John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a statement to make to the Senate on the retirement of the Clerk of the Senate.

The longest serving Clerk of the Senate, Harry Evans, will soon retire. Born on 7 February 1946 in Lithgow, New South Wales, Harry went on to study at Sydney University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours. In 1967, Harry commenced as a librarian-in-training with the Parliamentary Library on a salary of $3,239 per annum. By 1969, he had come to the attention of the legendary Jim Odgers, Clerk of the Senate, who wanted to bring out a new edition of his Australian Senate Practice. Odgers was looking for a good researcher to work with him on the project. Harry, with his strong interest in history, applied for and got the job. It was this promotion that set up his mastery of Senate practice—40 years of it!

He became highly regarded as secretary to the Regulations and Ordinances Committee for many years and cut his teeth on executive accountability to the parliament. Upon his leaving in 1981, the committee chair, Victorian Liberal Senator Austin Lewis, said of him: ‘… on behalf of the committee, I wish to pay a special tribute to our former secretary, Mr Harry Evans, who has taken up other duties within the Senate. His vast knowledge, dedication and efficiency have been of inestimable value to the committee. Members of the committee congratulate Mr Evans on his advancement, and look forward to his further progress as an officer of the Senate.’

Progress indeed continued. In the early 1980s, Harry set up what is now the Procedure Office, in response to the emergence of minor parties in the Senate and their needs for procedural advice and legislative drafting support in addition to the requirements of the opposition and the government.

In 1983, the Appropriations and Staffing Committee approved a new departmental structure as a result of the growth of Senate committee work and the emergence of new functions such as procedural support for minor parties. Several positions of Clerk Assistant were created. Harry was one of the first of these new Clerk Assistants, and was responsible for the Committee Office until he returned to the Procedure Office in 1985, before being promoted to Deputy Clerk in 1987 and Clerk of the Senate the following year.

These were incredibly productive years during which Harry was Senate adviser to the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege; was secretary to the two select committees on the conduct of a judge; was the principal critic of the New South Wales Supreme Court decisions in the case of R v Murphy, which provided the immediate catalyst for the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987; was principal instructor in the drafting of the Parliamentary Privileges Bill; revised and redrafted the standing orders to bring them up to date and to delete archaic, unused and contradictory provisions; was secretary to the Select Committee on Legislation Procedures, which provided the blueprint for the system of referral of bills to committees which commenced in 1990; and initiated the Procedural Information Bulletin, which continues to provide authoritative commentary on those interesting and unusual procedures with which the Senate abounds. He also found time to be an adviser to the Joint Committee on the New Parliament House.

As Clerk, a small sample of Harry’s achievements include: rewriting Australian Senate Practice as Odgers’ Australian Senate Practice in 1995 and publishing five further editions; devising innovative procedures for senators, including the bills cut-off order and devising many accountability measures such as the contracts order and the codification of procedures for making public interest immunity claims; championing the independence of the Senate and the Senate’s rights under sections 53 and 57 of the Constitution; being a fearless critic of lack of accountability on the part of the executive; leading by example and fostering in the Department of the Senate a culture of excellence in supporting and promoting the work of the Senate; and, importantly, arguing successfully for the abandoning of the old-fashioned wigs and gowns for the clerks. Hear, hear!

Today, it is important, I think, to recall Senator Boswell’s prophetic remarks in an end-of-year valedictory in 1990, when he said:

I would like to say a special word about the Clerks. I believe Harry Evans will be one of the great clerks in the history of the Senate.

Few would argue with that now. In addition to Harry’s record tenure of 21 years as Clerk of the Senate—a record that will never be equalled under the current legislation—Australians have received great value for their tax dollar: Harry’s last sick day, I am told, was in July 1988!

Harry, let me say to you that yours has been a unique career and your contribution to this institution unmatched. Today, at least in a small way, this is being acknowledged.

Finally, to me, in my current role as President and for over a decade before this, I have always been taken by your unqualified dedication to this place and the depth of knowledge that accompanies the advice you provide to me and indeed to us all and to those, of course, who have preceded me in my role as President of the Senate. On behalf of all of those, I thank you.

May your deserved retirement serve you and your wife, Rhonda—I am please to see that Rhonda has joined us—and your family well into the future. We wish you all the best.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to make a couple of remarks in marking the occasion of Harry Evans’s retirement from the Senate. I know he is finding this excruciatingly painful and argued that it should not occur. But this is our revenge for all the times that he has frustrated us; this is our chance to exact revenge by talking about him! It is a long tradition in the Senate: we never say anything nice about anyone until they retire. So on this occasion, Harry, I am happy to say something nice about you in that great tradition of the Senate.

Your career is one of the great public service careers of your period. Your tenure as Clerk of the Senate has been a historic one in terms of its length and the contribution that has been made. It is going to be difficult to imagine the Senate without you, but we have been very lucky to ensure that we have a very able replacement. When I think about it, only Senators Boswell and McGauran were around in the day when you were not the Clerk. The rest of us have only known life with Harry Evans as the Clerk.

We certainly want to acknowledge your tremendous service. We also want to acknowledge that Harry Evans’s career has been devoted to the Australian parliament and the Senate. Harry joined the Parliamentary Library over 40 years ago as a researcher, after graduating from the University of Sydney with honours in history. He went on to work for various Senate committees before becoming Clerk Assistant in 1983, Deputy Clerk in 1987 and, finally, Clerk of the Senate in 1988.

As the longest serving Clerk of either house of parliament since Federation, Harry has crossed paths with three different governments and four prime ministers. Throughout that time he has forged a reputation as the Senate’s greatest champion, an outspoken defender of its independence, as well as a strong advocate for its role as a house of scrutiny and review. I think every government since 1988 has had its frustrations with him and has sought at various times to control or limit the power of the Senate, but they have had to confront Harry’s formidable knowledge of the Senate’s powers and processes and his fearlessness in defending them.

Described as parliament’s protector, Harry’s outspokenness has often put him at loggerheads with governments and politicians of all political persuasions over the years. I guess you can take it as a mark of independence that all governments during this period have had frustrations with the advice he has provided. I think Paul Keating once said that he would sack him if he could. I know that he came under enormous pressure during the period of the Howard government’s majority in the Senate from 2005 to 2007. One of our colleagues perhaps got a bit carried away on a couple of occasions, and I think there was a dispute in 1999 about seeking to have the Clerk’s tenure reduced to a two-year renewable contract. I am sure that was an unrelated event, but it did seem to focus minds on the independence of the Clerk.

It does take a courageous public servant or minister to stand up to a Prime Minister at the best of times, but I think Harry Evans has established a reputation for doing that in a way that displays integrity, principle and steadfast resolve. I have not always agreed with his advice, but I have always found it to be professional and independent, and I think his advice and the way he has conducted himself have earnt him respect and admiration from all sides of politics, from the media and in the broader community.

It is always the case that the Clerk’s advice, be it from the Clerk or the deputies, is much more popular with the opposition and minors than it is with the government of any persuasion, because successive oppositions rely on the advice and assistance of the Clerk in trying to match the superior resources and advice available to government. It is a feature of our system that government has more resources and more sources of advice and that in opposition, as I am sure Senator Minchin is finding—and I hope he will long do so—the resources available are limited and the alternative sources of advice are narrow, particularly if you are not prepared to pay for them. I know that parties like the Greens and the Independents very much rely on that advice. I am sure they will make that point. But, having worked with Harry as opposition whip, as opposition leader and now as government leader, I have always found his advice to be consistent, based on accurate assessment of the situation and fiercely independent.

Harry’s defence of the Senate has been very much of benefit to the Senate and our parliamentary democracy. He is, of course, also a vocal advocate of parliamentary reform, and has been published widely on the subjects of parliamentary process, constitutional issues and government accountability. I was very surprised, though, on one occasion when a friend of my sister, who is a public servant in town, asked if my sister could organise for me to request Harry to personally sign her copy of Odgers. I was able to do so and she was immensely grateful. Otherwise, she seemed quite a normal, respectable person, but why she wanted a signed copy of Odgers is beyond me! I must say that I do not leaf through it as much as I should, but on your retirement, Harry, I might actually get you to sign one of my copies as a record of the Senate. So there are fans of the Clerk of the Senate out there.

I think Harry’s period as Senate Clerk has been associated with the development of the Senate in the period from 1981 onwards, when we have seen the Senate move into a very different role, assert its authority and have minor parties and Independents having the balance of power in the Senate. I think we have seen the development of the Senate into a serious house of review, one that can and does hold governments to account and that examines executive actions. We have also seen, through the committee processes, the opening up of the legislative process to the wider community.

Harry has been here at a time when the Senate has really reinforced its role in our parliament and our democracy and has been widely regarded as being a very effective political institution. Harry has obviously been associated with that in his defence of and advice on the independence and powers of the Senate. As I said, when you are in government you are usually less keen on that, but I do accept it, and I have always argued that the development of that role for the Senate is an important part of the robustness of our democracy. Even when in government, when we have occasionally found it uncomfortable, I think it is very much to the benefit of our democracy.

Harry Evans’s association with that period and the development of the Senate role has been a crucial one. I know he has had a remarkable passion and energy for his role, but I think he is now keen on pursuing other activities. I suppose the way I would best describe Harry’s career is that it represents the very best of the concept of public service. Kim Beazley always makes the point to me about the value of public service and how it is not recognised enough and not appreciated. Certainly, since being in government, I have come to recognise how many people serve governments in the best of those traditions. I think Harry is appropriately associated with and recognised as being one of those persons who have delivered excellent public service throughout their career.

As Geoffrey Barker once wrote, ‘Thank God for Harry Evans! In an age of bureaucratic mice, the Clerk of the Senate is a lion who roars.’ It may have a touch of hyperbole but it is an appropriate recognition of the contribution Harry has made. Harry, on behalf of all members of the government, and Labor senators in particular, we congratulate you on your career. We apologise for the fact that you have had to sit through this tribute, but we do wish you all the best for the future and we do think that the culture that you have created through your leadership in the Senate and that is reflected in the work of the other Senate clerks and employees is a very strong public service culture and makes a huge contribution to parliamentary democracy in this country. All the best.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the opposition I too want to congratulate Harry Evans on what really is an extraordinary record of service to the Senate and, indeed, to the whole Australian nation. We do thank him for his remarkable contribution to the effective functioning of this chamber during his 21 years as Clerk of the Senate. As has been noted, that record of service makes him the longest serving Clerk in our history, a record that now cannot be beaten. Like Senator Evans I have had the privilege of working with Harry in this chamber for over 16½ years, 11½ of which—blessedly—were in government and now some five years in opposition, so I have experienced the performance of Harry as Clerk from the perspective of both sides of the chamber.

I think the truly distinguishing feature of Harry’s service as Clerk is his fearless championing of the great Australian institution that the Senate truly is. Harry is a very professional, dedicated public servant, but I think he is more than that. He passionately believes in the vital role that this chamber plays in the effective functioning of what is one of the world’s great democracies. He is an ardent advocate of the Senate’s responsibility in ensuring the accountability of the government of the day to the parliament. He is a committed disciple of our founding fathers’ vision for the Senate as the Commonwealth’s house of review and an essential check on what would otherwise be unbridled executive power. Thus I think Harry has, as Senator Evans noted, earned the ire of governments and the affection of oppositions but he has truly earned the respect of all.

I know of no-one who has served in this place during Harry’s tenure who does not have the utmost respect for his professional dedication to the institution of the Senate. Those of us who have served in the executive have felt the frustration of Harry’s commitment to ensuring the Senate is able to go to remarkable lengths to hold the government to account. As the minister responsible for amending the Native Title Act in 1997 and 1998 in what may forever be the two longest debates in Senate history, and for which I was responsible, I found Harry’s advice to the then opposition intensely frustrating and I may have inadvertently displayed my frustration during those very long and tedious debates. May I take this opportunity now to apologise, Harry, for any frustration which I inadvertently displayed for the excellent way in which you were advising Senator Bolkus in the combat in which we were engaged.

What I think Harry most disliked was the idea of the government of the day ever having a majority in this place. I think he sees that as a complete negation of the constitutional purpose of our nation’s upper house. Fortunately, from Harry’s point of view, government majorities in the Senate are rare indeed. Most of us were of the view that when the number of senators was increased from 64 to 76 in 1983 no government would ever again win a majority, and as the then Deputy Federal Director of the Liberal Party I monumentally failed in my task of trying to persuade the National Party not to support that Hawke government proposition because of our fear that the increase would mean that no government, especially us, would ever win a majority again. Mind you, the Hawke government was not motivated by that purpose.

The coalition surprised itself in the 2004 election by winning 39 seats and thus having a majority for the last 2½ years of our government, and I guess that period was the darkest chapter in Harry’s long service as the Clerk. As the Leader of the Government in the Senate for most of that period—a sunny period for us—I genuinely did my utmost to make sure that majority was not abused.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unsuccessfully.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I suspect that Harry and the then opposition thought I did not do a very good job.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But luckily it sowed the seeds of your destruction.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am prepared to confess I may not have done that job well all the time, but little did Harry and the then opposition realise how fragile a one-seat majority is for two parties which do properly accord their members the right to cross the floor without fear of expulsion. As we said, we had a one-seat majority on a good day. I would have to say that managing our Senate majority at that time was the hardest job I have had in politics and I was always conscious of the state of anxiety that our Clerk experienced throughout that period.

I do want to add the rider that I think it is appropriate that our electoral arrangements are such that it is possible for the people to give a government a majority in the Senate if they so choose, albeit it is now almost impossible. It has been a privilege for me to serve in this Senate for nearly 17 of the 21 years that Harry Evans has been the Clerk, and as someone who genuinely shares his strong belief in the virtue of bicameral parliaments with strong upper houses I do applaud his dedication to ensuring the Australian Senate plays an integral role in what is one of the world’s great democracies. Harry, on behalf of the opposition I do wish you sincerely all the very best in your retirement after a wonderful career.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Very gladly on behalf of the Greens and senators generally I wish to acknowledge a remarkable servant of the Senate, servant of the parliament and servant of the people of Australia in Harry Evans. I draw to the attention of the Senate the origins of the position of Clerk, which goes back to 1315 in the UK. The description of the requirement of the position of Clerk was someone who could read and write to inform the largely illiterate membership, fulfil the need to keep a minute record of decisions and proceedings and inform members of what was going on. We may be a little bit more generally educated these days but I think everybody in this place who has had contact with our Clerk or his wondrous staff would acknowledge that that repository of information is crucial to the functioning of this great Senate of Australia.

The Senate is mentioned in the Constitution before the House of Representatives. It is the backstop of the people and repeated polls show that it is very popular as a people’s house and a check on the executive. The House of Representatives was the people’s house but in these days of majority government it is the executive that reigns in the other place and the people’s representation that reigns in this place. The keeping of the Senate, that honoured role which goes right back to Federation, has been in admirable hands through this Clerk through these last 21 years.

It has seen the Senate grow in its ability to be a check on an ever-stronger executive and it has seen the Senate able to use a committee system in the service of the people of Australia in a way that has never been witnessed in the previous history of the constitutional process of this great and long-living democracy. The Clerk, Harry Evans, if I may quote him, in a recent Senate occasional lecture in this parliament, finished with:

We are now told that we live in an age of crises, economic and environmental. In crises the greatest danger comes from those who claim to know all the solutions and who demand immediate implementation of them. Such people are likely to be found holding executive office. The greater the crisis, the more likely it is that mistakes will be made in attempting to deal with it, and the greater the need for scrutiny of proposals based on sound information. The legislature should provide that scrutiny. The Australian Parliament cannot be well equipped to provide that scrutiny when one House is not permitted to make its own inquiries into significant issues and proposals, and the other struggles to make up the deficiency against executive resistance. Parliamentary reform is never more necessary than in this age of crisis, and further subordination of Parliament never more perilous. The proponents of openness and scrutiny should be more militant than ever before.

That from a great Clerk of a great house of parliament in a great nation. I laud this Clerk, Harry Evans, as ‘not a public servant but a servant of the Senate’, as he would say himself. He has a passion for constitutional history and probity. A string of prime ministers, at least two previous to the one now incumbent, might like to have sacked him, but he was and is the champion of the Senate as that extraordinarily important balance to the executive that this nation requires.

I go to only one instance of many in which I am indebted to the Clerk, his advice and his defence not of myself but of the Senate. That was after I spoke up in a joint house sitting. The Clerk had warned about joint house sittings; they were constitutional no-person’s-land. I was ostensibly expelled with fellow Senator Nettle after speaking to the visiting President of the United States. The next day an order went around that staff were to prevent us two senators from entering the next joint house sitting, when President Hu arrived. This Clerk, in defence of the Senate, made it clear that that may have constituted an assault on a senator and that no senatorial staff should be involved in such a process. It happens to be that—quite illegally, I believe—we were prevented from entering that joint house sitting, but in the heat of that very contentious moment it was this Clerk who defended this Senate and its senators, and I will always be one to recognise not just a judicious mind and a great defender of the Senate but a Clerk who had the courage to make decisions which would hold this Senate in good stead against decisions executive or otherwise in the parliament or elsewhere in the country according to the constitutional basis upon which the Senate was created for the people of Australia.

The Clerk should be chairman of the Senate, say our standing orders in the prologue to the appointment of the President. On a number of brief occasions this Clerk has been chairman, but in fact we have here not a chairman but a champion of the Senate second to none. I note that in his CV it says his interests are history and bushwalking. I say to Harry Evans: you are part of this nation’s history, and a very great pride may you take in your role in this nation’s history and, in particular, the history of this Senate. I wish you, on behalf of my colleagues all, a great deal of bushwalking at your property out near Braidwood and a great deal of communing with nature—I find that a very powerful and potent elixir for life. We wish you many, many happy post-Senate years, but I am sure you will be contributing to this Senate through both your past activities and your future wisdom in commenting or writing about matters until the last day you draw breath. For that, we wholeheartedly thank you.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr President. I rise to concur with the remarks given by Senator Evans, you, Senator Minchin and Senator Brown. If everybody conducted the Senate the way Sir Richard Baker from South Australia, who was a free trader and fought a duel with Kingston, did, the role of the Clerk of the Senate would be far easier. Unfortunately, as it has devolved more into a party political house it has lost the capacity for that proper ventilation of ideas. Maybe that will change and maybe that will be a good thing, but in the interim period it has been very good to have people such as Harry Evans there to reinforce the culture of what a Senate is actually supposed to be and what it is actually supposed to do.

I know I have a dubious honour of having crossed the floor a few times in the coalition government. At those times where there is a lot of emotional weight on you, where there is strong belief that colleagues will rightly put towards you that you might be doing something that is wrong, if you needed to bounce an idea off someone it was the staff in the Senate who could reinforce the proper role. That culture was not just through Harry Evans himself; he has endowed on the other people who work in the Senate that culture to properly display what your rights were and what you had the capacity to do, spelling out the constitutional bases of what you were allowed to do—in fact what there was an expectation of you to do and why you should not feel guilty about it.

Harry has been a great source of unbiased advice and information. I do not know how many people in this chamber have at times snuck into Harry’s office to find out exactly where they stood on a certain issue and what was liable to happen next. We come here and we pass through this place. We have all had a glance through Odgers. At times, if we cannot get to sleep, we might pick it up and read a couple of pages and that seems to do the trick! Apart from that, you need people who are proficient in it and Harry was certainly that.

The National Party has at times had a very delicate position to play because of the intricacies of coalition arrangements and governments and also in trying to deal with the constituent requirements that were made loud and clear to us. Our reliance—sometimes, in a funny way, like the Independents and the Greens—on the role of Harry Evans and those whom he has instructed was extremely important. I hope that the endowment of Harry Evans to the parliamentary process of this nation is continued and that the strident independence that is required of advice is maintained.

I must say I am not going to take as a great loss the removal of the Eureka flag from the Clerk’s office, but that is all a part of the things that made Harry unique, competent and a marvellous asset to this chamber. No doubt Senator Boswell, as father of the Senate, has had the greatest experience of engagement with Harry as Clerk in this chamber. No doubt Senator Williams and Senator Nash have all had those periods of actually going through the intricacies of legislation.

Harry, I note you are a historian and a bushwalker, as Senator Brown said. I hope you have a chance now to spend more time with your family enjoying the more restful and leisurely times that are ahead of you but without completely absconding from your responsibility to at times comment on the way that the process of parliamentary democracy is working in Australia. You know more than most and I am sure there is still a wealth of information in front of us to come from you. Thank you, Harry, and God bless.

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I concur with all the remarks so far. The Senate is indebted to Harry Evans, the parliament is indebted to you and the nation is also indebted. You are a prime example of what Australians love about Australia. You are humble, you have no tickets on yourself but you are like a walking encyclopedia. You have walked without fear or favour; you have walked with integrity. You have always been available, I would say, to nearly anyone. I have only been here a short time and I acknowledge the father of the Senate will say more in that regard, but I can assure you that you are the essence of what Australia is about as you have gone about doing your work without any great tickets on yourself.

It is amazing that you have continued for 21 years as Clerk of the Senate. I do not think we are ever going to be able to replace you—with no reflection on the new person at all. I have only drawn on a part of that 21 years of experience and I can assure you that it has been most valuable. You recently told ABC Radio National that the best parliamentary system is one where no party has a majority. It would not come as a surprise to you that I totally agree with this. I lived under the Howard government and I think that government failed in the end because of its control of the Senate.

I want to say, Harry, that you have been a true Australian, never being swayed by politics and always giving professional and independent advice. I think this country—I have to be careful what I say here—should bestow on you the highest honour. I cannot speak more highly of an individual in this nation. I am serious, because you know exactly what this Senate means to Australia more than anyone else in this country. I take my hat off to you. I wish you well in your retirement. If I could hire you, I would! If I could have you as a twin brother, I probably would too. Thank you so much for what you have done and the sacrifices that you have made to serve this nation in such a distinguished way and with such honour. I wish you and your wife well in retirement.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For Harry’s sake I will be brief. I join in acknowledging Harry’s outstanding contribution to the public service of this nation and his fearless and wise advocacy of the Senate and its role in our democracy and I wish him and his family all the very best for the future. It never ceases to amaze me how revered Harry is by both major parties, especially when they are in opposition. In contrast, for us crossbenchers, our respect, admiration and affection for Harry has always been unwavering!

His contribution to the institution of the Senate will be even more enduring not just because of his advice and advocacy but because of the way he has strengthened the Department of the Senate and cultivated a culture of excellence within his department. It reminds me of that Ralph Nader quote. Ralph Nader once said, ‘The function of genuine leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers,’ and Harry has done exactly that in his own department. I wish Harry Evans and his family all the very best and I feel privileged to have been in this place with Harry as Clerk.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia’s democracy has many great institutions, and after 20 years in this place I might be permitted a little bias when I say that the Senate, with its powers of scrutiny and review, is a particularly significant one. Harry Evans, of course, has always been a defender of the Senate and its watchdog role in our democracy. Harry’s stalwart commitment to the rights and powers of the parliament, as distinct to those of the executive, of course has been a constant feature, as his fearless defence of those powers has been.

He has made many memorable contributions to the deliberations of this chamber. One that I will forever remember occurred during the debate on the so-called ‘deficit reduction’ bills back in October 1993. Then, as now, the crossbenchers held the balance of power. We were anticipating a number of tied votes during the debate. There was a lot of discussion about how the tied votes might be interpreted, particularly in the case of negatived motions such as ‘the amendments not be insisted on’. To give you some idea—if anyone is interested in this, apart from me and Harry—of the procedural complexity of these issues, I refer you to Harry’s sage advice which you can find in Odgers 12th edition on pages 258, 306, 307, 308 and 399. A former President of the Senate who was in the chair very late at night had considerable trouble in mastering the complexity of Harry’s wisdom and found it necessary to frequently lean over the President’s desk and seek Harry’s guidance. He also had a lot of trouble turning his microphone off, and consequently the chamber echoed with his plaintive cries. I will never forget them, late at night: ‘Harry! Harry!’ The whole world heard it. I am sure that such plaintive cries will also echo around the chamber for quite a while after you have left us, Harry.

I have had the great privilege of working with Harry Evans in a number of different roles, not that his job has changed; mine certainly has. As a backbench senator, as a minister, as Manager of Government Business in a previous government and as Leader of the Opposition in the Senate for far, far too many years, there were many occasions on which I needed to seek—and I did seek and I did benefit from—Harry’s advice. Most often, but not always, I agreed with that advice. Most often, but not always, I followed that advice.

Harry has a reputation of being a thorn in the side of government—any government. Harry is not on the side of one party or another. He is on the side of the parliament, and I would say passionately and eruditely so. He is on the side of accountability. I am pleased about that. He is on the side of government transparency. I like that too. He is on the side of good parliamentary process and scrutiny, and I endorse that. He has often been described as fiercely independent, and he is certainly that. He has always given a clear and straight answer to any question, whether asked by a government senator, a member of the opposition, a crossbencher or a journalist. The thing I want to stress today is that he is encyclopedically informed on Senate procedure and process and is not only—and this is really important—keenly insightful when it comes to the implications of Senate action but wisely cautious about any consequences of changes to Senate procedure.

Harry, after the time you have had in this place you certainly deserve a break. I hear that you have declared an intention to continue to give us the benefit of your wisdom and experience on the parliament and the Senate in particular. I expect that from time to time some of us might find that discomforting. It might be discomforting; it will always be impartial. Harry, finally, I sincerely hope that I will enjoy reading your memoirs. My personal request is: please be generous.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I advise Senator Faulkner that the President who leant over to Harry so often might even be in the building again tonight, but whether we hear the same comment remains to be seen! On a personal note, I record my thanks for the advice—as people have said before, the extremely unbiased advice—that Harry gave to me while I was President and throughout the rest of my career over the past 17½ years in this place.

As has been said previously, there are only two people in this place who have served under any other Clerk. Harry is all we have ever known. The thing that always amazed me when asking Harry for advice was that he never had to say, ‘I’ll have to go away and look it up.’ It was always instant advice. The encyclopedic knowledge of Senate practice that Senator Faulkner talked about was something that you could always rely on from Harry. If you were in the presiding officer’s chair asking for advice, whether it was me as President or any one of the temporary chairs who may have leant over to get advice from Harry, the advice was always instant, it was correct and it was always unbiased, and you cannot ask for any more in an officer of this place than to be sure that you get unbiased advice.

During the 17 years that I have been here there has not always been unanimous support for some of Harry’s public utterances outside this place, but that is a totally different issue. Because he is a man of such standing in this place, people sought Harry’s advice on a whole range of issues, and when he was asked to give that advice he gave it in the same fearless manner. In government we did not always like it and in opposition we probably thought it was pretty good, but that is the way of politics. That is why, when you have an independent officer of the Senate with such experience and such knowledge, those utterances, but also the advice, are always taken in the best manner.

There are those on the other side of this building who have absolutely no understanding of what takes place in the Senate. They have very little understanding of the Senate.

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

Senator Brandis interjecting—

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are probably right, Senator Brandis. But, in fact, if they would only take the time to see just how an upper house of parliament actually does its business, they might find they are admirers of a democracy that is working very well. I always find it rather sad that people in the House of Representatives—I guess that is the nature of things if you have a border around a small constituency or electorate—are just concerned about pleasing everybody in that electorate because they want to get back next time. When senators are elected to this place, they have a different constituency. They have a different role to play. They probably have more of an issues based concern about what takes place in this place than even a party political position sometimes. I have always been glad that whenever I or any of my colleagues have gone to Harry Evans for advice we could always place our faith in the fact that it would be good advice, that it would be accurate, that it would be timely and that it would serve us in good stead in the future.

Harry, on a personal note, I want to thank you sincerely for the way you treated me when I was President, because a new President in particular needs advice constantly. I am sure that anybody who has been President realises that. The way you freely gave of your advice is something that I will not forget. I certainly wish you well in the future. I note that you like bushwalking. I hope that climate change alarmists are not too right and it does not get too hot for you to walk in the next few years. You deserve to enjoy your time when you leave this place because you have provided the sort of service that you see only once in a lifetime. Thank you.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As one of the two people remaining in this place that saw Harry Evans take the chair on the right of the bench and become the father of the house, can I say to you, Harry, that I thank you for the service that you have given to this institution. I was Leader of the National Party for 17 years and, if I had to describe you, I would say that nothing was ever too much trouble and nothing was beyond you. You could always walk in—and I have experienced this even in the last couple of weeks when I sought some advice on the ETS—and advice would be forthcoming. If you required it in writing, you got it in writing on the day or the next day. Nothing was ever too much trouble. You are going to be sadly missed in this place—certainly by the Independents and the Greens, who I think use you and the clerk’s office much more than other people. As far as I am concerned, you were a great friend to me, who had to come to you for advice many, many times.

Twenty-one years in the Senate is a long time. It is a long time to be a servant to the people. And you would have dealt with totally different people from all sides of politics—from the Greens to the Labor Party to the Nationals and the Liberals. I do not think I have ever heard anyone say anything bad about you, certainly not personally. On occasions some people have disagreed with your decisions, but I have never heard anyone say, ‘We should get rid of him,’ or something like that. You have always been highly regarded in this place. Can I take the opportunity of wishing you all the best in your retirement. I hope you enjoy your bushwalking. I hope you enjoy all the things that come with retirement and more time with your wife and family. Good luck.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have been in this place for a very lucky 13 years and I have been very fortunate in that time to have had the benefit of Harry Evans’s advice on many occasions. Most of my time, unfortunately, has been spent in opposition. The process of holding government to account with the limited resources of an opposition means that you require the best possible advice. It is often said that knowledge is power, and Harry has always been a source of knowledge for anyone who sought information from him.

I am sure that in the current debate that is taking place in the chamber there is much advice being sought about procedural matters. We have seen that repeatedly over the last few months, with an opposition seeking a position where it can cobble together the numbers using procedures to embarrass the government. But it would be Harry’s job to tell an opposition how they could do that, just as it would be Harry’s job to tell a government how they could respond. That is the knowledge that everyone needs to operate in this place. They need to understand what the rights of senators are. They need to understand what the obligations of senators are. To receive that advice, as I have over many years, has been a real privilege.

I know that from time to time we do things in this chamber that Harry Evans disagrees with, because in some ways we are breaking down standards which he believes we should preserve. Nevertheless, it is good to have those acknowledgements and reminders to understand when we are pushing the boundaries a bit that perhaps we should not push them too much more if we appreciate the values which this place embodies. It has been a great pleasure and an honour to have served with Harry as the Clerk of the Senate and the font of much knowledge in this place, certainly on procedure. I wish Harry well in his retirement. I am absolutely certain that we will hear much from Harry in the future. I look forward to hearing from Harry and I wish him well.

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

I would like to add a few words of my own in appreciation of the service of Harry Evans. In an institution where the turnover of its members is rapid, and has become more rapid with the passage of the years, Harry Evans, Clerk of the Senate for 21 years, has increasingly become the embodiment and the font of institutional knowledge and institutional memory in this chamber—so much so that I think it is fair to say that, amongst those in the Australian population who watch carefully political affairs, Harry, more than any individual senator, has become the visible embodiment of the Senate. That is certainly the tradition that he has served, and he has served it with honour and distinction. In my association with Harry Evans I have always found him to be patient, erudite and somewhat idiosyncratic—some might even say a little quirky. He was a presence around this place that was at the same time elusive and pervasive.

My association with Harry has extended in particular to several occasions over the nearly a decade now that I have served in this chamber when Harry and I have both given papers on the Senate to schools of politics or legal conferences. There is one anecdote I would like to place on the record about an occasion when Harry was of tremendous assistance to me. In 2005 I was asked to give a paper to a constitutional law conference at the University of New South Wales on the Australian Senate and responsible government. I asked Harry for his advice and guidance in relation to a number of sources in writing that paper. We discussed the emergence of the Senate committee system. Other senators have spoken today about how the Senate committee system is one of the great glories of this chamber—a system unmatched in any other parliamentary chamber in the world.

Harry pointed out to me that the Senate committee system was actually established in 1970 as a result of an act of defiance by a government senator—the then Queensland Liberal Senator Ian Alexander Christie Wood. I might say that one of Harry’s specialisations is a deep knowledge of eccentric senators and obscure senators from ages past. Ian Alexander Christie Wood was a very eccentric Queensland Liberal senator who was first elected in 1949 and went on to serve in 14 parliaments until his retirement on 30 June 1978. Harry pointed out to me that it was because Senator Wood crossed the floor against the government of the day—it would have been the Gorton government—that the Senate committee system was established. I found this a delightful fact.

A little later in the morning after our conversation, Harry arrived at my office. He had been good enough to photocopy for me the Journals of the Senate of 11 June 1970, pages 189 to 190. The division list recorded in the Journals of the Senate of 11 June 1970 record indeed that when a motion to establish the Senate committee system was put by then Senator Lionel Murphy the motion was passed with 27 ayes and 26 noes, with the name of Senator Ian Alexander Christie Wood appearing on the division list for the ayes between Senator Willesee and Senator Wriedt. I repeated that anecdote at that constitutional law conference and it has since circulated among people who are interested in such obscure and recondite facts. I would like to thank Harry for reaching into the depths of his unmatched historical and institutional memory and retrieving what would have been an unremembered fact of Australian constitutional history which has profoundly changed for the better the way in which this chamber and this parliament operates. Harry, thank you for your counsel; thank you for your occasional admonishment; thank you for your service; and may I join other senators in wishing you well for a long and happy retirement.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I seek leave to incorporate the remarks that I wanted to make in this valedictory debate.

Leave granted.

The document read as follows

Farewell to Harry Evans as he leaves his life’s work in the Upper House of the Australian Parliament

With apologies to Stewart Hamblen and Shakin Stevens (no relation!!)

This ole House means a lot to Harry

(And his children and his wife)

This ole House was home away from home

For the best part of his life.

Now his time has come to leave it

And the Senate’s filled with dread:

Who to ask when a tricky question

Raises up its pesky head?

CHORUS:

Ain’t a-gonna have access to Harry

Ain’t a-gonna see him any more.

Who’s gonna tell us how to draft a bill

And if it’s time to cross the floor.

We’re gonna miss his stylish presence

And his lucid writing style

But we wish him health and happiness

As he leaves us with a smile.

..

He’s the guru of procedure

He knows Odgers inside out.

How we’d question him and quiz him

When legislation was about!

He’d work late nights till exhausted,

Wisdom flowing from his pen,

Grab a bite of to eat (defrosted)

And then hit those books again.

CHORUS:

Ain’t a-gonna have access to Harry

Ain’t a-gonna see him any more.

Who’s gonna tell us how to draft a bill

And if it’s time to cross the floor.

We’re gonna miss his stylish presence

And his lucid writing style

But we wish him health and happiness

As he leaves us with a smile.

..

Sure, this ole House will keep on truckin’

Even after Harry leaves

But it’s fair for say that some of us

might sob, or howl, or grieve.

But his Senate days are over

Ain’t gonna be the Clerk no more.

He’s gonna pack his trusty briefcase

And saunter out that door.

CHORUS:

Ain’t a-gonna have access to Harry

Ain’t a-gonna see him any more.

Who’s gonna tell us how to draft a bill

And if it’s time to cross the floor.

We’re gonna miss his stylish presence

And his lucid writing style

But we wish him health and happiness

As he leaves us with a smile.

..

Harry isn’t gettin’ shaky;

Harry isn’t gettin’ old.

He just wants to spread his wings a bit

Before he gets too cold.

He’s still full of curiosity

And he feels no fear nor pain.

He’s settin’ out to write a novel

And our loss is history’sgain.

CHORUS:

Ain’t a-gonna have access to Harry

Ain’t a-gonna see him any more.

Who’s gonna tell us how to draft a bill

And if it’s time to cross the floor.

We’re gonna miss his stylish presence

And his lucid writing style

But we wish him health and happiness

As he leaves us with a smile.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for valedictories has expired. Harry, I think you have been served well.

Honourable Senators:

Hear, hear!

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can assure honourable senators that your applause will be recorded in Hansard as being unparliamentary! It is a testimony to Harry’s service. But undoubtedly it will make its way into Odgers as something which should not happen! Harry will have the last say at some stage.