Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with regret that I inform the Senate of the death on 14 April 2007 of Mr Alan Ritchie Cumming Thom. Mr Cumming Thom was an officer of the Senate for 33 years, from 1955 to 1988. He served as a distinguished Clerk of the Senate from 1982 to 1988. He was Clerk when I was first elected, and I will always remember his kindness and professionalism. On behalf of all senators, I tender my profound sympathies to Mr Cumming Thom’s family in their bereavement.

Rod Kemp (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I was on the staff of Dame Margaret Guilfoyle from 1977 to 1982. Alan Cumming Thom was a senior member of the Clerk’s office during this time and I came into contact with him from time to time. The President of the Senate has outlined the very distinguished career of Alan Cumming Thom, who spent the last five years of his 33 years in the Senate in the very significant and substantial position of Clerk of the Senate.

The creation of the Senate committees is certainly one of the high points of the Australian parliamentary story. As the officer in charge of the Senate committee secretariat, Alan Cumming Thom is regarded as being largely responsible for the shaping, as I understand it, of the modern Senate committee system, after the establishment of the new standing committees in 1970. He was rightly very proud of his work. He believed that the Senate committee system was ‘the best constructed committee system in any legislative chamber in the world’.

If he was associated with some of the high points of our parliamentary story, it is also true that he was associated with rectifying one of our low points. I refer to the very unhappy story regarding the publication of the 6th edition of Odgers. In essence, in 1982 some members on the Senate Standing Committee on Procedure objected strongly to the publication of the 6th edition of Odgers on the grounds that Odgers’ views on the constitutional background to the events of 1975 were unacceptable to them. By this time, Alan Cumming Thom was Clerk of the Senate. Not to be defeated by what was obviously very partisan behaviour, he arranged for the 6th edition of Odgers to be published by the Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration. This volume finally appeared in 1991, about a year after I entered the Senate. Peter Durack then tabled the 6th edition of Odgers in the Senate and copies were distributed to all senators, and I proudly retain my copy. Fortunately, this attempt at ‘book burning’ by some members of the Senate failed, and we can be thankful for the assistance of Alan Cumming Thom on this very important issue.

The issue of Odgers which so clearly transfixed a limited number of senators in the 1980s has not caused any concern, I might say, to those who came after. I am pleased to report that the subsequent five editions of the Odgers guide—we are now up to the 11th edition—were published by the Senate and edited very well by the current Clerk. Alan Cumming Thom’s successor as Clerk of the Senate, Harry Evans, recently gave what I believe was a most interesting eulogy at the service of Alan Cumming Thom at St Andrews Church in Canberra. I will quote a couple of lines from this eulogy which I think give an excellent picture of Alan Cumming Thom as a man and as Clerk of the Senate:

More than procedure, he influenced the culture of the Senate Department. It was, first of all, a culture of the work ethic. Whenever I see committee staff, particularly, beavering away in their offices late on a non-sitting day, I think of the pattern Alan set. It was also a culture of integrity. Alan gained a reputation as something of a puritan because of his constant concern with questions of probity and propriety. I well recall an occasion when committee members were proposing to do something which was only slightly dubious, but they were anxious that Alan should not get to hear of it and raise those questions of propriety which he always raised and which they were not too keen to have raised on the occasion.

Above all, he instilled in us a belief that we were there to serve the institution, as well as those temporarily in charge of the institution. He always reminded us that our duty was to the institution, and that the Senate was more than merely the sum of the people in it and the people serving it. We were made aware that devotion to the institution could sometimes cause conflict with those in charge, and Alan never shrank from such conflict if he thought that some proposal was contrary to the best interests of the institution.

Harry Evans concluded his eulogy by saying:

We who worked with Alan for so long feel a great sense of loss, but we cannot know the loss sustained by his family. I hope that they will draw some consolation from the fact that we have a better Senate and a better Commonwealth than we would have had without him.

As you can tell from these remarks by the current Clerk of the Senate, Alan Cumming Thom was certainly a Senate partisan and proud of it. He was quoted in the press when he retired on 15 February 1988 as saying:

The biggest mistake you can make working here is to have the impression that you’re here to get something out of it, whereas you’re not, you’re here to give something to the institution.

Alan Cumming Thom lived his life by these precepts. The Senate is a better place as a result of his tireless work.

John Watson (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I offer my condolence on the passing of Mr Alan Cumming Thom. I rise today to give my personal thanks for the enormous contribution made to the Senate by the recently deceased Alan Cumming Thom. I commence by saying that Mr Cumming Thom was a personal friend of mine and a man with whom I had maintained some contact since he retired as Clerk of the Senate back in 1988 until his death recently.

He contributed greatly to my ability to do my work in this place over many years, and his knowledge and dedication cannot be questioned. I got to know him quite personally as a result of an overseas delegation to Europe, where we developed a strong friendship. I was very impressed by his professionalism. Each morning he made sure that each member of the delegation was fully briefed on their responsibilities for the coming day. That is an important thing for people travelling with delegations.

Alan Cumming Thom arrived in Australia as a boy with his family, who had migrated from Scotland. He graduated in arts and law from Sydney university and was employed by the Attorney-General’s Department from 1951 to 1955, when he was appointed as Clerk of Records in the Senate. His career after that appointment followed a progression which was well deserved by someone who took his work very seriously. Alan Cumming Thom once described himself as an ‘institutional man’ as his career was dedicated to the smooth running of his institution—our Senate.

From 1970 to 1979 he was Clerk Assistant and had administrative responsibility for the Senate committee system at a time of rapid growth in the system we now know. The successful establishment of the committee system was largely due to his profound advice and assistance. In this task he was helped by his long experience as a secretary to committees, including major select committees such as those on medical and hospital costs.

In 1972 he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to allow him to travel overseas, where he strengthened his knowledge of committee systems and helped improve his reputation as a leading authority on parliamentary committee operations. In 1982 he was appointed Clerk of the Senate, a position he retained until his retirement at the age of 60 just before the opening of the new Parliament House in 1988.

I mentioned that Alan Cumming Thom was of immense help to my work during my first decade as a senator. His characteristics of a deep knowledge of the traditions and working of the Senate combined with his calm approach to problems made him the first person a young senator would approach for advice. Mr Alan Cumming Thom also took on the mammoth task of updating and republishing the bible of our chamber, Odgers’ Australian Senate Practice.

In his later years of working here there could have been no more suitable person to take charge of keeping us up to date on the procedural matters of the Senate than Alan Cumming Thom. I note that praise was widespread on the occasion of his retirement in 1988. The Hansard of that time records speeches of thanks from Senators Button, Haines, Stone, Harradine, Brownhill and Michael Baume.

Those of my colleagues who were here in early 1988 would well remember the challenges we faced in the move to this new Parliament House and the regret we faced knowing that Alan Cumming Thom would no longer be at our beck and call to answer our questions about how to conduct proceedings in the new chamber and the new building. That we survived that move so well was due in no small part to the institution Alan Cumming Thom and his colleagues put in place during his many years of sterling service to the Senate.

To simply say that Alan Cumming Thom was a ‘true gentleman’, which he was, or was a ‘dedicated servant to the Senate’, which he also was, would be to miss the point that he was essentially a very special man whose strength of will and depth of knowledge ensured his success in his important role. I join honourable senators in passing on my personal thanks for the life of a fine man and a good friend. To his family, I add my sincere condolences at the passing of Mr Alan Cumming Thom. The Senate will not forget him.

Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—Alan Cumming Thom, as has been mentioned, was Clerk of the Senate from July 1982 to February 1988. His term as Clerk was the culmination of 33 years of long and dedicated service to this parliament and particularly to the Senate. He was, as Senator Watson said, a Scot who came to Australia as a young boy. He studied arts and law at the University of Sydney and worked at the Attorney-General’s Department before he came to work in the Senate—after applying for a position, I think, as Clerk of Records. He went on to serve in a variety of positions.

From 1970 to 1979, I think it was, he served in the role of Clerk Assistant in the Senate, and in that role he had administrative and advisory responsibility for the Senate committee system. He was particularly involved in the Senate’s establishment and expansion of standing committees, and his sage advice, based on his service in the Senate, had a significant influence on the outcome of that process, which is, as has been acknowledged publicly and internationally, one of the best committee systems in the world. He ensured that that was made public through writing journal articles and academic papers, and through presenting papers and making sure that students of politics and parliament were aware of this committee system and aware of the function of the Senate. As Senator Watson said, Alan Cumming Thom was awarded a Churchill Fellowship during which he visited America and studied legislative committee systems, and that added to his understanding of and expertise in the operations of parliamentary committees.

He was involved in the very challenging task of moving the Senate from Old Parliament House to the new Parliament House—I do not know whether we should still be calling it ‘new’ 20 years on—and he faced numerous challenges in that move, although I am not privy to those challenges. But he used his knowledge, his skill, his wisdom and his grace, I would say, to ensure that the Senate’s interests were protected in that move and not undermined. Senator Harradine said in this place, on the occasion of Alan Cumming Thom’s retirement:

I am sure it was not those pressures that led to his retirement.

It was in some ways a premature retirement. He was still a fit, active man, full of vim and vigour, and at the time I was surprised when he retired.

He was the Clerk when I came into the Senate. I look around and I realise that there are not many of us left, Senator Watson, who were here when Alan Cumming Thom was the Clerk—in fact, I think you and I and Senator Ray are the only ones in the chamber at the moment.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the President!

Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, and Senator Calvert; sorry, Mr President! But he was incredibly helpful and gave me very good advice. I had one situation which was a constitutional issue and could have affected me personally, and he spent a great deal of time seeking appropriate legal advice and appropriate assistance. When he gave me that advice I was sure that it was sound and appropriately sourced and I took his advice, and he ended up being correct. It was a time when I needed his advice and he gave it to me.

Like many other servants of the Senate, and I said this previously of Anne Lynch—and there are others who are still here but, to avoid the risk of offending anybody, I will only speak about those who have left the Senate—he would patiently answer, with the same grace and dignity, the same question that you had asked three or four times, instead of sarcastically telling you to read Odgers or to remember what you had been told the last three times you asked that question. The same question would be answered patiently and politely. It always amazes me that the Senate staff can be so patient with those of us who sometimes fail on the details of Senate process. Alan Cumming Thom was very much a Senate man. He believed in the role of the Senate, he fought for the role of the Senate and he served senators well.

He had interests outside the Senate: he was a keen cricketer in his youth, and a hockey player. I do not think he would have thought it was cricket when his wife, Mary, was taken from him. Some time after she died, I happened to meet him in Manuka and he told me how much he missed her and how different his life was without her. But, having said that, he told me about his family, focusing in typical Alan Cumming Thom style on the positive rather than the negative, and the positive was his family.

He was a gentle man and a gentleman. He had strong views, strong convictions. He was a dedicated servant of the parliament. I think the public often do not understand the incredible role that members of the parliamentary staff, particularly the clerks, deputy clerks and the committee secretaries, in both houses, play in ensuring we have a stable democracy. We take it for granted. When this place was opened—it is appropriate to talk about it because it was 20 years ago this week—Sir Ninian Stephen got up and said, ‘We share with only a very few other countries in the world the longest unbroken democracy on this planet,’ something that took me aback, because we forget that so often; we take it for granted in Australia. People groan about voting, but we do have a stable democracy, and one part of that stable democracy is the role that people like Alan Cumming Thom have played over the history of this place, a tradition that is continued by the staff of the Senate and the staff of the parliament. So often, until a time like this when somebody leaves us, we forget to express our gratitude and also to explain to the public just how important a role these people play in ensuring that we have a stable democracy and that it works to the best of all our ability.

So he was a gentle man and, as I said, he played an important role in ensuring that we have this strong, robust parliamentary system. With apologies to Shakespeare, I say: his life was gentle and the elements so mixed in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world, ‘This was a Senate man.’

Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—On behalf of the opposition I would like to join Senators Watson and Patterson in paying tribute to the former Clerk of this place. The Senate is basically configured by a provision in the Constitution and controlled by its standing orders. But, if that were all it had, it would not be a successful institution. It also runs on convention and runs on continuity, and some of the people who provide both that convention and that continuity are the clerks of this place. Alan Cumming Thom was very much part of that tradition that has continued for the entire time I have been here, and it existed long before. They never saw their role as being to dominate; they saw it as being to facilitate.

He was a very avuncular man, a very charming person and a person who obviously, if you look at the various successes he had and the success stories since, nurtured a lot of people, including new senators, through this place and was always open to that sort of advice. I only ever clashed with him once and that was over the reprint of Odgers in 1981-82. It was known as the ‘great standing orders massacre night’, in which John Button and I, and eventually Sir John Carrick, decided not to reprint Odgers in its current form because it had made some enormously provocative statements about 1975 which we did not believe the Senate should pay for. As a result of that, the Clerk did get around us very easily. He had it printed by a private printing company and then used Senate funds to buy all Odgers back, so we were done like a dinner on the subject. As it turned out, eventually Odgers became what we regarded as a slightly less partisan volume and it has been reprinted by the Senate ever since.

He will be missed and we should never undervalue the great contribution that he made to this place. We all appreciate it and we all appreciate the fact that maybe he did go a bit early in his career. But 33 years was a long time to spend in the service of his country. He did it well and he will always be remembered for it.