Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to speak for 20 minutes.

Leave granted.

I thank the Senate. On 6 March, a close friend and mentor of mine passed away suddenly. John Francis Russell was just 65 years old. He was not a man widely known in the public arena yet in his lifetime he achieved much more than most of us can ever hope to achieve. He was a significant influence on many people in the Labor Party, including former and current members of the federal and state parliaments. Next to my parents, he was the most important influence on my political career. The fact that I can stand here tonight in this great parliament is due very much to the inspiration, friendship and support, over 40 years, of John Russell. Last Wednesday night, my colleagues Senator Steve Hutchins and Senator John Faulkner spoke eloquently of John’s role, influence and friendship.

I have used the word ‘friend’ already three times in this speech. I have used that word deliberately and will continue to do so because John was not just a mate in the sense that we in the Labor Party so often use the term—he was not just a factional colleague—he was a great and true friend. At his funeral last Friday, which was attended by hundreds of his friends at his beloved St Aloysius Catholic Church in Cronulla, everyone spoke of his friendship and of his warm, inspiring, wonderful personality. When you were with John Russell he would tell you that you were one of his closest friends—and he had many.

I met John in the early 1960s. His father Frank was a local Labor councillor in the Sutherland Shire. He was a key figure in the Cronulla branch of the Australian Labor Party—the bastion at that time, and for many years after, of the right wing of the New South Wales Labor Party in the Sutherland Shire. He was a close colleague of my father and other local activists, mainly Catholics, who ran the branch. In the early fifties they had been instrumental in promoting a local resident and branch member to become the MP for Werriwa in 1955. That person was Edward Gough Whitlam.

Frank, his wife Ruby, John’s Aunt Vera and John were bastions of the Cronulla ALP and of the local right wing. They were lined up, as we were, against the Left in the area, which was led by Arthur Gietzelt—later to be Senator Arthur Gietzelt—from the Caringbah branch. There were great struggles. There was great competition to get the numbers in order to elect the delegates to the local electorate councils, and then on to the state conference.

I joined my local branch, the Cronulla branch, when I turned 15 in 1967. I have to say that I do not think I had much choice, but I wanted to join, and a lifelong friendship and association with John Francis Russell began. As I said, we were part of that ongoing struggle between the Right and the Left in the shire ALP. Then John became branch secretary and I was privileged to be his assistant secretary for a number of years.

Whilst he was a key player, an activist, he was much, much more than just a factional numbers man. Indeed, in many ways John was too good to just be a factional numbers operator, which probably in later years was to his cost if he ever had wanted to pursue a political career. He was a man with a brilliant mind, an intellect that saw politics as the constant battle of ideas rather than just numbers. After the monthly branch meetings many of us would adjourn to the Russell household where we would discuss politics, religion, literature, film, art, and always the struggle of the Right versus the Left. In those days of course communism was still a substantial force in world politics and so it was always on the agenda. It was always open house at the Russell household and many would gather. These were the years of desolation and despair after the defeat, particularly in 1966, which saw the Labor Party almost decimated federally because of the campaign at that time on the Vietnam War.

But then came the inspiration and the victory of 1972, the election of the Whitlam Labor government. My friend Steve Hutchins spoke the other night of an incident involving John’s mother and the Whitlam campaign in Cronulla at that time. Then we had the despair again in November 1975 when the Whitlam government was sacked. I remember that night of 11 November. We gathered at John’s place, drank many, many brandies, and sat around thinking about how this could have happened and whether there was any way the Whitlam government could be restored. John’s mother, who had this wonderful, ironic sense of humour, was sitting out in the kitchen making cups of tea—she was offering us cups of tea but we were drinking something stronger. She was listening to the radio and at one stage she came into the room and said with wonderful irony and timing, ‘Well, I have just heard the good news, you know—General Franco is getting better!’ That was the feeling at the time, having had us witness and experience what Sir John Kerr had done to us.

John Russell himself inherited his mother’s great wit. On one occasion he said to me: ‘You know, there are two ways to grow old. You can grow old like Bertrand Russell or you can grow old like Charlie Oliver’—he was the head of the AWU. I understand that he repeated something like that a couple of days before he passed away to his close friend Michael Costello. Michael visited him in the hospital in Caringbah and John motioned him to lean over and he said to Michael, ‘You know, I have worked out that there are two kinds of people in the world.’ Michael said to us that there was a pregnant pause and he thought, ‘Oh yeah, here we go again.’ Michael asked, ‘Who are they, John?’ John said, ‘There are those that have had a catheter and there are those who haven’t.’

John was in those early years of the 1960s and 1970s a key figure in the New South Wales Labor Party. He worked at the ABC where he met a chap named Robert Carr. I would like to quote from Andrew West’s biography of Bob Carr, titled A Self-Made Man. I think that title is not quite accurate when I read this:

IN HIS second year at the ABC, Robert met the man who, more than anyone else at the time, would influence his life and thinking. Of course, there was already Whitlam, but he was up there in the stratosphere, too remote to have any impact on Robert’s daily life. As for Murphy, Robert could stand in awe of his talent, soak up his professionalism, marvel at his wit. But Murphy could never be a role model because he was, above anything else, a journalist. To him, journalism was almost a religious vocation. For Robert—

that is, Robert Carr—

it was a great profession in which he could use his gift with words, meet famous people and hone the skills he would need for his true calling as a Labor MP. So that day in early 1970, when John Francis Russell walked into the office, Robert discovered his soulmate. ‘He is big time,’ says Michael Boggs, who quickly heard about Russell from Robert. ‘A major personality.’

Russell was a Catholic intellectual, born in 1943, four years before Robert. He attended a De La Salle Brothers school in Cronulla before becoming a minor seminarian, at sixteen, with the Franciscans at St Anthony’s College in the hills above Wollongong. Russell wrestled with the idea of life in a Catholic holy order before deciding, instead, to go to Sydney University on a full scholarship, where he shone as a student of Politics, History and English. As an undergraduate, Russell would loll under the jacaranda tree in the quadrangle and read Gibbon on the fall of the Roman Empire or Virginia Woolf’s essays. He would dissect Henry James or George Eliot and argue heatedly about the failure of the League of Nations between the wars. He had a didactic streak, prompting him to complete a Diploma in Education. But in the end, his desire to proselytise was too great and Russell ended up in journalism, first at the Sydney Morning Herald, then in ABC current affairs.

John introduced me to John Ducker and Barry Unsworth, the leaders of the New South Wales ALP Right at that time. Indeed, John was always introducing me and others to people. He spent his entire life introducing you to people. He was a great conversationalist. He introduced me to people like Frank Knopfelmacher on the Right, or Bobby Gould on the Left—and Senator Hutchins made mention of this the other night. What was important to John was ideas. That is why he had as many friends on the Left as on the Right—people like Senator John Faulkner, who is here tonight. I know they treasured the friendship that they developed with John over the years. He was a mentor to a number of us who are in this parliament or have served here—Senator Hutchins; Michael Lee; John Della Bosca, a minister in the state government; Michael Egan, who went on to be Treasurer of the New South Wales Labor government; and me.

In his later years, he became an active officer of the New South Wales Fabian Society and, as I have already said, a great friend of John Faulkner and of Rod Cavalier, and maintained long friendships with people on the Left, such as Peter Crawford.

After leaving the ABC, John worked for the Public Service Association and the Storemen and Packers Union before he went on to finish his career over many years in the cabinet office of the New South Wales Premier’s department. He worked under both Labor and Liberal governments and was respected by both. Not only did he have friends on all sides of the political equation within the Labor Party, the Left and the Right; he had friends on all sides of politics. The local state member for Cronulla, Malcolm Kerr, who was a Liberal member for 24 years, was a great friend and spoke of John’s passing and his friendship with him in the state parliament after he died two weeks ago. John, of course, never voted for Malcolm. Indeed, he manned the polling booth for the ALP at Thornton Hall, right opposite the Cronulla Catholic church, for over 40 years. But he nevertheless always had this warm friendship with people, whatever their politics.

There is much more that I could say about John Russell. I could speak for a long time, but time does not permit me. I want to focus on two particular attributes. As I said, John had an incredible intellect and a great love of reading, of film, of literature and of history. So many of us spent many hours in his company. His home was always welcoming to us. For many years, my wife, Jan, and I would go down to Cronulla Beach on a Sunday morning, walk along the esplanade and then go back to John’s place and have a coffee with him. We would catch up on the latest news from Canberra, which he wanted to hear. The discussion ranged widely over so many subjects.

John travelled widely, particularly to Eastern Europe, both before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This reflected his great interest in history and religion. I am advised that, on one occasion prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, John was in Czechoslovakia and someone had told him that he did not need to get his passport stamped. In the middle of the night, they checked John’s passport on a train and he was put off the train, in the middle of nowhere in Czechoslovakia.

John studied and understood the history of the countries of Eastern Europe, particularly places such as Bautzen, in Saxony in east Germany. In recent years, John was a great friend of, and contributor to, the Religion Report, a program on ABC Radio National, compered by his great friend Stephen Crittenden. I want to read from Stephen Crittenden’s comments after the passing of John. He said:

Well finally today, a tribute to my dear friend and mentor for more than 20 years, John Russell, who died suddenly in hospital last week. John Russell joined the ABC as a current affairs reporter in 1970 and left after several years to do other things. I met him when I went to work at the New South Wales Cabinet office in the mid-1980s. He was a man of extraordinary erudition, generosity and wit, a former Franciscan seminarian with vast circle of friends, who promoted a sympathetic, enlightened life-affirming kind of Catholicism.

In retirement, John returned to journalism and broadcasting with a string of wonderful programs for the ABC Religion department and articles that were among the best things to appear in Quadrant Magazine in recent years.

Making a radio program involves conversations and collaborations with all kinds of people, both off-mic and on-mic. Of course most of all it’s an ongoing conversation with you, dear listener. But in a very special way over these past few years, with his daily phone calls and his constant stream of books and ideas, for me, The Religion Report has often seemed like one long public conversation with him.

I think I only ever interviewed John once. He loved Germany, and in 2002 he described his last visit to the east German town of Bautzen, where he had wonderful friends.

And then he quotes John Russell:

Bautzen in the old times of the GDR—

the German Democratic Republic—

was a word that sent fear and loathing through the souls of all Germans, not just in the East but also in the West, because it was the place where the Stasi maintained its two prisons, and in fact one of those prisons has been closed and is now a museum, and to walk through the Stasi prison, which of course also before the Second World War a Gestapo prison, and see the way people were treated is a spiritual experience in itself.

John goes on:

Bautzen has the most incredible ‘Dom’ as they call it, that I have seen, because it dates back to 1200. It had a new roof and ceiling installed in the 1600s, but it’s divided in half between Catholics and Protestants and has been divided since the Reformation. The Lutheran half is at the back, you come in the back door, you walk up the aisle, there’s a little picket fence, there’s a Lutheran altar and a pulpit, and then you go over the picket fence and there’s the Catholic half, with an altar and pulpit, and of course it being Germany, both halves have wonderful organs.

He goes on to describe at length his experience of visiting these churches and the significance of the history going back over hundreds and hundreds of years to the people of that region.

Faith was extremely important to John. It was at the core of his life, along with his friendships and his dedication to the Labor Party. John understood the importance of religious faith to the people who lived under those regimes which I have just read to you about. Whilst he travelled the world and visited countries and regions most of us have never heard of, John always lived within half a mile of the St Aloysius Church at Cronulla—an interesting parallel to the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who never travelled more than 100 miles from his hometown.

His funeral last Friday was truly a celebration. I have never seen so many priests at the altar—there were 14 priests on the altar. There were also two Anglican ministers because John used to attend Anglican services as well, such was his fascination with religious history and religious service. For him it was not only faith but also an intellectual pursuit. As I said earlier, when I quoted from Andrew West’s book, John at one stage tried pursuing a vocation with the Franciscans—and I note that his middle name was Francis. It was not for him, but to my mind he really was a true Franciscan. He reflected in his life the most wonderful words that were written by St Francis of Assisi—I believe some of the greatest ever written—and I will finish with them:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love; or it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

John will live in our memories until we depart this earth. To his much loved partner, Rune, and to his many friends we say: goodbye John and thanks for the wonderful inspiration that your life has given us.