Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to offer my condolences to the family of Craig McGregor and to speak about his remarkable contribution to journalism and to Australian writing. Craig started his career at the Herald, but his writing found its way everywhere, from the New York Times to the National Times. He wrote more than 19 groundbreaking books on Australian politics and culture, along with two novels and two collections of short stories. It was all complemented by a capacity to write poetry.

His colleague David Leser described it in this way:

Craig McGregor was one of the blazing stars in the Australian intellectual and cultural firmament. For more than 60 years he wrote about everything from politics, class, popular culture, surfing and architecture to love, sex, desire and marriage. His skills were vast and many, matched only by his limitless curiosity.

The 8½ metres of his personal materials now held in the National Library are testament to this curiosity. A quick scan reveals notes on Patrick White, on Bruce Dawe, on Barry Humphries, on music, on photography and, of course, on the many political figures that he profiled, for which he is so fondly remembered by both journos and pollies.

I met Craig and his wife, Jane, in 2001, when I was a candidate in the federal election. Craig was living on the North Coast, a place of enormous personal significance to him. Craig planted the pandanus and casuarina trees that now stand along the front at Wategos Beach. Craig was keen to talk, and he invited me into his beautiful home. He was a lovely conversationalist, engaging deeply and intelligently with the issues that confronted Labor nationally and locally. He approached these most serious issues with a unique, joyful spirit. Both Craig and Jane offered enormously generous personal and political support to me, and I will always be so grateful. My condolences.