Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to join with other members to pay tribute to David Jull, one of the extraordinary characters of this parliament and a man who contributed a great deal to public life in Queensland and across the nation. David Jull was born in Kingaroy in the same hospital where I was born. We were born in the same week of the year, although there are several years in age between us. His father was the Anglican minister in Kingaroy at the time. My grandfather was the Lutheran minister in Kingaroy at the time. I never knew him in his days in Kingaroy. He went to other parts of the state and at a quite early age took up a career in journalism—firstly, in radio with Macquarie News and then as an early recruit at Channel 0, later Channel 10, when it began in Brisbane. He was a newsreader for around 10 years and hosted some of their shows. His deep voice that I note others have referred to gave him an authority and a charm, which certainly warmed his audiences on television and endeared him to many people around the country. I suspect that that deep voice had already been given some its great timbre as a result of the fact that he was a smoker.

He was an extraordinary person, vibrant and full of life. He came into parliament in 1975 as the member for Bowman and became the member for Fadden in 1984, after a brief period following his loss of Bowman. He had an enduring interest in tourism and was a great champion of the tourism industry in Queensland and, indeed, the role of tourism as an industry. In that regard he was amongst the pioneers. He was always quick to assert that tourism was not just about holidays; it was actually a serious industry that delivered significant economic worth to our country and needed to be seen for its economic value as well as for the role it played in our social lives and reinvigorating people for their lives in the workforce. He was certainly a visionary in relation to tourism. During the brief period when he was not in the parliament, he became the deputy manager of the Queensland Tourism Corporation, and I am sure that would have been a labour of love for him as much as something that filled in the gap while he was not a member of parliament.

I think that if there is one thing everybody will remember about him—and this is particularly true for me because I also have an interest in aviation—it is that David Jull had an extraordinary, encyclopaedic knowledge of aviation—aircraft and aviation policies. He knew the flight schedules backwards. He and I were probably the only people in the world who were upset when airlines stopped printing airline schedules, because we used to read them. It is valuable information sometimes when you are in a strange place and need to get to another town. David had encyclopaedic knowledge not only of the airline schedules but of aircraft. It seemed that he knew things about almost every aeroplane that traversed the skies in this country and the world.

Once, when I was with him in Mexico City about to board a DC9 aircraft—to travel I think somewhere in Mexico—David Jull announced to the group that it was a former Ansett aircraft. It was in Aeromexico colours, so how he knew it was an Ansett aircraft as we were boarding I have no idea. He then went on to tell us some of the history of the aircraft and how it had been involved in certain incidents in Australia. I have to say that I was not sure he was not making all of this up, but when we got on the aircraft there were a few Ansett symbols still left on the seats in the plane, so we knew the story was absolutely true. And when we went to other places on that trip, David knew about the aircraft we were travelling in and whether it was a good idea to be on them or not. We certainly heard the history of the aircraft and the people who were flying them.

I know a number of other people have referred to the fact that he was the shadow minister for tourism. I think the job he most would have loved to have in this place was the job of minister for aviation or tourism. When he was shadow minister for tourism a range of issues associated with the airlines were causing a great deal of controversy. He had a particular dislike for Ansett—and it has to be said that he was a critic of Qantas from time to time as well. Ansett at that time was almost the preferred airline of most members of parliament. It had better catering and was perhaps the airline of choice for many members. He would not fly on Ansett. He referred to them as 'Criminal Air'. He used often to tell the story of how, at the height of one of the Ansett disputes that were going on, he got a telephone call from Sir Peter Abeles, who threatened to 'rub him out', to use David Jull's words. David did not think he was joking. There was certainly an intensity in that relationship. He was a critic of Ansett, and indeed history would suggest that some of the things that David Jull said at that time were a forecast of what in fact happened a little later on. David certainly took a keen interest in aviation.

I would like to mention something else about his encyclopaedic knowledge. Back in the days when members had to make their own arrangements for their travel through their local travel agents or when they went overseas, David was always the travel adviser of choice. He always knew the cheapest fare and how you could get from one place to another and save about half of your travel allowance. He just knew it. He knew the people, and he was always able to give exceptional advice about where people should travel and how they should do it. I mentioned briefly earlier a visit to Mexico. In 1993 my wife and I were part of a delegation of which David Jull was the deputy leader. The group went to Chile and Barbados and then to Mexico for the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum annual meeting. I have to say that it was without question the most enjoyable visit I have been on. The group was great company, but David Jull particularly was great fun to be with—always a story to tell and always jovial. But I recall that when we visited Barbados we were given as a gift a bottle of Barbados rum in a very unusually shaped bottle, and each member of the group brought the rum home. A few months later, David Jull said to me how much he had enjoyed his bottle of rum, that it was the best rum he had ever tasted in his life. I had to confess to him that I was not a great rum drinker and that we had not even opened our bottle. He said he was prepared to offer me half his kingdom for this bottle of rum. A little later, we opened the bottle and I have to say that it is first-class rum, but to this day we have not completely emptied the bottle, so that rum must now be more than 20 years old. I suspect it has matured beautifully by now and, when I get home after David's funeral in Brisbane on Friday, I am certainly going to reopen the bottle of Barbados rum and toast David Jull for many wonderful times, congratulate him and think of his achievements in parliament.

As others have mentioned, he was a small 'l' liberal and for that reason he was often involved in some of the party discussions about policy issues. He always took into these debates passion and enthusiasm but also a willingness to find a way through.

I had not seen David very much since he retired from parliament but I was delighted when he came to the last LNP conference in Brisbane and he seemed to be in good spirits—it was only a couple of months ago and I think it was probably the first of the major LNP functions that he had attended. So it was great to see him there, again being an enthusiastic contributor.

When David made his last speech in parliament, he said that he looked around for a text on which he could base his remarks. Unfortunately for David, I am sure there is not a single text in the whole of the Bible that says anything about aviation, otherwise he undoubtedly he would have chosen it. But he chose a text that I think not many people would have chosen for their final speech. He quoted, from psalm 129, a verse which says, 'Many a time they have fought against me; yea, many a time have they fought against me from my youth up but they have not prevailed against me.' When I think of David's life—the battles that he fought over the years and his courage in his latter years when he had a series of health issues—it is clear that his confidence that they had not prevailed against him endured right to the end.

David was a great character. We admired him enormously. He was a great friend, and someone who leaves a gap in the lives of not only the aviation buffs of the country but also those constituents whom he served well, his party colleagues and his parliamentary colleagues. We certainly admired him greatly. I extend my sympathy to his family. His second wife, Erica, I knew quite well, although I did not know many of the other members of his family, but certainly we extend our sympathies to them and assure them of our enduring love and respect for a great Australian.

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