Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

(   Today I rise to join in the condolence motion moved by Senator Abetz. 1983, when I came into this parliament, was the time when David Thomson left the parliament. I knew him personally for many, many years. I knew him as a man who was not only a war hero but a person who came into the National Party and in those days people were mainly farmers who represented the National Party in this house. But he was not a farmer. He was a military hero, a Military Cross recipient and a person who went up to the North and the North became part of him and he became part of the North. And he loved it.

He had a particular affinity with Aboriginal people because he was a warrior and they looked up to warriors. He was a great warrior. I remember the talk going around the National Party: 'David gets on well with the Aborigines. He goes out camping with them and goes into the bush with them. They show him things and show him the sites and they respond to him.' People who know the Torres Strait know that around the villages there are big trees and some seats around there. They are known as trees of knowledge. He used to go out there, sit down and they would come and talk to him. He was a great advocate for the Aboriginal community.

I can remember in the management committee that often he and Joh Bjelke-Petersen did not share similar views, particularly on the Great Barrier Reef and putting World Heritage listing upon it. But he fought for the cause and he never took a backward step. It certainly made the management committee very entertaining when David and Joh set to and presented their different views.

I remember a couple of years ago that he was very active in McEwen House, the headquarters of the National Party in Canberra. He was president of McEwen House. We pulled down the old house and built a new one. He raised the money for that. He never forgot that he was a member of the National Party and he never forgot that he came from the North. He was a great advocate for the North and a great advocate for the Aboriginal people.

I referred to the Torres Strait Islands. They are very, very remote. In those days the only way you could get around the islands was by the big cruiser, the cargo carrier that the Queensland government had called the Melbidirand a few people met their Waterloo on the Melbidir! They are so remote and I can recall going up there in 1983. There was one telephone on one island. But David got telephones there in those days. People could not even ring up TI. There was nothing there. I do not know how you got a message across. I suppose it was by radio. But I can recall every island getting a telephone.

I can recall going up there and I acknowledge that David was held in high respect on the islands and in the community. He was a warrior, he was a fighter, he was a leader and he was a great representative of the National Party and, when he finished parliament, he still put in for the National Party through the management committee of the National Party and through the director of McEwen House. Only a couple of years ago he resigned that position. He had always been around the National Party and always at federal meetings. He retired to the south coast of New South Wales with his wife, Judy.

He led a great life, a life that many people would see as just exemplary. Whatever he did, he did successfully. I say to the family who are left, Judith and her grandkids, that you should be proud of him—proud of everything that he ever did because, to everything he ever did, he gave a 100 per cent and was successful.