Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I seek the indulgence of the House to mourn the death of Mr Rick Farley. Rick Farley would be known to many people on both sides of this chamber. I first met Rick Farley when he was working at the National Farmers Federation. He was recruited—from the Cattlemen’s Union, I believe—by the then Executive Director, Andrew Robb, and the then President of the National Farmers Federation, Ian McLachlan.

At that time I was a counsel for the National Farmers Federation in various legal matters and national wage cases and I got to know Rick reasonably well. He was always someone who had a great idea. He had an incredibly fertile mind. He gave everything that he had to the National Farmers Federation and he was somebody who, I think, could bridge the gap between farmers, who are generally on the conservative side of politics, and environmentalists, who are generally on the opposite side of politics. That is the way that I think many of us will remember Rick Farley—as somebody who bridged a lot of divides in his life and brought many people together who normally would not have known each other.

Rick was born in Townsville and he grew up in Brisbane. He went to university in the 1970s and began his political career protesting against the South African rugby tour. He dropped out of university and became a journalist—by his own description, ‘a bit of hippie’ with long hair and bracelets. He went to work with Doug Everingham in the Whitlam government. Many people would have thought that that would set the direction for the rest of his life, but his life was one of total surprises.

Rick was recruited to the Cattlemen’s Union, which was a breakaway from the pastoralists in Queensland. The Cattlemen’s Union was a mildly conservative organisation with a very firm agenda. Rick observed that, in moving to the Cattlemen’s Union from being a Whitlam government staffer, he moved from being a vegetarian to a meat eater. He is reported as saying: ‘You couldn’t work for the Cattlemen’s Union and not enjoy a good steak.’

As I said earlier, he was recruited to the National Farmers Federation under Andrew Robb and Ian McLachlan. When Andrew Robb moved on to become the Federal Director of the Liberal Party, Rick became the Executive Director of the National Farmers Federation. The National Farmers Federation had raised a considerable sum of money, which was used to assist farmers but also to fund a lot of legal actions in relation to the waterfront and against some trade unions. But Rick took that organisation and he brought a new respect, I think, to land care and environmental matters. One of his great achievements was that, under the period of the Keating government, with Phillip Toyne he joined the Landcare program and brought farmers into that program—farmers who, of course, have an interest in respecting the environment, which, of course, is their livelihood and their life.

After he worked for the National Farmers Federation he became a member of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, bringing a new group of people into Aboriginal reconciliation and mainstreaming that for a lot of people on the centre-right of Australian politics. He ended his political career, as far as I know, by running for the Democrats in 1998. So, by this stage, he had been with the Whitlam government, he had been close to the Liberal Party and he had become a candidate for the Australian Democrats and stood unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1998.

To Linda Burney, a New South Wales Labor MP, I know that his death will be a terrible loss. Through Linda and through his work in reconciliation he had many friends on the other side of the House. Rick had two children from a previous marriage. We will remember Rick as a talented man with an abiding commitment to rural issues and a deep involvement in reconciliation. Fifty-three is too young to die. To his partner, Linda Burney, and to his children, from his many friends on this side of the parliament and on the other side of the parliament, we mourn his loss and we send our condolences to his family.

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