Bob McMullan (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is traditional, in speaking in condolence, to speak of when one first met the person to whom one is referring. I cannot remember when I first met Rick Farley, it is so long ago. I suspect it was when he was working for Doug Everingham, which makes it more than 30 years ago. I found it hard for a while to believe that the person speaking for the Cattlemen’s Union was the same bloke I knew when he worked for Doug Everingham. I do not want to say any more about that except that it did seem a little bit like an unorthodox career path. I had known him a little bit for a long time but I came to know him better when he was Executive Director of the National Farmers Federation and in subsequent years. I can now see the common themes that ran through many of those contributions that, by orthodox analysis, seemed a little bit contradictory.

I will not repeat what was said by the member for Goldstein, the member for Kingsford Smith and others who have really gone to the heart of what made him an effective advocate for many causes that had in common a belief in decent opportunities for Australians, reward for hard work for Australians, protection of the land of this continent and the rights of people, particularly Indigenous people in subsequent years, and their access to that land. One of the significant things about the fact that I cannot remember when I first met him is that, once you knew Rick, you felt you had always known him. He treated you like that and I felt like that. When I think about it, perhaps it is because I have always known him, but I think it felt like that to everybody on virtually their first meeting with Rick.

The work in which I knew him best was on native title. Of course, I knew of his and Phillip Toyne’s role in Landcare—two fine Australians—but I was not in any way associated with that. I was merely an observer of unfolding events. They were events which I supported but in which I had no part to play. From the very first, when many representatives of agricultural interests thought that if they closed their eyes native title would go away, that the High Court had done something with which they could not come to terms and if only they wished hard enough it would disappear, Rick saw that it was in their interests as well as in Indigenous interests and in the national interest. He saw that the High Court had not invented some dictum but had re-established an enduring right that was never going to go away. There were two choices. We could go forward with continuing litigation, High Court case after High Court case, and the law of native title would be established but it would unfold slowly, arbitrarily, expensively and in a manner that made certainty for landowners impossible.

The legislative framework that emerged in the Mabo legislation was not perfect. It has been made worse by some subsequent amendments but better by the evolution of the practice around it, to which Rick made a substantial contribution as a negotiator. But the country is so much better because we were able to negotiate an agreement. No one person can take all the credit for that and certainly not Rick. But he was a major player and it would have been of a lesser character as an agreement had it not been for the role which he played, and it would have evolved less well were it not for the active role that he played. He could see both sides of the argument both because of his personality and because of his unique history that enabled him to make a contribution that almost nobody else could have made. I am always very loath to talk about people being indispensable. Events evolve, nations and history take their course, but it is hard to think of anyone else with the combination of experience and personality who could have played the role that Rick did.

People have spoken correctly about Rick’s role on the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. Apart from the commanding heights of it, he was very active locally. I remember meeting him and Linda in an airport on their way to a meeting of local reconciliation groups. This was not some grand public event that he was going to get a lot of publicity for. They put their hands in their own pockets to pay to go to a meeting attended by people who were organising reconciliation groups in local communities. They were not going as leaders, other than as leaders of the local community around Marrickville. That was their reconciliation group that they were representing and they were travelling around Australia to attend that meeting. I admire and respect his role. If that is all he had done he would warrant great acclaim. But others have spoken about his previous role in the agricultural industry—and I thought the member for Goldstein spoke very well about that—and in Landcare, where others like the member for Kingsford Smith have more expertise.

I had another peculiarly close association with him that is not something which one usually speaks of in extending condolences. He ran against my party here in Canberra. Fortunately, for me, it was not the year in which I was a Senate candidate—that was some time before—but I was a House of Representatives candidate when Rick was running for the Democrats. The Senate situation in the ACT is a bit unusual in the way the quota system works. The Labor Party always wins one seat and there is a hot contest for the second between the Liberal Party and all-comers. It is no secret that I was very keen for Rick to be elected on that occasion. The second Senate candidate for the Labor Party was a friend of mine, and I had to keep saying to him, ‘No, you are not going to win. Relax, don’t worry, don’t resign your day job; you are not going to win. We are all working very hard to get Rick elected on our second preferences.’

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