Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

Hear these words of the late President George HW Bush:

We are a nation of communities … a brilliant diversity, spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.

What brilliant perception. President Bush led a truly diverse and yet truly strong nation. He saw the strength in that diversity and he delivered the leadership to draw people together into the common cause. His leadership was based on his personal strength; it was unmistakable. This man of great humility never spent much time reflecting on himself, or his own background as a World War II combat pilot shot down from his burning plane, ejected and then miraculously rescued.

Back home his service to people around him continued. As Chairman of the Republican Party in Harris County in 1963, he ran for the US Senate. He was not elected; he never countenanced that as a failure, but rather as an experience. Barely two years later he was elected to the US House of Representatives. He served in crucial roles—US Ambassador to the United Nations in 1971, US envoy to China from 1974 to 1975 and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1976.

The strength of character shone like a beacon again when he sought his party's nomination for the presidency but lost to his opponent, Ronald Reagan. But again he refused to walk away. He was to become Reagan's Vice President, working with him as a team to see the world-changing demise of communism and reunification of Germany. Indeed, it was during George HW Bush's presidency that the Cold War came to its end. In fact, we can be quite precise about this. On 12 February 1989 the negotiations drew to a climax when President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev held their first meeting of Bush's presidency in the harbour of Valletta, Malta, to discuss nuclear disarmament and the strengthening of Soviet-American trade relations. Both leaders announced that the Cold War was effectively over.

Bush was the servant of the people around him as a lifelong calling, not simply for his term as President. A most wonderful example of this was after the devastation wrought on Louisiana and Mississippi by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Bush joined forces with Bill Clinton, who had defeated him in the 1992 election, to establish the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, raising donations well beyond $100 million in its first few months.

For President Bush, it was always about the other person. Last weekend, marking the passing of this great man, a former staffer recalled that, if the script of a speech used the personal pronoun too often, he would get out a red pen, circle the 'I's and notate it with, 'Too many'. He felt that, in a democracy, the word to be used was 'we', not 'I'.

I was to have the great opportunity to meet George Bush Sr. It was during a District 9700 Rotary International group study exchange tour to Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts in 1993. There we were assembled outside what they called the 'Summer White House', at Kennebunkport in Maine, a wonderful historic fishing town. I was there with the late Simon Terry—he was our leader; Andrew Hamilton and David Meiklejohn, with whom I still remain very close friends; Michelle McInness, who was a psychologist at Kapooka army base; and ABC reporter Jackie May. We were all ready to meet the great man, and, as he was walking down the path to greet us, that was the very moment in history that President Clinton decided to have the missile strike against Iraq, and the Secret Service agents, the security men, whisked George Bush away. They thought it was best that he go indoors. He gave us a bit of a wave. We were basically 40 metres from meeting him and having lunch with him and his partner for life, Barbara. It was a missed opportunity but a rare moment to reflect back on at this sad time, this momentous time, as we speak in this chamber about the legacy that he leaves.

It is true that the Bush family had accrued wealth. It was wealth derived from courageous business decision-making and from sheer hard work. The family could have been satisfied to have made this massive contribution, with their patriarch rising to arguably the position of greatest responsibility across the world. But the family ethos embedded in the life of the 41st President of the United States was one of service—service above self, you could say, which is of course the Rotary motto. So it would come as no surprise that one son, Jeb, John Ellis, served as Governor of Florida and another, George W Bush, served as the 43rd President of the US. Each brought their own steely resolve to their responsibilities, but each drew strength from a family who saw beyond themselves and understood the greater good—public service. I'm not recommending that we wish the responsibilities we feel upon our own families. I wouldn't do that. But we do see this utterly remarkable dedication and commitment to the people around them that President George Herbert Walker Bush and his family around him have shown to their nation and to nations across the globe.

I started with the words of George HW Bush. Let me conclude also with his words, and they are words that can serve to inspire certainly all of us in this parliament but, more so, offer inspiration to us as a nation:

No problem of human making is too great to be overcome by human ingenuity, human energy and the untiring hope of the human spirit.

We celebrate the very real contribution that President George HW Bush has made, quite directly, to the quality of life that each of us enjoys today through his untiring energy, his untiring spirit. We commemorate his life. May we all take his example to our hearts. Rest in peace, President George HW Bush.

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