Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

Australia has lost a great citizen who, in his life’s work, showed compassion for Aboriginal people and an understanding of the need to bring together disparate groups, particularly the farming community and the environment community, in working out better and more sustainable ways of using our landscapes. We have lost someone who committed himself to the public interest, over his personal interest, through the course of a very diversified but successful career. His life reflected an extraordinary trajectory for a boy from Queensland.

The tragic events that took place on Boxing Day which saw him confined to a wheelchair, unable to speak and seriously paralysed, sent shockwaves through not only his immediate family and his wife, Linda Burney, but all of us. We were so used to his tremendous communication skills and vitality in the work that he had always done, yet he was struck down in this way. His passing is tragic. I certainly want to pass on my deepest condolences to his first wife, Cathy Reade, to his children, Jeremy and Cailin, to his mother, Joan, and to his partner, Linda Burney, who has had a very difficult period looking after him following his illness and then suffering his sudden loss.

Many speakers—the member for Grayndler, the member for Goldstein and others—have remarked on the extraordinary career of Rick Farley. I reflect on some comments of Phillip Toyne, whom Rick worked with when Phillip was Executive Director of the ACF and Rick was Executive Director of the National Farmers Federation and they both took the Landcare proposal to Prime Minister Hawke. Phillip remarked that Rick Farley was a consummate advocate for farmers and later for Aboriginal rights who, through his work, contributed to the reshaping of Australia. I think those comments are very true. How did he do this? He was a creative alliance builder who used his principled intelligence to try to reach agreements and negotiate outcomes. He was prepared to hang in through the long meetings and through the difficult years for the things that he thought were important. He was both a man of purpose and a man of principle.

I reflect on the work that he has done. During his time at the NFF he did, I think, discover the extraordinary Indigenous heritage in land and some of the still to be resolved difficulties that we have in accommodating the subsequent pastoral industry and its use of Aboriginal lands and Aboriginal people’s claims and titles to their country. It is probably a realistic reflection of the history of the time to note that his departure from the NFF came as a consequence not only of the fact that he had done good work there, particularly through Landcare, but also of him wishing to speak out and to pursue Indigenous interests and the Indigenous cause more fully. And of course that is what he did—subsequently serving with distinction on the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. He was involved as a consultant in a number of important issues, including the resolution of the access to grave sites at Lake Victoria, working with the Murray Darling Basin Commission there, and was centrally involved with the Cape York land use agreement. Later on, he did a lot of work with the mining industry as they resolved Indigenous land use agreements.

His loss will be sorely felt. I think it is undoubtedly a reflection of his character and his contribution that the parliament should come together on this condolence, which I support.

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