Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an honour and a privilege for me to be able to use the 10 minutes that I have allocated to me to speak about two great Australians who have made an enormous contribution to this country, particularly to my electorate of Oxley. Both hail from the same suburb of Inala where I grew up. Inala is viewed as quite a famous suburb in many areas across the country. It is a great honour to speak of two such great Queenslanders from my electorate.

In the past few weeks the suburb of Inala has lost two Labor sons: former Queensland Premier Wayne Goss and Keith Brown of the Inala branch of the ALP.    Both men dedicated their lives to Labor, to the labour movement, making a difference to other people's lives and working very hard in perhaps very different respects but no less significant ways.

As we know, Wayne Goss was a great contributor to Australian life, in particular Queensland life. Wayne was born in Mundubbera, on 26 February 1951. He passed away way too early, at the age of only 63 years. He was the son of Norma and Allan, who was a small business man. He owned a delicatessen and a barber shop in Inala. He was well regarded, as was his family. There are many great stories about the barber shop and about how Wayne Goss as a young man helped out, swept the floor and did the things that sons and daughters of small business people do. I have heard others comment: 'Thank God he decided to become a lawyer and a politician, because he wasn't a very good barber or hairdresser.'

Wayne received his primary education at Inala State School and graduated from Inala High School. I would call Inala, having grown up there myself, a humble place, a place of working people, of migrants, and which is more commonly seen as a low socioeconomic area, but it has produced such high-quality and high-calibre people at so many different levels, people such as Wayne Goss and Keith Brown—just to name two today—and many, many others.

Wayne went on to study law at Queensland University, becoming an articled clerk in 1968. He began his working life as a solicitor with the Aboriginal Legal Service, representing Indigenous people across southern Queensland.

In 1977 Wayne opened his own legal firm and, as you would have heard in the House today, Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, commented that it was through Gough Whitlam that the inspiration came for Wayne Goss to play a bigger role in politics and in Queensland life.

In 1983 he was elected as the member for Salisbury. But from 1986 to his resignation from parliament he represented the electorate of Logan. In March 1988 he was elected as Queensland Leader of the Opposition.

On 2 December 1989 he was elected as the Premier of Queensland. Labor's election was historic, after 32 years in opposition. There is no doubt that Wayne Goss was a key person in convincing Queenslanders that the time for change had long passed and that 32 years was too long and that he was the right person. Many people have acknowledged his contribution and the positive changes he made to Queensland.

Wayne Goss modernised Queensland. He established merit-based appointments to the Public Service and implemented recommendations of the Fitzgerald inquiry into police corruption. Wayne Goss was a remarkable and outstanding human being, a man of great foresight and great courage. He contributed in many different ways. He certainly was not afraid of reform and not afraid to do the tough things. He was well rewarded by the Queensland people in many different respects.

I owe Wayne Goss for many of the things I have done. Wayne, up until his first illness, his first tumour, was going to be pre-selected as the candidate for the seat of Oxley and, with my humble assistance of course, he would have been duly elected and would be the member for Oxley to this day; there is no doubt about that in my mind. I contemplate the incredible contribution Wayne Goss would have made had he been elected to federal parliament; he was a not only a leader of Queensland but a potential leader of this country.

Unfortunately he was taken from all of us way too early. He did make a very brave and correct decision at that time; he retired from politics and decided that life was too short; he wanted to spend more time close to his family and at home. He did not contest the seat of Oxley, which obviously gave me my opportunity. I thank him very much for the assistance and the help that he gave me. I hope that in some small way I repaid him in the work that I have done in the seat of Oxley. Wayne will be eulogised and spoken about in this House in the weeks to come, and I plan to say a few more words about the great man, Wayne Goss, in the not-too-distant future.

I also want to pay tribute to a great man, Keith Brown. Keith Brown was born 23 August 1930 and passed away—too young—11 November, Remembrance Day, aged 84 years. He was the eldest son of Edward and Veronica, and had four siblings: Neil, Doug, Roy and Lorraine. Keith attended St Joseph's College, Gregory Terrace, and became an apprentice boilermaker at Northgate railway workshop. He was the true essence of a working-class man; he became an apprentice and worked at the railways. And he continued to work for the railways for 47 years, until he retired in 1993.

He was very proud of the fact that, between the ages of 20 and 62, he was the union representative for the Metal Workers Union, something he would tell you over and over, many times. He was always proud to stand up for people and proud to be a voice for workers. Keith was a very proud and loyal Labor man.

While Keith never married or had children, he had many passions and he dedicated and devoted all of his spare time to community, to others, to bettering other people's lives, to participating, to contributing, and to doing many things. Keith had an abiding passion for tennis. In 1950 he became an honorary tennis journalist, and for 50 years he was an honorary tennis journalist on radio, television and newspapers. If you played tennis, you knew who Keith Brown was.

He was a loyal player and volunteer at the Richlands Tennis Club, where he organised tournaments and arranged for players to receive trophies. He always believed in displaying good sportsmanship and proper tennis etiquette. He would always make sure that representatives at all levels, no matter where they were from—local government, state government or federal government—would be on hand to help him present tennis awards to youngsters and to a whole range of people. He took tennis very seriously, not only as a player; he also who contributed so much back to the community, particularly at his beloved Richlands Tennis Club, where, like him, many of us learnt to play tennis. That is where I learnt to play tennis and love the tennis centre. It is still there, and I would say it will be there for a very long time.

After Keith's mother died of motor neurone disease, he became a tireless volunteer for the Motor Neurone Disease Association as well; always finding time for others. In 2004, a set of townhouses in Inala were named after Keith for his tireless service to the union movement, to motor neurone disease and to tennis—and, I would probably add, just for being a very good bloke who did so much for everybody else around him.

The tireless nature of Keith was that he kept playing tennis even after he was diagnosed with myeloma at the age of 76. In 2003, sadly, he was moved into the Sinnamon Village Nursing Home, where he continued to write for the local newspaper, until he became too weak to hold a pen. It was always a joy, always so much fun, for me to visit or to have Keith on the phone asking for another box of Bernie Ripoll's paraphernalia—note pads and shopping lists and magnets. And he would personally go to every single person and make sure they all had my fridge magnets on their fridge. He was an absolute treasure.

He will be sadly missed and dearly remembered. He was much loved and impossible to replace in terms of somebody with so much energy who contributed so much. He passed away on Remembrance Day, but we certainly will not forget him. Vale, Keith, you will be missed.