Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I first met Bob Hawke in the mid-1970s when I was with the Northern Territory Trades and Labour Council. I was charged with the responsibility of going to an ACTU conference in Sydney to argue against the prospect of uranium mining in the Northern Territory. My remit was very clear: 'You go down there and you tell those bastards that they're not to mine uranium in our country. The workers of the Northern Territory won't tolerate it.' Of course, that was an easy measure to sell. So I went to the ACTU conference, diligently and forcefully put my case, called Bob Hawke every name in the world, and got done like a dinner. An hour or two later at the pub, Bob rocks up. 'How are you, son?' 'Fine, Bob.' He said: 'Well, no hard feelings. That's the way it is.' And for me that was the start of what became a very good and long relationship with Robert James Lee Hawke.

Next week, on 11 July, we will celebrate the 32nd anniversary of the election of the 35th Parliament in 1987—the parliament to which I was elected to become a member of the Hawke government, and I am the last remaining fossil of the Hawke government in the parliament. And it was a great pleasure to be involved with him and with all of those who were involved in the decision-making processes of the labour movement and the Labor Party during that wonderful period. We've heard eulogised already, in many ways, the achievements of that great government—over those great governments, I should say. And when I stand back and look at it—I was thinking about it last night, 'What the hell am I going to say that's going to be a little bit different or add something to what others have said?' I could only think that my personal experience of the government might be useful because, despite the fact that we have these great achievements writ large—and they were terrific achievements, of that there is no doubt—and we have transformed the nation for the better and forever, it was a collective process, and that needs to be contemplated.

Now, we've got a pretty good caucus—I've been a member of a number of them—but this is not a fractious caucus; this is a unified caucus. The caucuses of bygone days were not so unified; they were very fractious. If you can, contemplate the ideological divide across the Labor movement when we were deregulating the finance industry, reducing tariffs, changing the face of manufacturing in Australia and privatising assets. Can you imagine the debates that took place within the Labor family in this House—in the old house in the first instance? They were extensive, they were difficult, they happened and they were encouraged. I can well recall meetings about the privatisation of Telstra that went on for hours; Qantas, hours. We know how to have meetings in the Labor Party. We like a good yarn. Those were the days when the Left used to go out and brief the media after Left meetings. Those were the days when the Left had a position on the budget. It was an interesting period, and I was so privileged to be part of it. Bob had such charisma that, ultimately, he was able to bring it all together. He had some great lieutenants, of that there is no question, and we shouldn't doubt them, both the factional leaders and his ministerial and cabinet colleagues. They were a wonderful support, but they argued virulently amongst themselves and in cabinet.

I'll come to one particular issue which Bob believed may have eventually caused his own demise. We've heard the member for Barton refer to a number of important issues dealing with the First Australians. I want to talk for a moment about Landcare and recognise the member for Barton's since-deceased husband—a wonderful man, Rick Farley—and Phillip Toyne, who was a great friend of mine and someone I knew for many years. They had the capacity to work together within a framework set up by Bob Hawke to allow us to develop the national Landcare scheme. No-one would have contemplated the capacity of a Labor government to bring these forces together, moderate them and come up with a scheme with in excess of $350 million or so, yet it happened.

One sign of his capacity to bring the nation together was the Prices and Incomes Accord. We had come into our conversation something that, sadly, I have to say, has dropped off: the whole concept of the social wage and the ability of working people to accept less than they might otherwise get for the fact that the government was going to invest in services for them and their families—a better education, better health, better infrastructure—the sorts of things we argue for in this place on a daily basis. That conversation was had with the Australian working people. The Australian nation was involved in that conversation. What the Prices and Incomes Accord did was allow the nation, on the back of Australian workers, to go forward. We shouldn't underestimate the difficulty of that process and the importance of it and the importance of the partnership of Bob Hawke, Bill Kelty of the ACTU, and the team. It was extraordinary. Sitting as a member of the caucus, as a member of the government, watching all this happen, I was left in awe, really. I saw these great national figures, people of great personality—Peter Walsh, Kim Beazley, John Dawkins, John Button, Neal Blewett, Mick Young—replete with skill, capacity, brilliance and a willingness to achieve for the good of the whole Australian nation together. I could go on for a week, but I won't. It was such a delightful thing to do, to be a member of that government, and we should learn from it. We should learn about our capacity as a parliament to achieve great things for the nation. We should learn that we have, within us, the innate capacity to do good things; we just need to have the will to do it.

I want to talk, in a more concentrated moment or two, about First Australians. Bob had a couple of losses. Prior to entering into this parliament, I worked with the Central Land Council in Alice Springs. Pat Dodson, now Senator Pat Dodson, was the director and I was the policy officer. It was after the 1983 election and the issue of national land rights came up. The government committed itself to national land rights and the first iteration of its proposals reinforced the strength of the land rights legislation of the Northern Territory, allowing Aboriginal people a veto, control of their land and a whole range of things within it. Then, scurrilously, the Premier of Western Australia, Brian Burke, scuttled it. We didn't get national land rights, because Brian Burke was selfish and, I might say, racist, in undermining the aspirations of Aboriginal people for national land rights and in undermining the capacity of the Hawke government to achieve that objective. He did it in partnership with the mining industry, who in those days left no stone unturned to try and overturn any rights that Aboriginal people might have to control what was happening on their land. Ultimately, the National Federation of Land Councils came together and said: 'We're not going to cop something that Brian Burke says is acceptable. We won't have it.' So they campaigned, and I was involved with Pat. We were here courting the government. We were here pressuring the government not to pass the national land rights legislation, because it would've weakened and undermined the rights of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory and elsewhere. Now, that's a shame. That all happened because of the recalcitrant, selfish Labor premier. It's a fact of history. People may debate me, but I'm prepared to back up what I have to say through facts.

Post that period, Bob did some extraordinary things. He had this innate belief in opposing racism and discrimination. There was the creation of ATSIC. We hear the calls for a voice—this was a voice. It was dismantled, sadly, by the Howard government, but this was a voice based on regional assemblies around the country. It was a very forceful thing. It gave Aboriginal people rights, which they previously did not have. It gave them a recognition of self-management and self-determination, which was opposed, I might say, by the conservatives at the time. That's sad, but then, on the back of the meeting at Barunga and the Barunga Statement, we had the calls for reconciliation and the reconciliation council, and we had the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. They were things that would not have happened if it had not been for Bob Hawke's leadership.

We've got a long way to go. On 23 August 1988, we had the first substantive debates in this new parliament. The first motion to be moved was one which acknowledged Aboriginal Australians and asked for recognition and an affirmation of the importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and heritage and a whole range of other things. It wasn't supported, ultimately, by John Howard. They sought to amend the legislation.

I was given the honour to be the second government speaker behind the Prime Minister. I remember that day, and the pride with which I was able to stand at this dispatch box. And, during the course of his contribution, the Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, made some seriously important observations which we need to contemplate and recognise and understand and appreciate that we can do a lot damn better. He said, in part:

… the Government is committed to a real and lasting reconciliation, achieved through full consultation and honest negotiation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal citizens of this nation.

He goes on:

It will be recognised by the compact or treaty which we are committed to negotiating with Aboriginal and Islander people, and it will be recognised by our support for this motion.

That was a commitment we have yet to meet. What is wrong with us? And, at the conclusion of his speech, he referred to some statements by a truly great Australian, someone who was a mentor of mine and for whom I worked: Dr HC, or 'Nugget', Coombs. And this is what the Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, said:

What is required by government is the political will to follow through with these goals. In a recent article about the proposed treaty Dr Nugget Coombs said:

  It's a politician's job to recognise when the will is there to do something; but they also have a responsibility to create that will.

Again quoting Bob Hawke:

On the spurious claim that such a path to reconciliation would create division in the community, Nugget Coombs went on to say:

  It's never divisive to correct injustice. The fact of injustice is divisive and will continue to be until we correct it and learn to live with it. People who benefit from injustice will oppose this, but you don't stop working for justice simply because people around you don't like it.

That seems to me something we should all learn from.

But I want to make some concluding remarks around something which Bob believed caused his demise and relates to the internal workings of this Labor Party. And this was the issue of Coronation Hill. Arguably the most disruptive period within the Hawke governments was this argument over mining of Coronation Hill, Guratba to the Jawoyn people, the resting place of Bula and referred to by them as the sickness country. His support for opposing mining at Coronation Hill caused a bitter feud in cabinet and caused him great conflict and argument with his closest friends. He stood up to them and he insisted—he insisted—on achieving his way, but it wasn't without great divisive debate. And I referred earlier about the attitude of the mining industry. Well, this is reflected in one Hugh Morgan, who was then managing director of Western Mining Corporation, when he likened the defeat of the proposal for mining at Coronation Hill to the fall of Singapore. He said:

The decision on Coronation Hill is not merely bizarre, it is resonant with foreboding.

…   …   …

Unless it is strongly resisted and overturned within a short period of time, this decision will undermine the moral basis of our legitimacy as a nation, and lead to such divisiveness as to bring about political paralysis …

Do you believe that? This was a leading Australian industry figure—remember, we're talking 30 years ago—and it was scandalous. But sadly he had the ear of some in cabinet, and they vociferously argued against the propositions being put by Bob Hawke. Bob has commented on this. In his memoirs, he said: 'This decision divided a cabinet and alienated the mining industry. It aroused all the passions which flare when Aboriginal rights, issues and beliefs are added to the already combustible environmental versus development confrontation.'

I don't have time to go through all the arguments about the environment and other matters but I was integrally involved in this decision as the member of the Northern Territory representing the interests of the Jawoyn people. Ultimately, Bob Hawke said:

My position on mining at Coronation Hill was accepted. This was comfortable for the more bitter of my opponents, who had the luxury of making it known that the decision represented the will of the Prime Minister and not the majority view of the Cabinet.

I refer to an article by Sid Maher in The Australian on 31 December 2015, where he said:

… "I was annoyed beyond measure by the attitude of many of my colleagues, of their cynical dismissal of the beliefs of the Jawoyn people."

He challenged cabinet that those who opposed the Jawoyn position essentially were saying that the traditional owners were talking—

And excuse me for using this language—

"bullshit". "I think I made probably one of the strongest and bitterest attacks I ever made on my colleagues in the cabinet," …

Bob later said that he had no doubt that this contributed to his loss of the prime ministership to Paul Keating in December 1991.

The final comment refers to that contest in 1991. There were a group of us in the caucus who were solidly of the belief that Bob should have remained Prime Minister. In the first Hawke challenge, Bob's senior colleagues all combined around him and ensured that he won. In the second Hawke challenge, they fell off like flies, and his senior cabinet colleagues went to him and said, 'Bob, we don't think you can win; you should pull out.'

There was a group of us backbenchers, or parliamentary secretaries, who went over to the Lodge and sat down with Bob—the member for Banks, Daryl Melham; Con Sciacca; the former member for Burke, Neil O'Keefe; and me—and we said, 'Bob, what do you want us to do?' And he said, 'I want to contest this.' We said, 'We will go out and try and get you the numbers.' Now, remember, this is against the desire of his senior cabinet colleagues, his mates, who had told him to move on. There was only one of them who came out publicly supporting his position, and that was Simon Crean. We had the ballot, and Bob lost 56 to 51. It was an extraordinary outcome, really, when you consider the mountain of opposition that was being put against him by his cabinet colleagues.

I have lived a very fortunate life and I've had the great honour and privilege of being in this place for a damn long time. But I cannot—cannot—leave this despatch box without saying what a great man he was. We know this because others have said it. We know it because of what was achieved and how this nation has changed as a result of what he did and what he showed us. What I say to the government now when speaking—and I see the minister at the table talking about the need for a treaty and the issues I addressed earlier: constitutional recognition and a voice—is, 'Just remove the ideological shackles and the blinkers that prevent you looking across and saying that we can do this together,' because we can, and we must. Let's not be like John Howard those many years ago. Let's make sure we reach across the table and achieve this outcome. It's a challenge for us, and we can do it.

Finally, Hazel Hawke doesn't get a lot of mention here but she was one wonderful woman and a great partner to Bob when he was Prime Minister. In the pilots' strike of 1989 she was due to open an art exhibition at Yuelamu, which is about 200 kays north of Alice Springs. We flew from here in a twin-engine plane via Broken Hill to Alice Springs so she could drive up the highway to do this event. She needn't have done that, but she did it. She was a great and wonderful woman, and a great partner to Bob.

To Blanche, Susan, Steve and Rosslyn and their extended families: please accept my condolences and that of Elizabeth, my partner, who knew Bob well. May he rest in peace.

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