Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with deep regret that I inform the Senate of the death on 24 August this year of the Hon. Dr Douglas Nixon Everingham, a former minister and member of the House of Representatives for the division of Capricornia, Queensland, from 1967 until 1974 and again from 1977 until 1984.

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

by leave—I move:

That the Senate records its deep sorrow at the death on, 24 August 2017, of the honourable Dr Douglas Nixon Everingham, former Minister for Health and Member for Capricornia, places on record its gratitude for his service to the Parliament and the nation, and tenders its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

Douglas Everingham, or Doug as he was always known, was born on 25 June 1923 at Wauchope on the North Coast of New South Wales. As a young boy, Doug showed early signs of academic promise. He won a scholarship to Fort Street High School in Sydney and later to The University of Sydney, where he studied medicine. It was during his university days that a fellow student, one Lionel Murphy, first sparked Doug's interest in left-wing politics, encouraging the young medical student to join the Labor Party. This was a marked departure from the politics of his conservative Christian upbringing, and helped to sow the earliest seeds for what would be a noteworthy career in federal politics.

Doug Everingham graduated as a doctor in 1946 and moved to Queensland to complete his internship at Rockhampton Hospital. It was there that he met Beverley Withers, a young nurse whom he married in 1948 and with whom he would have two daughters and a son. For Doug, it was the beginning of a life-long affinity for the communities of Central and North Queensland. Although his early medical career took him back to Sydney, by 1956 he had returned with Beverley to his wife's home town and had established a family medical practice.

Doug Everingham's first foray into politics came in 1963 when he ran, unsuccessfully, as the ALP candidate for the safe Country Party seat of Dawson. His opportunity arose four years later following the death of his friend George Gray, the member for the neighbouring seat Capricornia. Doug Everingham nominated for Labor Party preselection to stand as the Labor candidate at the by-election. From a field of eight preselection contenders, he emerged as the victor.

The Capricornia by-election on 30 September 1967 was a significant by-election at its time. Following the Corio by-election that had occurred three months earlier, it sealed the control over the Labor Party of the recently elected federal leader Gough Whitlam, who would become the party's 11th leader by a close ballot on 9 February of that year, following the landslide election victory of the Holt government in November 1966. The effect of the Corio and then the Capricornia by-elections was to consolidate Whitlam's control of the Labor Party and his vision of a future direction from the days when the party was led by Arthur Calwell.

The by-election itself did not pass without controversy. Doug Everingham was a keen polemicist and an outspoken advocate of left-wing causes. His letters to newspapers were as prolific as they were provocative, much to the consternation of the leadership of the Labor Party. We all know colleagues in our own political parties whose exuberant zeal sometimes causes us concern. There was, perhaps, good reason why the Labor Party were concerned at the tone of some of Dr Everingham's correspondence. During the course of the campaign it emerged that in April of 1967 he had penned an article for the Communist Party of Australia's magazine, Discussion, exploring the common ground shared by communists and humanists. In the midst of the Cold War, when public debate over Australia's involvement in Vietnam was beginning to intensify—but, as I say, only less than a year after the Holt government was re-elected with a resounding majority—this evidence of his supposed pro-communist inclinations, notwithstanding that they were concealed in the blandly named journal Discussion, was seized upon by both the Liberal Party and the DLP.

Gough Whitlam's former speechwriter, Graham Freudenberg, in his famous biography of Whitlam, A Certain Grandeur, recalled his account of the Capricornia by-election. In his recollection, Doug Everingham's choice at the preselection was against the express wishes of Mr Whitlam, who had personally intervened unsuccessfully on behalf of another contender. But in the face of sustained criticism Doug Everingham remained unrepentant: 'I write to all sorts of way-out journals,' he reflected afterwards—'or at least I did. If I had known what was going to be said about the article during the Capricornia by-election, I would have been more prudent and put a pen name, like Mr McMahon, on it.'

In spite of the controversy that this episode aroused, Doug Everingham won the by-election convincingly, with a swing of more than one per cent to the Labor Party, defeating the Liberal Party's Frank Rudd, who happened to be his brother-in-law. As Freudenberg writes, 'What the southern experts, both Liberal and Labor, did not know was that Everingham, who had treated hundreds of patients in the Rockhampton area free of charge, was widely respected for his integrity and even loved for his humanity,' so that when the federal Treasurer, William McMahon, influenced by poor advice and worse champagne, spoke at a Liberal Party in Rockhampton of the dangers of 'atheistic communism'—which was taken to be a thinly veiled swipe at Dr Everingham's atheism—both the Anglican and the Catholic bishop issued statements defending Everingham as their friend and 'a better Christian than many claiming the name'.

After his successful election in September 1967, in his maiden speech and in many speeches thereafter, Doug Everingham spoke passionately about the need for affordable health care and of the then novel policy of complete health insurance for all Australians. He also spoke extensively in condemnation of Australia's involvement in Indochina, partly in tribute to his friend and predecessor George Grey, who during his time as the member for Capricornia had been particularly outspoken on matters concerning foreign policy. Doug Everingham was re-elected as the member for Capricornia at the general elections of 1969, 1972 and 1974. With Labor's return to power at the 1972 federal election, he was appointed Minister for Health in the Whitlam government. His three years in that role saw among the most significant reforms to health policy in Australian history. As well as making a very significant contribution to the implementation of Medibank and the widespread expansion of Australia's public hospital system, Dr Everingham was particularly proud of the central role he played in the establishment of the Australian School Dental Scheme, which he described as potentially one of the most important achievements in public health in Australia. Tragically, Doug's career of significant achievement was punctuated by a personal tragedy with the death of his son Stephen in a motor accident outside Brisbane in 1972.

Although Doug Everingham's parliamentary service is understandably best remembered for his accomplishments in the health portfolio, his political interests spanned an extensive and at times eccentric array of issues. A humanist and a pacifist, he was a committed proponent of one-world governance and remained long after his retirement from parliamentary life one of Australia's highest profile critics of water fluorination. He also gained fame as an ardent campaigner for radical spelling reform, on one occasions opining in the Courier Mail that he thought there to be no good reason known to dictionary makers why the spelling norms of Dr Johnson or Will Paxton have been clamped, as if forever, on our living language.

In other policy arenas, posterity has proved kinder to Doug Everingham's lifetime of advocacy than in relation to his critique of fluorination. A vocal critic of smoking, he led the push within the Whitlam cabinet to curtail tobacco and alcohol advertising and was known during his time in parliament to affix anti-smoking stickers to the cigarette vending machines which, in those more indulgent times, populated many a corridor around Parliament House.

He lost his seat to the briefly named National Country Party at the double dissolution election of 1975, which saw the end of the Whitlam government, but he subsequently wrested back control of Capricornia two years later, at the 1977 election. He retained the seat until his retirement from elected office in 1984. During those years in opposition, Doug Everingham served as opposition spokesman on Aboriginal affairs in northern Australia from December 1977 until March 1980 and as opposition spokesman on the Australian Capital Territory and veterans' affairs from March 1980 to November 1980. He then left the front bench. In 1982, he served as parliamentary advisor to the United Nations General Assembly.

A person of immense character and commitment and a pleasing tincture of eccentricity, Doug Everingham was truly a man ahead of his time. His progressive ideals helped to build so many parts of modern Australia, most particularly its universal healthcare system, to which Australians of all political persuasions today subscribe. His achievements in public health policy, and health insurance in particular, will stand as his monuments. On behalf of the government, I offer our gratitude for his service and our condolences to his family.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on behalf of the Labor opposition to acknowledge the passing of former minister and member of the House of Representatives, the Hon. Dr Douglas Nixon Everingham, who passed away last week. As Mr Shorten said, today the Labor family salutes the life of a faithful son. I convey our condolences to the family and friends of Dr Everingham.

In the condolence for Rex Paterson last year, I described him as a quintessential member of a great Labor generation. Doug Everingham is another one who fits this description. Like his fellow Queensland representatives, he was one of those who paved the way for the election of the Whitlam government and brought to it expertise as well as firm ideological views. He would serve in Whitlam's cabinet for the life of that government, returning after a brief hiatus to continue to serve in the opposition that followed as well. Like those with whom he served, his achievements and legacy stand as a monument to the fundamental progressive change implemented by that government for the benefit of the Australian nation.

Doug Everingham was not always a Labor man. He disclosed in his first speech that it was the less belligerent approach to class differences and the insanity of extremism on the Right of politics that led to him changing his voting from the Liberal Party to the Labor Party at university. Born in New South Wales in 1923, he completed his medical qualifications in that state but would eventually permanently settle in Queensland with his family. As a medical professional, he was able to bring the skills and experience gained as a family doctor and in public and private hospitals to the parliament and then later to the ministry. He joined the Labor Party in 1959. As the Leader of the Government in the Senate has said, he was elected as the member for Capricornia at a hard-fought by-election in 1967, following the death of the incumbent Labor member. In that process, he became one of a new guard of parliamentarians marshalling behind the new Labor leader, Gough Whitlam. I note that the by-election was won against one of his in-laws, his wife's sister's husband.

Hailing from Rockhampton, he became another voice for working people in the industrial cities of Central Queensland. It is no coincidence that Rex Paterson, from the neighbouring seat of Dawson, who was elected in a by-election close to the time that Doug Everingham was elected, was one of those who led him into the House of Representatives for the first time. Doug Everingham would go on to serve as the member for Capricornia until 1984, with the exception of the period between 1975 and 1977.

In his first speech, he decried the approach to government of the reigning Liberal and Country Party coalition. He lamented:

The Government professes sympathy with the plight of the poor while spending lavishly in less urgent directions.

He also made the case vociferously against war in Vietnam and made arguments about a better way forward for Australian foreign policy during the Cold War era. Consistent with someone who placed different ideas on the table, his views on these and other matters were not always without controversy. He was also a prolific writer to numerous periodicals and journals both prior to his election and afterwards. As Senator Brandis has said, one of the causes for which he advocated included an ongoing campaign for simplified spelling.

In addition to his role as Minister for Health from 1972 to 1975, Doug Everingham also served in the opposition's shadow ministry after he returned to the House of Representatives in 1977. His portfolio of responsibilities included Aboriginal affairs and northern Australia, the Australian Capital Territory, and Veterans' Affairs. But it was as Minister for Health that Doug Everingham made his most substantial and lasting contribution on the Australian political landscape. It is testament to his foresight and vision that many of the groundbreaking reforms he initiated and championed remain pillars of Australia's health policy. For example, with the Minister for the Media, Doug McClelland, he introduced a phased ban on the advertising of cigarettes and tobacco on television and radio. This was a landmark tobacco control initiative and paved the way for other initiatives in the future, such as funding for anti-tobacco advertising, the ban on advertising tobacco products at sporting events and plain packaging for cigarettes. These are matters on which Labor has continued to lead. It is often the case that far-sighted reforms such as these need principled sponsors and staunch defenders, and Doug Everingham was one of those. There are other policy positions which he advocated which came to be realised well beyond his time in office. For example, we now know from released Whitlam cabinet documents that he was an advocate for the deinstitutionalisation of mental health many years before this became accepted as mainstream policy.

The signature health and social policy reform undertaken by the Whitlam government was Medibank. Doug Everingham first spoke of the benefits of what was widely derided as socialised medicine in his very first speech. He pointed out that governments of both political situations were happy to support free hospitalisation in his home state of Queensland, but, in Canberra, those on the opposite side of the chamber were not supportive. He saw it as unjustifiable for a person to be charged for medical treatment by a specialist, a hospital, a chemist or a physiotherapist if they had been referred for such treatment by a doctor. We often forget today just how much of a fight the Labor government under Gough Whitlam had in introducing Medibank, its scheme for universal health care. It succeeded in enacting it amidst a raging inferno of opposition from the conservative side of government, the Australian Medical Association and many others. The government had to overcome initial scepticism of many voters and unrelenting parliamentary opposition to make it law. To do this, after it was blocked twice in the Senate, the government held a double dissolution election and the only joint sitting of the parliament under section 57 of the Constitution.

Yet, even with all of this, the Fraser government effectively abolished Medibank upon coming to office, with the original scheme closing some years later. It was only with the return of Labor to office under the prime ministership of Bob Hawke that universal health care, now known as Medicare, was re-enacted and entrenched by a Labor government. Medicare has become one of the most popular and successful pieces of public policy in Australian history, and Australians owe a great debt to people like Gough Whitlam, Bill Hayden and Doug Everingham, who fought for universal health care and ensured that subsequent governments continued to fight for it. Labor people have always been and always will be defenders of universal health care. We defend it not just to ensure basic healthcare rights for millions of Australians but also to protect the legacy of those who fought so hard to establish it, including Doug Everingham.

In his statement issued to announce his retirement in 1984, Doug Everingham stated that he wanted to devote more time to, amongst other things, peace education, and so it was that one of the central themes in his first speech still burned bright at the end of his time in parliament. That he maintained his activism in this area is evidenced by an open letter he signed in 2001 seeking a lifting of the economic sanctions on Iraq. He saw these as an ineffective method of bringing about change where it was needed, within the Iraqi government, that instead brought misery and degradation to ordinary people, especially children. I note that cosignatories to this letter included former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and the then Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, Leonard Faulkner.

At the time of his retirement, Doug Everingham was described as a sincere and compassionate man, and it was these qualities that were at the heart of his approach to politics. He sought to improve the lives of those who, especially at the time of his election, had little or no voice in Australian politics and were often ignored by the government of the day, and, when given the chance to implement practical changes in office, he did so with energy, with vigour, bringing to it the benefit of his prior experience in medicine.

With the death of Doug Everingham, we lose another member of a famous government that changed the nature of this nation. Labor mourn the loss of one of our own—a Labor man who never stopped advocating for the many causes in which he believed, a man of decency and intellect. We again extend our deepest sympathies to his family and friends at this time.

Question agreed to, honourable senators standing in their places.