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

by leave—I move:

That the Senate records its deep regret at the death on 18 October 2010 of the Honourable Kenneth Shaw Wriedt, former federal minister and Senator for Tasmania, and place on record its appreciation of his long and meritorious service, and tenders its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

Kenneth Shaw Wriedt was a great Labor champion. He served in public life for more than four decades and represented the people of Tasmania with dedication and distinction. He was a great Labor leader and figure when the labour movement needed such people—when the political and economic times were tough, when Labor was an opposition that the federal or state level, and when the politics of the day called for men and women of principle.

He was born in Melbourne in 1927, the third son of a fitter of Danish descent. He grew up in Fairfield and attended University High School. He first tried to go to sea at the age of 13 but was unsuccessful. Three years later, in 1944, his parents were able to buy him a merchant marine apprenticeship. He spent 14 years on merchant ships, which included wartime experience in the merchant navy and eventual promotion to navigation officer on bulk carriers and on oil tankers which operated to and from the Persian Gulf.

In 1958 he decided to settle in Hobart. He selected Hobart because of his fondness for the Derwent. He settled ashore and took up insurance work. It was at this time he became involved in Labor politics. He would later declare that his travels and the poverty he saw, the Depression, and the Second World War were the reasons he embraced the Labor cause. It is also fair to say that through his travels he became interested in the underlying themes of Buddhism and its karma and the value of meditation. He was strongly against the continuation of the war in Vietnam and disparaging of the Soviet Union and China, which he regarded as hypocritical in not supporting U Thant’s attempts to broker peace with North Vietnam. He campaigned accordingly during the 1967 federal election, having gained a place on the Tasmanian Senate Labor ticket.

A measure of the man can be seen in his first speech in the parliament. He said:

How many of us can look forward with certainty to security and dignity in our old age?

He went on to argue for a national superannuation scheme to give security to those in retirement. He was mindful of the plight of pensioners who waited for the handouts which came with each federal budget. That was the system of the time, which had little to offer security for the many senior Australians who did not share in a government- or privately-organised superannuation retirement scheme. Of course, the age pension at the time meant living on a standard little above the poverty line. He argued for the need to provide transferable benefits between superannuation schemes which might arise when an employee moved from job to job. He spoke about the perceived fallacies of national security, as he saw it, which was promoted on the basis of pending wars between nations. Rather—and in light of today’s events, quite interesting to note—he stressed that real dangers would come from other directions: from the poor nations of the world which provide the ‘breeding grounds of political violence and unrest’.

Every man glimpses a truth—

he added in that first speech.

No one man has a monopoly of truth. For this reason I hope that I can make a worthwhile and positive contribution to this nation.

I think we can agree he did. He was appointed Minister for Primary Industry in the first Whitlam government. It is often quoted that his portfolio surprised him because he could not tell a merino from a Corriedale. I hope the current minister can. However, he gained the reputation of a reformer and a hard worker, and during this time, and in the second Whitlam government as Minister for Agriculture, he was instrumental in reforming and restructuring the wool and dairy industries, understanding the competitive realities of the world market.

These were important reforms because they addressed the need to ensure the best possible income return for the producers. Change did not come easily but emerged from wide consultation and finding compromises acceptable to all. These changes were visionary and their success was applauded by many. Former Senate leader John Button declared:

Whatever any of us say about the partisan political debate about the Whitlam government, if honourable senators want to make these comments about Ken Wriedt in the countryside of Australia, they do so at their peril if their remarks are in any sense derogatory. The people in the non-metropolitan areas have immense regard for his work as minister in that government.

In February 1975 he replaced Lionel Murphy as Leader of the Government in the Senate and in October he replaced Rex Connor in the minerals portfolio. He was there at cabinet, at caucus and as Senate leader during the events of 1975. The Khemlani affair and its aftermath had undermined the veracity and intent of the Labor government and the passage of supply through the Senate was in dispute. Many have written about Ken’s role in the passage of supply and Gough Whitlam’s lack of communication with his Senate leader on 11 November, when supply was finally passed.

It is not for me to add to that history or that moment but I would like to make a couple of observations. He carried out the duties of Leader of the Government in the Senate in accordance with the standing orders in an honourable and principled fashion. He was, in fact, the only Labor senator in the chamber when the new Queensland senator Albert Field was sworn in because he believed that his presence as government leader was necessary. He did, however, turn his back on Senator Field’s swearing of the oath.

Throughout the latter part of 1975 he remained true to his principles and advocated in cabinet and in caucus his support for a double dissolution, which he knew would result in a major Labor election loss. He firmly believed that preserving Australia’s democratic processes and ensuring the stability of government, which many Australians wanted, was more important than a tactical decision of the government of the day. But he was in the minority in cabinet on this issue. The disastrous election brought an end to the second Whitlam government and to Ken’s ministerial tenure.

He retained his Senate leadership in opposition and continued his work as leader and as a senator for Tasmania until 1980, when he resigned to stand for the state seat of Denison. He had served for nearly 14 years in the Senate. Ken’s bid in Denison failed but he successfully won the seat of Franklin at the next election. He served as leader of the state Labor Party from 1982 to 1986 and later served as a minister in the minority Field Labor government. Government was never easy at either the federal or the state level, and Ken retired from state politics in 1990. When Ken Wriedt retired from the Senate, Sir John Carrick, then Leader of the Government in the Senate and coalition leader in the Senate, remarked:

He had never doubted the quality of Senator Wriedt as a gentleman, as a person who holds values and holds them in trust and as a person who, when sitting opposite, was willing to understand and to extend the true courtesies of the Senate chamber.

On his retirement from the Senate he did not wish for speeches and did not intend to give one, but his wishes were ignored and many spoke, forcing him to respond. His speech was short, with two themes: the first of which reiterated his opening sentences in his very first speech—he had come to the parliament with the intention to serve the people of Australia. The second was typical of the man; he mused:

I can never work out why it is that if I was such a good minister for agriculture we lost all those rural seats in 1975. I reckon that by that record I must go down as about the worst minister for agriculture the country ever had.

Clearly, he was a person who did not take himself too seriously. Of course it was never the case. He was a great Labor figure during a time of need. Ken lost his wife, Helga, just four weeks before his death. Our thoughts are now with his two daughters, Sonja and Paula, and his grandchildren: Jack, Ella, Daniel and Amy. I know a number of senators will be joining me on Wednesday to attend the state funeral of Kenneth Shaw Wriedt to pay our last respects. I thank the Senate for allowing me to move this motion today and look forward to the contributions of other senators in recognising the contribution of a great Tasmanian senator and a great Labor champion.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition joins in the condolence motion that honours the life of the Hon Kenneth Shaw Wriedt, and especially his public life as a servant of the people of Tasmania and the Australian Labor Party. Ken Wriedt was a man not only of substantial physical stature but also of substantial political stature. It goes without saying that we on this side did not embrace his politics, but we do acknowledge his service and salute it. He was a passionate Tasmanian. He loved his adopted state and had no difficulty in switching to state politics in the service of the Tasmanian people and his party when he thought it was needed.

As a minister in the Whitlam government from 1970 to 1975, I would have to say—and I think most of my coalition colleagues would agree—that we would put him in the same category as John Kerin when it comes to Labor ministers for agriculture. We claim that there are not many good ones amongst all the Labor agriculture ministers, but in fairness there is no doubt that Ken Wriedt and John Kerin delivered way beyond what I might describe as coalition expectations. That applies to both of them, but on this occasion we are concentrating on Mr Wriedt. He served rural communities exceptionally well.

Of course, later on he became Minister for Minerals and Energy, after the political demise of Mr Connor. Indeed it would seem that Mr Wriedt was one of those few ministers who were able to serve the whole period of the Whitlam government without scandal, without controversy and with the abiding respect of both sides of politics. Of course, as Leader of the Government in the Senate he was one of only a few Tasmanians to hold such a vitally important role. More seriously, I note that, on reflecting back on his period as leader, which was only a short period of time, Ken Wriedt’s great regret was that his Prime Minister or leader in the other place did not listen to him sufficiently and that he was not consulted.

I am told that Senate leaders on both sides of politics—and I am the exception to this, Mr President, you will understand—have believed Mr Wriedt’s observations to have been true over the past 35 years. I just thought I would place that caveat, in the very unlikely event that my leader in the other place happens to read the Senate Hansardand I do not think there is much chance of that. The events of 11 November 1975 may have been different if Mr Wriedt had been consulted, but that is ultimately for others to speculate about.

Mr Wriedt, after he left the Senate, went into the Tasmanian parliament. It seems a pity—if I can reflect in this way—that Mr Wriedt, who was such a capable and competent minister, did not really have the opportunity to allow his capacities to shine as they otherwise would have. This was because—and I do not mean to be too partisan—he served in what might be described as ‘not successful governments’—the Whitlam government and also the minority Labor government in Tasmania. I have no doubt that, if he had had the opportunity to serve in governments that did not suffer from the disabilities that the Whitlam government and the Tasmanian Labor government had, he would have had a longer and even more distinguished ministerial record.

Mr Wriedt was also a passionate sailor. His weekends and leisure time would be spent sailing the scenic Derwent River or the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. I recall him becoming involved in the debate as to whether the waters south of Hobart should be described as the Derwent River or the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. I am not sure where Mr Wriedt actually lined up in this debate but, given his seamanship, he was asked about it and interviewed about it—and I read about it but, unfortunately, I cannot recall what his verdict was. Suffice to say, he loved the sea and enjoyed many leisure hours and days on the waterways around Tasmania.

Ken Wriedt is survived by his daughters Sonja and Paula and their children. The coalition extend to them our condolences. We trust that happy family memories and community appreciation of their father and grandfather’s service will sustain them in this time of loss.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand briefly to concur with the remarks of Senator Evans and Senator Abetz. Obviously, Kenneth Shaw Wriedt was a great contributor to areas that are of interest to the National Party, and that relies on his appointments in agriculture and primary industries and also minerals and energy. He is unique in having a role as a leader in this place and then going back to state parliament. He obviously had a belief in public service. He also had a role in the merchant navy from 1944 to 1945. Kenneth Wriedt reflected on his desire to serve his nation. I never knew him but, from reading about him, he seems to have had a soft and generous side. His love of classical music spells out his character. He was a widely respected person in the Whitlam government. These attributes will recommend him well in the annals of our nation. Unfortunately his wife passed away mere weeks before Kenneth did. We celebrate a gentle man who has served his nation in a number of ways and will be well remembered and well respected.

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

I join with the other senators in extending condolences to the daughters, loved ones, friends and associates of Ken Wriedt. Ken Wriedt has a special place in my 30 years of politics. I never had a cross word with him, nor did he with me. Long after we parted the same arena of politics—the Tasmanian parliament—we were able to send each other notes or make phone calls about special events that occurred. We remained very, very good friends. I greatly admired Ken Wriedt and will miss him greatly.

After I made a particularly lacklustre appearance with Margaret Throsby on ABC Classic FM, I advised her that she should get the former federal minister for agriculture Ken Wriedt on the show—someone much better acquainted with classical music than I. Ken was a great lover of 20th century European musicians and composers. He went on her program and it was a dazzling program. He had an extraordinary knowledge and remarkable love of classical music. He commented afterwards—and Margaret will not mind me saying this—that he could ‘tell that girl one or two things about classical music’. He loved going on the program.

Christine Milne, another admirer of Ken’s, is unable to be in the chamber at the moment. But I have the honour of being able to read a few of her thoughts about Ken that she was going to say in the chamber today:

I rise today to pay my deepest respect to Ken Wriedt and to offer my condolences to his daughters Paula and Sonja and to his grandchildren. He was a great Tasmanian who served this country with distinction as a Federal Minister in the Whitlam government and as Opposition Leader in the Tasmanian Parliament in the early 1980s. In 1989 I was elected to the Tasmanian Parliament and was part of the historic Labor-Green Accord in which Ken Wriedt served as a Minister. He was one of the few Labor Ministers who understood that for the Accord to succeed, cooperation between the Parties was essential.

Every time I drive to the Tasman Peninsula I remember Ken Wriedt because it was he, as Minister, who listened to my objections to the plans by the Transport Department to put a four lane highway across Eaglehawk Neck. As a student of Tasmanian history, I was horrified when I learned of plans to widen the neck. I could not believe that the government was about to destroy the integrity of the site. Ken Wriedt visited the site, where I had organised to have the Port Arthur authority join us, and the result was his decision not to proceed with the neck widening. This permanent legacy will only grow in importance now that Australia’s convict heritage has been listed as World Heritage.

In his politics, Ken Wriedt was inspired by Marx and was deeply disappointed by the fall of socialism. He was passionate about social justice and a fair go for everyone.

He was a genuine democrat who recognised the contribution of the Greens to Australian politics. He was outspoken in his rejection of the ‘majority or nothing’ mentality that dominated Tasmanian politics in the 1990s. He added his voice to those who objected to the politically expedient cutting of the numbers in the Tasmanian parliament in 1998—

a matter I may interpolate that is being now rectified by tripartisan agreement. I return to Senator Milne’s submission:

He was proud of both of his daughters and was Paula’s greatest supporter through her political career.

Beyond politics, his passion for the sea and for music was legendary. The memorial service in the Hobart Concert Hall is a fitting tribute as Ken Wriedt regarded music as his religion.

He loved the Derwent and still towards this the end of his life he was campaigning to have the port known as the Derwent Harbour to give it the status he believed it deserved.

Ken Wriedt was an intelligent and thoughtful man of integrity whose love for his family, his state and his politics set an example for us all.

Vale, Ken Wriedt.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we have heard, Ken Wriedt died last week at the age of 83. He served as a senator for 12 years, between 1968 and 1980. They were turbulent times, but he was a man of quiet and steady demeanour and he brought maturity and a breadth of experience to his political life. Moderation in style did not mean an infirmness of purpose. He had clear views—honed in a strong Labor tradition—on equality and social justice, toleration and the dignity of work. These, in part, he inherited from his parents who, as they raised Ken and his brothers during the Depression, set an example of frugality and responsibility, hard work and service. His mother was a teacher. His father was a fitter and turner.

If the experience of the Depression had influenced the politics of Ken’s father towards the Left, Ken’s own life experience—wide-ranging travel in the merchant marine, taking him to Asia and the Middle East—gave him a great interest in foreign policy, a tolerance for different cultures and a willingness to consider other ways of looking at the world. He held strong views on the Vietnam War, which he opposed. It was, he said, a ‘futile and shameful war’. He had seen firsthand the conflict in Iran between Prime Minister Mossadegh and the international oil companies over the control of Iran’s resources, and he sympathised with Iran’s position.

He supported international aid, recognising especially the importance of the United States as the country most able to assist in addressing world poverty. He believed that poverty in underdeveloped countries was the greatest threat to international security. He took a strong stance on the invasion of East Timor. Like all of us, of course, he had his quirks. Although he was never remotely a communist sympathiser or supporter, I am told by some of Ken’s former colleagues that he was largely impervious to criticism of the Soviet Union. He balanced this, though, with a deep interest in the teachings of the Buddha and, as we have heard, a genuine love of classical music.

He related his values back to first principles, and they were essentially Labor principles. Ken Wriedt’s first speech, delivered on 11 September 1968, foreshadows his political beliefs and many of his future attitudes. He asserted the democratic principle that every man glimpses a truth; no man has a monopoly on the truth. This informed his approach to politics, his support for the role of caucus within the parliamentary Labor Party, and helps explain his anger when he was not consulted on vital issues. He was idealistic, believing that the parliament offered him the chance to give the highest possible service to Australia. He hoped he could make a positive contribution to the life of the nation, but he also recognised the limitations of government—that we cannot achieve perfection; we cannot change the course of history.

Once the Labor Party came to power, in 1972, Ken Wriedt became a minister: first, Minister for Primary Industry, in 1972; then, in 1974, Minister for Agriculture. When Rex Connor resigned, in October 1975, Ken Wriedt took over and served briefly, until the dismissal, as the Minister for Minerals and Energy. But it was as Minister for Primary Industry and then Minister for Agriculture that Ken Wriedt had his best opportunity to influence public life—and he did so with distinction. He had little prior experience of agriculture. The Labor historian Ross McMullin says of Wriedt that he applied himself to his portfolio with determination and became one of the government’s most unlikely ministerial successes. It was an area of policy that was made particularly difficult by the reform agenda of the Whitlam government.

The Whitlam government looked critically at the legacy of 23 years of coalition government and, particularly, Country Party influence. Acting on a report produced by Stuart Harris, Sir John Crawford and Professor Fred Gruen, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam moved to rationalise rural policy. Whitlam considered the concessions and subsidies to the dairy industry, petrol subsidies and the superphosphate bounty to be inequitable and unjustified. It was argued that they went disproportionately to wealthy producers who did not need them and, although farm incomes were rising rapidly, rural poverty remained a serious problem. Tariff cuts and increased expenditure on agriculture research would, the government believed at the time, offset the withdrawal of these concessions.

The rationality of the argument was lost on the rural electorate—regardless of Wriedt’s best endeavours to argue their case in cabinet, he had to explain the changes to the sector—and they felt only the pain and the loss of privileges. But, despite all this, Wriedt remained popular with farmers. He established the Australian Wool Corporation in 1973, which put in place a floor price for wool in order to try to stabilise prices. He ended decades of large-producer domination on many agricultural boards—the wool, dairy, and apple and pear marketing authorities. He worked to find new agricultural markets to replace those lost by the entry, in 1973, of Britain into the European Economic Community. He is credited with the restructuring of the wool and dairy industries to their long-term benefit. According to a statement made by Senator McLaren in the Senate in 1982, the green paper prepared for Senator Wriedt in 1974 was often referred to, by agricultural people, as their bible. In 1984, his old nemesis Michael Hodgman said of Wriedt that he was a man regarded as one of the finest ministers, if not the finest, in the Whitlam era. Perhaps those words do represent just a little more than Tasmanian solidarity!

But Ken Wriedt’s most dramatic time in politics came in 1975 when, as leader of government in the Senate, he was responsible for managing the progress of the appropriation bills which had been blocked by the coalition. I would like to read the words that were written by John Faulkner in the book True Believers, about the events of 11 November 1975, and Ken Wriedt’s involvement in those events:

At 1 pm at Yarralumla, Kerr ambushed Whitlam with a letter dismissing his government. Unbeknown to Whitlam, Kerr had been in collusion with Chief Justice Sir Garfield Barwick and opposition leader Malcolm Fraser to bring Labor down. Kerr had betrayed the elected Prime Minister and debauched the office of Governor-General. The Labor Party would never forgive his treachery.

Whitlam returned to the Lodge, where he planned tactics with senior staff and three of his senior colleagues, Frank Crean, Fred Daly, and Kep Enderby. He still had time to eat the lunch he had ordered on his way to Yarralumla—medium steak with German mustard and a horiatiki side salad. Whitlam’s inner circle focused exclusively on how events would unfold that afternoon in the House of Representatives. Incredibly, with the Senate due to consider the appropriation bill shortly after resuming at 2 pm, no-one thought to tell any of the Labor senators let alone Labor Senate leadership, and Senate leader, Ken Wriedt acknowledges this: ‘The fact is, I didn’t know what had happened. Gough didn’t tell me.’

Wriedt still didn’t know when, after lunch, he called on the appropriation bills at 2.20 pm for yet another vote. Labor had urged continuously for a vote on the bills since they were introduced in the Senate on 14 October. This time, to Wriedt’s surprise, the coalition instantly acceded. The last vital stage of the coup was completed in just four minutes. The bills were passed unanimously on the voices and the Senate adjourned at 2.24 pm. Labor had forfeited its only chance to frustrate Kerr’s decision.

A decade ago I had quite a number of conversations with Ken Wriedt about the events of 11 November 1975. Ken Wriedt did feel aggrieved, not only that he had been left in the dark on that fateful day but also that he had not been sufficiently consulted on the position of the Senate throughout the crisis. Thenceforward he distanced himself from Gough. He retained his leadership in the Senate in spite of Gough’s support for another candidate and he worked more assiduously within the party to ensure that in future leaders consulted with the caucus on all matters of significance.

Ken Wriedt’s career in the federal parliament ended when he sought to move from the Senate to the House of Representatives in the 1980 election. He contested but lost the seat of Denison. Any ambitions for leadership of the federal parliamentary Labor Party ended there. But he did go on to lead the Tasmanian state parliamentary Labor Party from 1982 until 1986. He remained a member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly until 1990. He retained, amid all the drama of those years, a sense of principle and an understanding of the importance of fair dealing. He played a straight bat. On the tactics for dealing with the supply crisis he commented later: ‘We were being manipulated in the cause of survival. I believed that you played the game straight or you didn’t play at all. Of course, Fraser was manipulating the system, but I couldn’t accept that we should get into the gutter with him.’

Ken Wriedt lived his political life faithful to his stated ambitions. He glimpsed a truth, collaborated with his fellows, remembered those who sent him to parliament and, while not achieving perfection, he made a positive contribution to the life of the nation. I join with other senators in offering my condolences to Ken Wriedt’s family, particularly to his two daughters Paula and Sonja and his grandchildren.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too would like to extend my sincere condolences to Ken Wriedt’s family. I am sure they knew of his passion for public service and his commitment to the betterment of our community through it. I also take the opportunity of associating my remarks with those who have contributed this afternoon. Ken was Minister for Primary Industry in the Whitlam government. I want to take particular care to appreciate the work that he did for the primary industry department and confine my remarks to that small but large area that he undertook.

Ken led the department in its first major reform for almost 50 years. The 1970s was a time of considerable change for the department. The period that Ken was appointed Minister for Primary Industry and then Minister for Agriculture is remembered as a period of reorganisation and reform. The fundamental administrative reorganisation reflected and reinforced the perception that Australian agriculture had a set of discrete industries. Six industry divisions were created, with each responsible for all aspects of its production, marketing and inspection. Two other new divisions were created, the agriculture and food services division and the development division. The latter was responsible for developing and reviewing new initiatives, coordinating policy development among the industry divisions, the department’s international policy and its role with overseas organisations. The changes represented a greater focus for the department in the primary industries sector as critical to the Australian economy.

Ken commissioned a high-level review of agriculture which resulted in what is universally known as the green paper. This was designed to avoid ad hoc policy decisions by developing a basis upon which to formulate economically sound and socially equitable measures. The green paper itself became the framework for the agricultural policy reforms which were implemented by the Hawke government when it came to government in 1983. Ken led the department in its first major reform after almost 50 years. I understand that many in the department found Ken to be a breath of fresh air for the department. He was highly regarded by both stakeholders and department officials. With those few words, I pay tribute to his contribution to both the department and industry and of course pay my condolences and respect to Paula, Sonja and his grandchildren.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting on Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Kenneth Shaw Wriedt, to those who knew him in the Tasmanian community, was known as Ken. I first met Ken Wriedt in 1967. I was a 12-year-old campaigning with my father, Ken, and Bob Poke in the half-Senate election of 1967. It was in the small town of Triabunna. As I was only a 12-year-old at that point in my life, I was not doorknocking; I was sent off to letterbox and come back at lunchtime while the three Senate candidates doorknocked Triabunna. I was sent to buy the pies and sauce for lunch.

My first impressions of Ken were of a man of great physical presence. He had a very deep and resonant voice and was very passionate and caring about his fellow human beings, with strong views on the way the world should be. It was the beginning of a long association and friendship over more than 40 years. Of course, as a consequence of that half-Senate election in 1967, he was elected to the Senate and took his position in this place on 1 July 1968. It was the beginning of a very long and successful parliamentary career, despite some disappointments that I will come to a little later. It was the beginning of a very long and distinguished parliamentary career at both the federal and the state levels.

Ken was not a Tasmanian by birth; nor indeed did he live in Tasmania during the early years of his working life. He grew up during the Depression in Melbourne, as my colleague Senator Faulkner referred to, and he had a very radical political background. He became a merchant seaman. He saw a great deal of the world. He drifted from one sailing job to another until he arrived in Hobart in 1959—quite by accident. Ken would relate how, sailing up the Derwent River—the D’Entrecasteaux Channel—he arrived in Hobart and of course fell in love with the city. He married Helga Ann-Rose Burger on 26 December 1959. They had two daughters, Sonja and Paula. Ken used his seaman skills. He came on shore and became an insurance inspector. He purchased a house on the eastern shore of Hobart, in Tranmere—I make particular note of this because he and Helga and the family lived there all their lives. I enjoyed many cups of coffee and tea with Ken at their house in Tranmere.

He was a very significant contributor to the Tasmanian branch of the Labor Party. He joined the local Howrah branch in 1959, and indeed he remained a member of that branch until the day he died. He was a branch secretary, he was campaign manager in the House of Representatives seat of Denison in 1966, he was treasurer of the Tasmanian branch of the Labor Party from 1970 to 1972, he was a delegate to the ALP federal conference in 1971 and he served on the federal executive of the Labor Party from 1970 to 1980.

His parliamentary career at both federal and state levels was significant. It included two attempts at federal preselection for Franklin. He was a state candidate for Franklin in 1964. As I have mentioned, he was elected to this place in 1968 and became the federal Minister for Primary Industry (Agriculture) after Labor’s victory in December 1972. He was elected Leader of the Government in the Senate in 1975. He was re-elected at the head of the Labor Party ticket for Tasmania in 1975. He was elected opposition leader in the Senate. It was a post he held until his retirement from the Senate in 1980, when he contested the federal seat of Denison against the then federal member, Michael Hodgman, but it was an unsuccessful campaign.

He then contested the state seat of Franklin in May 1982. He was immediately elected. He topped the poll but it was part of a losing team. The Labor government was defeated at that election. He immediately became opposition leader and remained in that position until the state election loss of February 1986. He remained in parliament, however, and on 13 May 1989 there was a hung parliament and an agreement between the Labor Party and the Greens. Under the Field government, he became the Minister for Roads, Transport, Police and Emergency Services. Suffering from illness, he retired from state parliament in mid September 1990. It ended a 22-year career—with that two-year break—in state and federal parliaments. It was a very long and distinguished career in parliament at both state and federal levels and a very long and distinguished contribution to the Labor Party itself.

I would like to make a few personal reflections about the various roles he had over that period. It certainly did not go unnoticed that in his first speech in 1968, amongst other policy contributions, he was a strong advocate of a national superannuation scheme—an issue and project dear to my own personal interests and an issue we discussed on many occasions privately.

He was a child of the Great Depression. He was from a working-class background in Melbourne. His time in the Great Depression and his time as a merchant seaman obviously left him with a very deep, passionate and caring attitude to his fellow human beings. He truly believed in the role of government and the good that government could do in changing people’s lives, in a practical and sensible way. Despite the referred-to radicalism of his father and despite Ken’s well-known commentary about some of the virtues of the former Soviet Union, he did understand that the political approach in Australia required practical and sensible policy.

He was in many ways a surprising choice as agriculture minister. As he told my father and me at the time, he was not the most obviously choice; he had spent all his working life on water and he did not have any background in the rural sector at all. But, as a number of contributors in this debate have said, he was regarded as a very fine minister and one of the great success stories amongst what I would have to acknowledge was a number of significant failures in that period of the Whitlam government, 1972 to 1975.

I referred to his decision, a selfless decision, to retire from the Senate. He could have had a continuing and long career in this place, but he passionately believed that if Labor was to have any chance of being re-elected federally, the Labor Party had to win seats in Tasmania. We had been wiped out in 1975. In a selfless act he resigned from this place to contest the federal seat of Denison against Michael Hodgman—and, as I have mentioned, he lost that campaign. What is little known is not only was it an extraordinarily selfless act but he paid all his own campaign expenses. He would not accept any money from the Labor Party, which I think is a mark of the man and his commitment and dedication to the Labor Party.

As opposition leader, when he was elected to state parliament, Ken was years ahead of his time in many respects and in one key area in particular: he would regularly point out both the massive debt accumulating under the then Gray Liberal government and the irregularities of that government. Unfortunately for Ken, and I think this was a sadder aspect of his career which did at times leave a touch of hardness in his attitude, the electorate did not recognise his critique of the then state Liberal government for at least another eight to 10 years, and that was after he had retired from state politics.

Throughout his career he was a leading voice for moderation, and what is little known is that Ken was a moderating voice during the dreadful circumstances surrounding the expulsion of Brian Harradine, the then Secretary General of the Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council. Ken feared the consequences for the Labor Party of the expulsion of Brian Harradine, and he was a leading figure in urging moderation at that time in the Labor Party. Of course, those events led to a Labor Party split in Tasmania, and Ken was right in his fears about the consequences that would flow from those actions in 1974 and 1975.

Ken was always willing to give advice to and mentor others in the labour movement and in the Labor Party, including me, and I want to place on record that he gave me much sage advice during the early part of my political career. Later, after he retired from state politics, Ken found a renewed activism in managing the successful campaign of his daughter Paula for election to the state seat of Franklin.

I referred in my opening remarks to the fact that at my first meeting with Ken over a pie and sauce in Triabunna he gave me the impression of being a big man. But he was more than a big man physically; he was a big man in every way. He had big ideas and he was big in his passion, in his contribution and in his compassion for his fellow human beings. He was very thoughtful about policy, he was loyal and he was selfless. He was one of the leading figures in the Labor Party in Tasmania for some 20 years and a leading, passionate and loyal person to his adopted community of Hobart and Tasmania. Sadly, his wife, Helga, died just a few weeks ago, and I send my condolences to his two daughters, Sonja and Paula. Vale Ken Wriedt.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to join the Senate in paying my respects to the late Hon. Kenneth Shaw Wriedt and I offer my condolences to his family and friends. This is a particularly sad occasion for his two daughters, who have lost both their parents in the course of only four weeks, and for his grandchildren, who lost a loyal and loving grandfather so soon after the death of their beloved grandmother.

Ken Wriedt was deservedly a life member of the Australian Labor Party, and he had a long and distinguished career in both state and federal politics. Ken served for 13 years as a federal Labor senator, and shortly after his resignation from federal parliament he was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly, where for a further eight years he represented the seat of Franklin. His daughter Paula Wriedt later followed in her father’s footsteps, serving as the state member for Franklin and as a minister. Like her father, she had a distinguished career and achieved some important outcomes for the state of Tasmania.

Ken Wriedt served in a number of frontbench positions, including state Leader of the Opposition, state Minister for Roads and Transport, state Minister for Police and Emergency Services, federal Minister for Primary Industry and federal Minister for Minerals and Energy. As a senator, he spent most of his career in opposition and had a federal ministerial career which was cut short by the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975. When the Whitlam government was elected at the December 1972 election, Ken was appointed Minister for Primary Industry. In June 1974, his ministerial portfolio was renamed ‘Agriculture’. We have heard today that, even though in his own eyes he was a most unlikely choice to be Minister for Agriculture, Ken did a great job in that position.

On 14 October 1975, Ken Wriedt was appointed as Minister for Minerals and Energy due to the resignation of the former minister. Unfortunately, Ken lost his position when the Whitlam government was dismissed, but he remained in the Senate until his resignation in September 1980. At the 1982 Tasmanian state election, Ken Wriedt won a seat in the Tasmanian House of Assembly representing the electorate of Franklin. I noticed in reading the valedictory speeches from when Ken left this place that it would have come as no surprise to people on both sides of the chamber if Ken had returned to public office. A number of those on both sides of the chamber who gave speeches honouring his time here mentioned that they thought they would see him do so.

Ken Wriedt was leader of the state opposition from 1982 to 1986 and a minister from 1989 to 1990 in a minority government led by Michael Field. Ken resigned from parliament in October 1990. Prior to his political career he spent 14 years as a merchant ship’s officer and worked for a short time in insurance. In his spare time, he was an avid sailor and had a great love of classical music. Ken Wriedt rose to great heights in public life and epitomised the idea that you can come from humble beginnings and still have a successful career in politics. It is important that we have examples such as his to demonstrate that people from all backgrounds can succeed in politics. Having people in the parliament from all walks of life helps to create a parliament that is truly representative of the people of Australia.

The Premier of Tasmania David Bartlett described him as ‘a principled leader and a strong reformer’. The Prime Minister has described him as ‘a great servant of his party, the Parliament and our nation’. Today in this place we have heard many other comments highlighting what a true Labor man but also what a great politician Ken Wreidt was. I think these descriptions are all very apt and I endorse them wholly.

I would like to offer my condolences in particular to Ken’s daughters, Paula and Sonja, and to his grandchildren, Jack, Ella, Daniel and Amy. While I know they will be feeling their loss acutely, I hope they can be comforted by the knowledge that during his life Ken was well known for being an extraordinarily talented, honourable and loyal person who made a great and valued contribution to not only Tasmania but Australia, and for that we are all grateful. He will be remembered as a true gentleman.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With the passing of Ken Wriedt on 18 October, we lost a man known for his compassion, intelligence and sense of justice. I would like to place on record my appreciation of his work and to offer my sincere sympathy to his family at this difficult time.

When I first heard that Ken had passed away my thoughts went to our first meeting in 1983, 27 years ago. I came to know and work with Ken when he was elected to the state seat of Franklin in 1982 and I was working at the state ALP head office. During this time I was fortunate to gain firsthand knowledge of what drove Ken both politically and personally, and what an extraordinary man he was.

As mentioned by Senator Abetz in his contribution, Ken loved sailing. Tasmanians will be ever grateful that Ken, a Victorian by birth, decided to drop anchor in ‘Derwent Harbour’—Ken’s preferred name for our beautiful Derwent River—and called Tasmania home in 1959. With that decision, Tasmania received a man that would serve them for over four decades from 1967 to 1990 at the highest levels in both the state and federal governments.

Ken devoted his life to public service, and a very successful life in public service it was indeed. Ken served the public with distinction, dedication and devotion—a devotion to achieve the best possible outcomes for the people he represented with a willingness to listen and to embrace new ideas based on sound, reasoned arguments.

Ken Wriedt started his political career in 1967 at the age of 40 after joining the Australian Labor Party in 1959. As a senator for Tasmania, he went on to become a minister five years later in the Whitlam government. Ken also served as leader of the Senate. Ken mentored new senators, and everyone that knew Ken described him as an outstanding minister, a man who did not care for dirty politics and a great reformist.

During the last week many accolades and positive retrospective comments have been made of Ken Wriedt, and much has been said of the Whitlam dismissal: the what-ifs and ‘what if the Senate leadership was informed of the Whitlam dismissal.’ We have heard it in contributions here today. I will leave that, as Senator Evans also mentioned, to others to muse over. Of the dismissal, Ken is quoted as saying:

The events of November 11, 1975, were evidence that when the ‘establishment’ is under challenge, it will resort to whatever tactics it deems necessary to maintain its position in Australian society.

We have heard that those tactics were tactics that Ken Wriedt would never lower himself to.

Ken held the federal portfolios of primary industries—later to become agriculture—minerals and energy, and was leader of the Senate at the federal level until 1980 when he quit to contest the federal seat of Denison in a bid to end the Liberals’ hold on Tasmania—a selfless decision that went beyond the call of duty. In 1982 he won a state seat and was the leader of the opposition from 1982-86, at a time when the state Labor needed someone with a steady hand. Ken later became minister at the state level responsible for police and emergency services, and roads and transport portfolios in the Field government.

Ken retired as an elected ALP representative in 1990 but not from his involvement with the Australian Labor Party. He still attended regular branch meetings, still engaged in positive public policy debate and still advised and assisted ALP members when asked.

Ken’s political contribution has been widely reported over the last week but he had many other joys and loves. One of his joys was classical music and his big love was his family. Ken’s beloved wife of over 50 years, Helga, sadly passed away last month. Ken was also very proud of his daughters, Sonja and Paula. Paula contested and successfully held the same seat in Tasmanian state politics that Ken held.

Ken Wriedt was awarded the ALP’s highest accolade, life membership, in 2003 in recognition of his contribution to the Labor movement, his commitment to Labor values and his unwavering support of the ALP.

I would like to echo the Prime Minister’s words:

Ken will be long remembered in this place as one of the true gentleman of Australian politics, an excellent minister and fine human being.

Ken will be deeply missed, and I offer my condolences to Paula, Sonja and their families at this very sad time.

Question agreed to, honourable senators standing in their places