Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate records its sorrow at the death, on 30 March 2022, of the Honourable Robert James Brown AM, former Minister for Land Transport and Shipping Support and former Member for Hunter and Charlton, places on record its appreciation of his service to the Parliament and the nation and tenders its sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

President and fellow senators, I rise to express condolences on behalf of the Labor government following the passing of a Labor comrade, the Hon. Robert James Brown, AM, better known as Bob Brown, a former minister and member of the House of Representatives, at the age of 88. I wish to convey at the outset our collective deepest sympathies to his family and his friends.

Bob Brown was an economics teacher who would go on to be part of the government that is defined by the reforms it made to the Australian economy. A true Labor man from the Hunter, he served in all three levels of government. At its pinnacle, his career took him into ministerial service under two prime ministers. Bob Brown grew up in the Hunter. It was where he would spend most of his life, and it was the area and community he would go on to represent. His was a quintessential Labor background: mother from a mining family and his dad drove a coal truck. He took up a teaching position at Kurri Kurri in 1966 and served in local government from 1968 to 1980 in the city of Greater Cessnock as mayor and alderman. For a time, he served concurrently as the local state member of the parliament in the New South Wales legislative assembly. But the call to Canberra would come just two years later.

Until the election of Mr Dan Repacholi just a few months ago, Bob Brown was the last person to represent the federal electorate of Hunter who was not a Fitzgibbon. He won in 1980 and was returned in 1983. Boundary changes meant that he transferred to the seat of Charlton and was elected seven times before retiring at the 1998 election. He would, in fact, be succeeded by his daughter in that seat.

Bob Brown was a powerful voice for a key constituency that was at the coalface, quite literally, of economic change. For anyone who thinks commentary about changing economic circumstances and voting habits in the Hunter is only a recent turn of events, it pays to look at this history. Bob Brown had the task of representing an electorate that was grappling then with changes in the economy that saw communities facing higher than average unemployment as coal mines closed and other industries were under threat. He had to grapple with the impact of change and attempt to explain its economic imperative in the face of political disenfranchisement and disenchantment. He described it as: 'Resentment, frustration, alienation, disillusion—a mix of everything. People don't comprehend really what's happening.

I draw upon these comments to illustrate the challenges and responsibilities that fall to local parliamentarians in those communities in electorates where heavy industry has dominated, and where structural economic change is changing people's opportunities. It is easy for politicians who don't represent such electorates to be blithe about change. But we all have a role in helping Australians across this country dealing with shifting economic conditions.

Bob Brown's voice rose to a more senior level in 1988 when he was appointed a minister for the first time, with responsibility for land transport and shipping. At the time, key participants in the transport economy such as the Australian National Line—or ANL—in shipping and Australian National in rail were still wholly government owned, which gave the minister a much more direct involvement than that which we see today. His contribution was recognised with the leader of the EL class of locomotive, built for Australian National in 1990, being named after him. These portfolios gave him a role in furthering the government's microeconomic reform agenda. This included initiatives to codify uniform road transport regulations across the country, bringing states and territories together to streamline technical requirements that relieved the trucking industry of the burden of different standards in different parts of the country. Initiatives in this space included measures that we all now take for granted, such as the 0.05 blood alcohol limit and compulsory bicycle helmet wearing.

Following the 1993 election, Bob Brown advised he would step aside from the ministry in order to provide for renewal. However, after the change of government in 1996, he assailed the Howard government's antiworker and antiunion agenda—so much and so often the hallmark of the federal coalition. After politics Bob Brown continued to be active in his local community, with involvement including the local Lyons and rugby league clubs as well as the community museum. He published a three-volume series about the first 100 years of Australia's federal parliament in 2007, called Governing Australia, and that year he was also made a Member of the Order of Australia.

Bob Brown gave a lifetime of service to the advancement of Labor's cause and the cause of democracy. He ensured that the working people of the Hunter had a voice in the halls of power, and he did not waver from his cause. As his son, Brad, was quoted in the eulogy he delivered for his father: 'He always related to the working class, identified with it and defended it and the trade union movement. To have represented coalminers and their families at three levels of government was a source of great satisfaction to him.'

I close by saying: on behalf of the government, I again express our condolences following the passing of the Hon. Bob Brown, and we again convey sympathies to his family and friends.