, and he was very patient with me. As I said, a more honest, fussy, punctilious gentleman you would never hope to meet.

Brian Gibson resigned from the Senate in February 2002 to return to the world of business, in which he had achieved such notable success in his prepolitical life. It is worthy of note that, at the time he served in this chamber, he was probably the most experienced senior businessperson to sit in the parliament, and the loss of all of that commercial experience was itself a tragedy. In his postpolitical life, he served on the board of the Australian Stem Cell Centre and as a director of the Australian National Maritime Museum, among other positions.

Brian Gibson was an astute businessman, a capable parliamentarian, a cherished and honourable colleague and a devoted husband and father. He came to this place at the peak of his career. He gave significant service in policy development in a complex field to which he brought almost unique expertise, and, after the political mishap that befell him, he left in good grace and high esteem. On behalf of the government, I offer my sincere condolences to his loved ones.