John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House records its deep regret at the death on 2 February 2006 of the Honourable Sir Reginald William Colin Swartz KBE, ED, a former federal minister, Leader of the House of Representatives and Member for Darling Downs, Queensland, and places on record its appreciation of his long and meritorious public service, and tenders its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

The late Reg Swartz was a member of that group collectively described as ‘Forty-Niners’. They were a group of members who came into the federal parliament with the election of the Menzies government in 1949. They were overwhelmingly, but not completely, members of the coalition side of the House because of two factors. The first factor was the expansion of the parliament from 74 members to 124, decided upon by the Chifley government, which accompanied the expansion of the Senate and the change in the voting system in the election of senators. The second factor, of course, was the scale of the Menzies victory in 1949. I understand that there are now only two remaining Forty-Niners: on the Labor side, Clyde Cameron, the former member for Hindmarsh and, on the coalition side, Allen Fairhall, the former defence minister and former member for Paterson.

Reg Swartz’s membership of the House of Representatives was neatly coextensive with the period of coalition government between 1949 and 1972 but, having said that, he was a man liked and respected on both sides of the parliament. It was due in part to the extraordinary camaraderie that existed across the political divide between the men who had fought in World War II and particularly those, like Reg Swartz, who had fallen into captivity when the allies surrendered in Singapore. Reg Swartz along with many others had to endure years of imprisonment at the hands of the Japanese. He spent time in Changi and also a period working on the Burma-Thailand railway. When the war ended in 1945 he returned to Australia.

Reg Swartz was born on 14 April 1911 and was educated at Toowoomba Grammar School. At the age of 17 he joined the CMF and later enlisted in the 2nd AIF, serving with the 2nd/26th Infantry Battalion and the 8th Division in the Malayan campaign. Before entering parliament he had worked as an oil company executive and, as I said earlier, he was elected to federal parliament to represent the Queensland seat of Darling Downs, a seat he held continuously until 1972.

He held a number of portfolios and for the last two years of the McMahon government he was Leader of the House. He was a person who had a great capacity to calm the House at question time. When I first became a junior minister in the Fraser government, there was an expression, ‘the Reg Swartz award’, and it was meant to describe a very lengthy answer. So if you won the award, it did not necessarily mean that you were enjoying the approval of the then Prime Minister.

Perhaps the most moving and poignant association I had with Reg Swartz was in 1998 when, as Prime Minister, I had the privilege of travelling to Thailand to Kanchanaburi to open the Hellfire Pass Memorial. As well as being accompanied by a significant number of former prisoners of war, a group put together by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, I invited three former members of this parliament who had been prisoners of war of the Japanese: Sir Reginald Swartz; Sir John Carrick, the former government leader in the Senate; and Mr Tom Uren, the former Labor minister and a person well known on both sides of this parliament and well liked by many current and former members of the parliament. To be associated with those three men—and in terms of age and rank Reg Swartz was the senior of the three—was to be reminded of the remarkable spirit that kept them going during those dreadful times of captivity.

Curly Swartz, as he was known—a traditional Australian acknowledgement of his baldness—was the Leader of the House, a role he performed very well. He held a number of portfolios and he continued in his life outside of parliament in the CMF. He became a lieutenant colonel as Assistant Quartermaster General, Northern Command; and he was made an honorary colonel of the Australian Army Aviation Corps in 1969. He was created a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in June 1972 and appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for distinguished services in the south-west Pacific.

In retirement Reg Swartz pursued his many and varied interests. He lived a very full life. He married a second time, after the death of his first wife. He died last week at the remarkable age of 94. The government has offered, and the family has accepted, a state funeral, which will be held in Caloundra on Thursday this week.

On behalf of the government and on behalf of the members of the Liberal Party throughout Australia—we are a party that Reg Swartz was proud to remain a member of and serve with such commitment and distinction—I record my gratitude for his service. He belonged to a remarkable generation of Australians who endured terrible suffering, came back with great hope and great optimism about the future of this country and then set about dedicating the rest of what was to be, in his case, a very long and fruitful life, to the service of his country both publicly and privately.

So on behalf of the government I extend to his wife, Lady Muriel Swartz, and his children Barbara, Graham and Rodney, and to other family members and friends, our very deep sympathy on their loss and in their bereavement.

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