Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the condolence motion for Kim Edward Beazley AO. As the new member for Fremantle I have noted more than once that I follow in the footsteps of Labor giants—and in the history of this place there have been few men or women of greater stature than Kim Edward Beazley.

I find it heartening to reflect that Kim Beazley entered parliament in the shadow of greatness when in 1945 he followed Australia’s great nation-building and wartime Prime Minister, John Curtin, to become the Labor member for Fremantle. I do not know whether he felt the burden of his predecessor’s reputation, but it certainly did not show. From his earliest appearances in Hansard, Kim Beazley made his arguments with a steady and stylish forcefulness. It is no surprise that he ultimately came to be regarded as one of the best parliamentary performers of his era.

To give an example, I will quote from an article that appeared in the Australian newspaper in May 1967. It states: ‘He is undoubtedly Labor’s—and probably parliament’s—best orator. He has always had intellectual force and clarity and has harnessed both to a deeply personal style. Members on both sides listen carefully when he speaks on any subject—on New Guinea, for example, on which he speaks rather less than he might, or on Aboriginals, about whom he speaks more frequently and for whom he fervently prays for a “Yes” vote in the coming referendum.’

The contribution Kim Beazley made to Australian life and politics cannot be measured in numbers, but the numbers are nonetheless indicative of the range and quality of his political career, which spanned generations. He entered parliament in 1945 as the youngest member of the House of Representatives, at 27 years of age. He contested and won 14 elections for the seat of Fremantle. When he retired, undefeated, prior to the 1977 election, he did so as the longest-serving member of the 30th Parliament.

Kim Beazley represented the people of Fremantle for 32 years—an incredible stint—and I am advised that, of the 1,059 men and women who have represented federal electorates in this place, only 17 have served longer. Kim Beazley’s longevity as the member for Fremantle may have had something to do with his creative approach to campaigning. My father’s cousin, who grew up in Bicton, in the electorate of Fremantle, in the 1950s, told me of how kids in those days were always playing on the road—whether it was riding their bikes or playing marbles or hopscotch. At election time my father’s cousin, who was then around nine years old, noticed that, on Harris Road near the Bicton Primary School and on Preston Point Road on the bus route, there would be election slogans from Kim Beazley in large, neat block letters at least two metres long and two metres wide, printed on the road in chalk. My father’s cousin said he never forgot those beautifully done drawings on the road, which would mysteriously appear and remain for many weeks while the election campaign was ongoing. The slogans were all signed neatly in chalk with the words: ‘Vote Labor. Kim Beazley.’

Kim Beazley honed his skills with chalk well before entering politics. He worked as a schoolteacher and a university tutor, and he was Vice President of the Teachers Union. It is fitting that he carried the experience and insights he gained in those roles through to the policy work he ultimately undertook in the Commonwealth parliament. In his first speech in this place, Kim Beazley heralded the Commonwealth’s commitment, in 1945, of £5 million to support the states in the provision of education services. As a testament to his political stamina and commitment, he waited 27 years—having entered parliament at the age of 27—for the opportunity to make his most profound policy contribution, as the Minister for Education in the Whitlam government.

In that role, from 19 December 1972 until that infamous day of 11 November 1975, he was responsible for implementing the first, and still the most important, education revolution of the modern era. The Schools Commission legislation that he introduced had the effect of chiselling into stone the practice of distributing Commonwealth funding to schools, public or private, on the basis of need. And, of course, he threw open the doors of Australian universities to thousands and thousands of people—including many current parliamentarians—who otherwise might not have had that opportunity.

In 1983 he came out of retirement to head an inquiry into the Western Australian state education system. His work and leadership during the course of the year-long review were central to the success of the measures that followed from it, and in Western Australia it is only fitting that the student with the best results in the tertiary entrance examinations each year is awarded the Beazley Medal.

Within the Australian Labor Party, Kim Beazley served on both state and federal executives, and he was the Senior Vice-President of the ALP from 1969-71. At the ALP conference in 1951, he wrote the preamble to the party’s platform and constitution.

During his career, as many other speakers have noted, Kim Beazley also promoted the cause of justice for Indigenous Australians. He was a parliamentary representative on the Council of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies from 1964 to 1972. He was a member of the House of Representatives Select Committee on the Voting Rights of Aborigines in 1961. He served on the Grievances of Yirrkala Aborigines and Arnhem Land Reserve committee in 1963. He was a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and the Joint Select Committee on Aboriginal Rights in the Northern Territory in 1977. On taking office as Minister for Education, one of his first initiatives was to arrange for Aboriginal children to be taught in schools in their own language, with English as a second language.

I am sure that he would have been very proud that a Labor government instituted the first welcome to country ever performed at the opening of the Commonwealth parliament last Tuesday and of the apology last Wednesday. I am also sure he would have supported the inclusion within the new national curriculum of the stories of the stolen generations, and Indigenous dispossession more broadly, as well as information highlighting the cultural diversity and richness of Australia’s Indigenous heritage.

It is only right to mention here another of the most significant contributions by Kim Beazley to the Australian Labor Party and the Australian people—the gift of his son, Kim Christian Beazley, who has carried his name, his reputation and his legacy forward with the same intellectual force and clarity, depth of policy contribution, skilful oration and personal dignity. Kim Christian Beazley, who retired at the last election, helped to lay the foundation of this new Labor government. On two occasions he led Labor through difficult circumstances, and history will record that he won the popular vote in 1998, after only one term of the Howard government.

He launched my election campaign in Fremantle last October, and we remembered his father that day. Together, Kim Beazley Sr and Kim Beazley Jr gave more than half a century of service to representative politics in Australia. A very heartfelt expression of gratitude must go to the Beazley family, especially Betty and Marilyn, for the significant sacrifice that must inevitably have accompanied their love and support of these two great men during their long and meritorious careers.

As someone who did not know Kim Beazley Sr personally, I would like to record the views of those who did and of those who engaged with him as a colleague and a comrade. The former Premier of Western Australia Geoff Gallop remembered Kim Beazley for his advocacy on behalf of Indigenous Australians. He said:

The focus tended to be on his contribution to education, but I think in many ways he was the Labor politician from WA who put Aboriginal rights on the agenda.

Former Western Australian state Labor education minister Bob Pearce wrote:

Beazley was always on the side of the less fortunate and the underprivileged. He believed in public service, and the need for national leaders to act in a moral way. The influence of his brief three years in office lasts today in our schools and in tertiary institutions, but most of all in the acceptance by the community of his belief that inequality in education, as in all things, is not to be tolerated.

Current WA Labor Premier, Alan Carpenter, said that Kim Beazley Sr ‘was for many years the only bright light from WA in the federal arena’. Federal Labor MP Bob McMullan said:

The lesson we took from him was that you could have a long career in politics and still maintain your respect and achieve outcomes.

Former Prime Minister John Howard said of Kim Beazley Sr:

… he was a man of very high principle who gave a lifetime of service to his country, the parliamentary system and the Australian Labor Party. His demeanour and behaviour both in the Parliament and in the general discharge of his responsibilities as a minister set a very high standard.

Such a tribute from the other side of politics is a testament to the principled approach by Kim Beazley to political life. In his valedictory speech he said the following:

Bernard Shaw once said that an election was a moral horror like a war, only without the bloodshed. I do not think it is necessary for an election to be fought that way. I think that we sometimes become quite childish in this parliament and think that everything marvellous originated on our side and everything disastrous originated on the other side. I do not think that is true.

He reflected on all the parliamentarians that he had known in his 32 years, and he concluded:

I think that the Australian community has got a very high quality of representation. If it has, of course, that is what it deserves.

I think it can be said without qualification that the people of Fremantle and, indeed, Western Australia must have been doing something right to deserve a man like Kim Beazley. He was always a man of principle, and the bedrock of his values was his Christian faith. He was not prepared to bend his principles for the sake of political game-playing. Some have observed that this may have been to his personal loss, but I think it was to his eternal credit. He said it best himself when he observed:

If you do not accept the importance of conscience, you accept only the importance of power.

Kim Beazley served the people of Fremantle and the people of Australia with distinction. He was the embodiment and beacon of political conscience throughout his parliamentary career, his high standards of personal and professional conduct underlying a strong belief that the integrity of government is fundamental to democracy.

Reading back over the articles and obituaries from October last year, I think some commentators were too quick to put Kim Beazley in that well-worn category of ‘the man who could have been king’. It is true that he could have led the Australian Labor Party, but it is not true that his political life was in any way unfulfilled. There are kings and then there are kings. Royalty is not a concept that we in the Australian Labor Party are necessarily all that fond of. But, as a way of acknowledging a person’s stature, I think I might be forgiven for repeating the fact that when Kim Beazley entered parliament he was known as the ‘student prince’—and when he left it, and when he left us, he was a king.

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