Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with deep regret that I inform the Senate of the death, on 12 June this year, of the Hon. Francis John Walker, QC, a former minister and member of the House of Representatives for the division of Robertson, New South Wales, from 1990 until 1996. I call the Leader of the Government in the Senate.

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 12 March 2012, of the Honourable Francis John Walker, QC, former minister and member for Robertson, and places on record its appreciation of his long and meritorious public service and tenders its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

It is my privilege today to lead this condolence motion to mark the very significant contribution of our Labor colleague who served as a senior minister at both the state and federal level. Frank Walker was a member of the Australian House of Representatives for nearly six years, from 1990 to 1996, and was a minister in the Keating government. I had the honour of serving with him in the last three-year period of the Keating government and was always very impressed by his ability and his passion for the labour cause and for social justice. He was a very impressive contributor to the Labor caucus and to the ministry of that time. Prior to entering federal politics Frank served in Neville Wran's government and made history as the state of New South Wales' youngest Attorney-General and as the first minister in New South Wales to hold the Aboriginal affairs portfolio. His contribution to public life was remarkable and spanned more than four decades. He was a determined and fearless campaigner with strong convictions whose reputation as a reformer and a passionate advocate for the underdog was well known. The unorthodox upbringing that coloured Frank's early years was perhaps less well known. The first born of two sons, Frank was born on 7 July 1942 in Sydney. The family lived in a Housing Commission home in Coogee until 1948, when they were forced to move overseas because Frank's father, a member of the Communist Party of Australia, was blacklisted and unable to work in Australia. Frank and his brother spent their formative years in Papua New Guinea, living and learning alongside indigenous children in coastal villages while their father supported the family, salvaging and melting metals and alloys from World War II aircraft he found in the surrounding jungle. The boys were raised as Catholic. While their mother took care of their religious upbringing, their father taught them how to read and also broadened their education to include the world of politics.

Frank was 12 when the family returned to Australia and settled on the New South Wales mid-North coast. It was here, in 1950s Australia, at the age of 13, that he staged his first political act. He sat with segregated Aboriginals at the Sawtell picture theatre, in the process drawing the attention of the local constabulary and making himself an outcast in the community.

He attended Coffs Harbour High School before studying law part time at the University of Sydney. He completed a law degree in 1964 and a Master of Laws in 1969. He married his first wife, Marilyn Duff, an accountant, in 1963, and the marriage ended in 1992. Through his university years, Frank continued to speak out against racial segregation. He joined Charles Perkins on the Freedom Ride to Moree in 1965 and five years later was propelled into politics on the back of his engagement in Indigenous issues. He was an articled clerk from 1960 to 1965, a solicitor from 1965 to 1976, a barrister from 1976 to 1988 and appointed as Queen's Counsel in 1981.

Frank joined the Australian Labor Party in 1960 at 18 years of age and held various branch and electorate positions, including as president of the Canterbury-Bankstown and Barton Young Labor associations. Frank was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for nearly 18 years from 1970 to 1988 and was quick to carve out a career as a vocal backbencher. As the member for Georges River during the Wran and Unsworth New South Wales state governments, he held several key ministerial positions. At 34 years of age, as I said earlier, he was the youngest person to be appointed as the New South Wales Attorney-General, a position he held for seven years. He was also Minister for Youth and Community Services, Minister for Justice, Minister for Housing, Minister for the Arts and the first New South Wales minister appointed to the new ministry of Aboriginal affairs.

Following that long state career, Frank entered federal politics in 1990. In March 1993 he became both Special Minister of State and Vice-President of the Executive Council. He was promoted to Minister for Administrative Services in March 1994, a position that he held until the 1996 federal election. Frank Walker was an active participant in the affairs of the parliament. He attended the 85th Inter-Parliamentary Conference in the Republic of Korea in 1991 and undertook official visits to Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the United States. He served on a number of committees.

In 1996 he married Pamela Buchanan, a public servant. After politics, Frank continued a distinguished career by serving as a judge on the Compensation Court of New South Wales from 1997 to 2003, and from 2004 to 2006 he was a judge of the Dust Diseases Tribunal and of the District Court of New South Wales.

Having had two sons who suffered from schizophrenia, Frank had a long association with the Schizophrenia Fellowship of New South Wales and served as president of the fellowship from 1998. Sadly, Frank's two sons, Michael and Sean, took their own lives within two years of each other. Frank stepped down last December from his role as President of the Schizophrenia Fellowship but remained a member of the fellowship until his death. I met with Frank last November when he wanted to speak to me about issues of disability employment and mental health. He retained a very strong commitment to assisting people with mental health issues in seeking employment and broader support. He brought a passion to that subject even in his last days.

From the time Frank joined the Labor Party at age 18, he worked tirelessly for those who struggled, whether in the early movements in support of Indigenous rights, in the cause for law reform or in promoting housing and social justice. On top of this, he was a leader who worked to support people with mental illness. His own battle with cancer saw his passing on 12 June this year. He is a great loss to the Australian Labor Party but had a remarkable Labor career. On behalf of the government, I offer my condolences to his wife, Pamela, his family and his friends.

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

The coalition joins with the Leader of the Government in the Senate in supporting the condolence motion for the Hon. Francis Walker QC. His was a life devoted to public service, with 18 years in the state parliament and six years in the federal parliament, and he served as a minister in both jurisdictions.

After his parliamentary life he became a judge and involved himself in issues of mental health after his departure from representative public service. I will briefly quote from a foreword that the Hon. Frank Walker QC wrote for a publication by the Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia. He said:

Life is full of turning points and I have experienced a few of them personally and politically.

One of the very special turning points is the birth of a child, a child of your very own to nurture and love. Here is the future so full of promise and possibility.

For some, another turning point comes when you are told that your child has a mental illness. This can be a place of fear, uncertainty and confusion. It can be the beginning of a long and difficult journey for both you as a parent and your child. Yet there is and should be hope. All mental illnesses are treatable.

The Hon. Frank Walker QC was well able to speak personally and with great authority because of the personal tragedies that he confronted and that the Leader of the Government referred to in his contribution. It is often forgotten that those in public life also have personal and private lives and there is no doubt that the Hon. Frank Walker was greatly impacted by the issues faced by his two sons. I am sure that Senator Faulkner will provide a longer and more personal account of the life and times of the Hon. Francis Walker QC, who can be rightly seen as a Labor luminary. The coalition simply yet sincerely salutes the Hon. Francis Walker QC's contribution to public life. We extend our condolences to his widow Pam, extended family and friends within the Labor movement.

Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Australian Greens I extend our condolences to Frank Walker's family and colleagues. I learnt much about Frank's life from the speakers we just heard and I would like to add a few of my own reflections. Frank's public life was very much about people and about righting wrongs, no matter how entrenched they had become in our society. He took on many of the tough issues. In the 1970s, when the people of New South Wales started to become acquainted with Frank Walker as the Attorney-General in Neville Wran's government, Australia was just emerging from a time of stultifying conservatism. New South Wales needed Frank Walker's vision and commitment. Frank worked to ensure all people had dignity in their day-to-day lives.

A standout in Frank's work was that he successfully repealed offensive discriminatory laws. The Summary Offences Act for too long had allowed New South Wales police to legally abuse the disadvantaged and homeless in New South Wales. Frank moved quickly to repeal this law. I had the opportunity to witness these developments at close quarters as a member of the New South Wales Women's Advisory Council in the early 1980s. We worked with the Attorney-General, Mr Walker, closely on what were then called the rape laws. The issues we grappled with were sensitive and challenging. Frank's understanding of women's rights informed his excellent advice which contributed to the new sexual laws Jocelynne Scutt and others worked so hard to achieve. Entrenched discrimination was the only casualty when Frank took this work on.

Frank Walker also brought law reform to what was then a largely hidden issue—domestic violence. The Attorney-General introduced provocation into murder trials. While this may be controversial in some circles to this day, Frank Walker's work brought immediate relief in some individual cases and greater understanding to the plight of the victims of domestic violence. The case of Bruce and Violet Roberts, who had been convicted of murder, was the catalyst for Frank's groundbreaking work in this area. Bruce and Violet had suffered years of abuse from their father and husband, but the defence of provocation was not available. They were found guilty and jailed. Frank changed the law so the victims of domestic violence in such tragic situations could use provocation as part of their defence.

With such an active and fruitful life we need to be wary of nominating Frank's most significant achievements, but his work for state-based land rights legislation, a first in any state in Australia, would have to vie for that top spot. Frank continued his work for the disadvantaged and Labor causes when he was elected to the House of Representatives. I do note that there were times when Frank suffered because of the stand he had taken. Disgruntled police officers, annoyed with the end of the Summary Offences Act, and some corporate interests gave him a hard time, but Frank always bounced back. Frank pursued a career that did bring him public standing, but it was always in the context of serving others. We saw this commitment continue when Frank left parliament, after losing his seat at the 1996 election. He then threw himself into working on compensation rights and schizophrenia issues. The Australian Greens recognise Frank Walker's contribution to Australian public life. It is fairer and more decent for his actions. His loved ones—Pamela, family and friends—can feel very proud of Frank's life.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to associate myself with the comments that have been made about the life and times of the Hon. Frank Walker QC. I would also like to recognise the contribution to progressive politics and the law that Frank Walker has made over many years and express my condolences to his wife Pamela, family and friends. I first met Frank at a Wran community cabinet at Muswellbrook, when I was a delegate at Liddell power station. Frank was in Muswellbrook for a cabinet meeting with Labor luminaries like Neville Wran, Jack Ferguson and Bob Debus. I found Frank from day one to be extremely confident, competent and an impressive politician and person. He was an engaging and effective communicator.

The important thing about Frank was his vision for social justice. He was a leading advocate for civil rights, and Bob Debus recently described him as 'one of the great civil libertarians of our time' in New South Wales with reforms to the criminal law, reforms to child welfare, reforms to anti-discrimination legislation and the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983. Dealing with issues of poverty and discrimination were some of the keynote issues that Frank Walker dealt with during his illustrious political career. He also, as has been indicated, pioneered rights for victims of domestic violence. As Attorney-General, Frank was targeted by corrupt police; he was subject to bomb threats; and there were attempts to smear and frame him in relation to the Nugan Hand bank. But he came through all of that and continued to participate in progressive political agendas until his death. The Dust Diseases Tribunal was an area that he as a judge would have found extremely interesting and important. Looking after workers who had been smitten by asbestos related diseases was extremely important for Frank, and I could not think of a better job or a better person to help victims of this disease than Frank Walker. He then became a District Court judge and an eminent jurist, and as always brought that great energy, confidence and competence to that position.

Frank Walker will be missed by the Labor Party. He will be missed by the progressive side of politics in this country. Forty years of fighting for the underdog with courage and determination marks the life of Frank Walker. I again offer my condolences to his family and friends.

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

Frank Walker was an unforgettable and inescapable feature of the New South Wales Labor landscape for those of us whose political involvement began in the 1970s. He was widely known in the party as a prominent left winger whose youth and energy were a real contribution to the Wran government's air of freshness; whose advocacy of the causes of environmental protection, civil liberties and Indigenous rights appealed to the growing community concern of the time on those issues; whose enthusiastic reform agenda changed much about the state of New South Wales and whose skill and drive as a campaigner shored up marginal seats at a state and federal level. Frank was driven by his ideals—ideals first shaped in childhood by watching his father hold steadfastly to his political convictions, no matter the cost. He found his home in the left wing of the Australian Labor Party, where he found people who shared a commitment to the causes he cared about.

Since his death, Frank has frequently been described as a factional warrior, closely involved in the internal struggles of his party and his faction no matter where he was—from state backbencher to federal minister. Internal politics in New South Wales Labor was played hard. Frank Walker fought hard to promote the values and causes important to him and to protect his interests and the interests of those close to him—as did we all. More than once Frank challenged the leadership of the Left in New South Wales. In 1971, as a member of a small dissident left factional grouping, he nominated against Arthur Gietzelt for the then federal executive of the ALP. In the early 1980s he moved to formalise the Left in the New South Wales state parliamentary Labor Party where the Labor Right had a natural majority. In the late 1980s he was instrumental in the New South Wales left faction, the old Combined Unions' and Branches' Steering Committee, rebadging itself as the Socialist Left. And in 1993 he was suspended from the Left for 12 months after nominating against the Left's ticket for the first Keating ministry—and winning.

It was not always so. Many of Frank's interventions in internal party matters did not end in triumph. Whether in the party or in the public arena, Frank Walker played his politics hard. He played to win and he did have wins to his name as well as losses. At the end of his career he could point to a long list of significant legislative achievements, from the repeal of the Summary Offences Act, as Neville Wran's Attorney General at the beginning of his ministerial career, to his groundbreaking work on implementing Mabo. Repealing then Liberal Party Premier Askin's 1970 Summary Offences Act—the act that made it literally a crime to be poor, to have less than $15 in your pocket, the act that made it a crime for two or more people to assemble without the authorisation of the Commissioner of Police—earned him the hostility of the New South Wales Police Force. His work on native title, in the Keating government, earned him the hostility of Liberal state premiers and plenty of mining magnates. I think he would have seen both as a sign that he was doing his job.

Frank was considered by many to be abrasive and combative. The stories of many of his successes are inevitably the stories of triumph over the implacable opposition of enemies, some within his own faction, in part because Frank did have a knack of making enemies. He pursued his goals single-mindedly. The dedication that made him an excellent campaigner in a preselection or a marginal seat led to more than a few ruffled feathers among those who dealt with him. But he would not be swayed from what he thought was the right course of action—not by threats, not by hostility, and not, as I found on the odd occasion, by persuasion or logic either. But none of us in the Labor Party should ever forget Frank's heroic by-election victory in 1970. The seat of Georges River had been a safe Liberal seat where the ALP was given virtually no chance of winning. Frank's victory changed politics in New South Wales. He was a breath of fresh air. He knew it was a very difficult seat to hold.

Frank gave a lot of attention to why Labor continually lost postal votes in election after election, state and federal. He broke new ground for the Labor Party by developing a postal vote register. This might not seem like much now but at the time it was revolutionary. It transformed Labor's performance in campaigning and postal voting. He and his campaign team would keep a record of those who had asked to be assisted with postal voting, for whatever reason, be they ill, infirm, disabled, housebound, travelling or overseas. And those electors did not have to ask for a postal vote application again; Frank's campaign team would always offer the service and the service was appreciated.

In 1976, when Labor won the seats of Gosford and Hurstville by literally just a handful of votes—and hence the 1976 state election which installed Neville Wran as premier—the postal vote campaign techniques that Frank developed made the difference. Labor would not have won the 1976 New South Wales state election without the campaign techniques developed by Frank Walker. Before Frank Walker, Labor lost the close results; after Frank Walker, Labor won the close ones. This will always be a lasting legacy.

Frank and I were not close, but we did have a cordial and professional relationship. We served together in the Keating ministry from 1993 to 1996. But I will never forget one great act of solidarity from Frank. In 1981, when I was persona non grata and sent to Coventry as the then left wing Assistant General Secretary of the New South Wales branch of the ALP, I was uninvited to the head office staff Christmas party. In fact, I was not invited to anything. So the leadership of the Left at the time held its own Christmas party for me—in my office! The then New South Wales Attorney-General, Minister of Justice and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Frank Walker, arrived in my office at Sussex Street with his Christmas present—a New South Wales branch ALP rule book with every page blank because, as Frank's annotation read, the Sussex Street machine just ignored the party rules anyway! I appreciated his gift and his solidarity, and I have lodged Frank's Christmas present in the National Archives of Australia.

Frank Walker carried a terrible burden with his tragic family circumstances and, typically, was driven by his own tragedy to fight to make the circumstances of others better. His work as the Vice-President of the Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia, the Deputy President of the New South Wales Mental Health Review Tribunal and the President of the Schizophrenia Fellowship of New South Wales was characterised by the same determination and dedication that he had brought to the state and federal parliaments. He remained, to the end of his life, in his own words, 'committed to democracy, human rights, civil liberties and a tolerant and inclusive society'. And he continued to work until the end of his life for those causes. I join with other senators in extending my sincere sympathy to Frank's family and friends.

Question agreed to, honourable senators standing in their places.