Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Some people are taken from us too early but their achievements stand out all the more for that. Mehmet Tillem was one of those people. He died at just 45 after a long series of illnesses. His time as a member of the Senate was brief, yet he made history just by being here. As others have already indicated, he was the first senator of Turkish descent and he was the second Muslim to serve in this parliament. As he said in his first speech of this place, his faith was always important to him. But so were many other things that made up the Mehmet Tillem that we knew; certainly the one that I knew. He was a close associate, friend and ally of Stephen Conroy but he worked much more broadly in the Labor Party than that. He was also a very close friend of Kosmos Samaras, the assistant secretary of the Victorian branch of the Labor Party.

He spent a considerable amount of time in my office in various capacities. As a competitor and a person who discussed the future of the Labor Party in Victoria for great periods of time, I found him to be a man of integrity and honesty, and to be trustworthy. These are things that are important, because in this business we have very little other than our reputation. While he might have been a practitioner of the dark arts, as Senator Kitching has indicated—I'm sure he would be very pleased to hear how much of that has now been revealed!—it is the capacity to engage on the basis of integrity about the things that really do matter that one can hold up as one's legacy.

His story is a great Australian story and a great Labor story. It is a great story about the extraordinary contribution that immigration and multiculturalism has made to our country. It is a story about the importance of family and community. It is a story of the struggle of working-class people to build a better life. It is a story about how manufacturing provides jobs, hope and opportunity for communities. It is a story about using the power of government to create a fairer and more prosperous country for all of us. Mehmet Tillem stood for all of those things, and he never wavered in that.

His father, Ramazan, came to this country as what might be called in some circles an illegal immigrant. Those were much more tolerant times. In 1976, the Fraser government allowed Ramazan Tillem to stay in Australia and bring his wife and child here. Although Mehmet was always a good Labor man, he always gave credit to the coalition for that decision. He regarded it as an example of how governments could use their powers to make life better for ordinary people.

Mehmet said that one of the first English words his father learnt was 'job'. The Tillem family worked hard and achieved the better life that they were seeking. Their story is the story of so many migrants who have shaped the northern suburbs of Melbourne. It is very much the story of Broadmeadows. It is the story of Glenroy, where Mehmet's family home was and where he lived. His father worked in the car industry—Toyota, Dunlop, Ford and Holden. Mehmet understood what the car industry meant to Melbourne and to Australia more generally. It not only provided jobs for people like his father but also was a great repository of skills, and it also provided the vehicle for those hopes and aspirations. It was an industry that was a great driver of innovation in the country. It was one of the great manufacturing centres that were so important to the labour movement.

Mehmet entered the Senate at a time when the Abbott government was, of course, taking the decision to force the industry in this country to shut down. In his first speech, he said, 'I was going to say that we could be negligent if we let Holden fall; well, I guess we are negligent.' He understood how many thousands of people would be affected if the manufacturing sector disappeared. He knew that Victoria, the state that he so proudly represented, would be affected most of all. His mother, Fatma, worked in biscuit factories, shoe factories and an electronics components factory. Many, of course, were within spitting distance of where they lived. Many of those are now closed.

He said that what always kept him going was the story about the first English word his father learnt; he said it was what drew him to the Labor Party and what drew him to this chamber. He said that we have a shared responsibility to look after all the citizens of this country, and we cannot do that selectively. He said:

A job gives every Australian immense self-worth and dignity. I will fight for the rights of all Australians: to be able to work, to give our kids the opportunity for an education just like I got, to get health care and to look after those that need our help. These are Labor values and, I believe, the values of most Australians.

They are indeed. Of course, Mehmet Tillem always fought for those values. All those hours we spent arguing the toss about future directions were aimed at that: securing the future of Labor. He continued to do that well after he left this chamber. As has already been mentioned, he was the chief of staff for Philip Dalidakis, the Minister for Small Business, Innovation and Trade in the Victorian government. I think he always remained, as he described himself in his first speech, a product of the grassroots of the Labor Party. He knew that the Labor Party would lose touch with those grassroots at its peril, and he did listen to ensure that grassroots supporters joined the Labor Party—in great numbers, I might say—and to ensure that they did, in fact, support him as well.

In his first speech—I know a number of senators have referred to this first speech—he told how his young son, Mikail, asked him if he'd made any laws in the Senate yet. Mehmet said, 'Not yet.' Mikail said, 'You should make a law where you make more schools because not all kids can fit on the mat.' For that policy suggestion, Mehmet thanked him and said he was very proud of him. You can be sure that Mikail is proud of him too. My deepest condolences to his family, to his friends and to his community.