Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today with deep sadness to acknowledge the passing of former senator the Hon. Nick Bolkus. Nick was a towering figure in South Australian public life, a formidable parliamentarian and a man whose contribution to this nation leaves a lasting imprint on the character of our country. And while his public contributions are well known, his private contributions are equally important. He was a much-loved husband to Mary and a father to Nick, Aria and Michaela. He was a colleague and mentor to many in the Labor movement across Australia, particularly SA Labor, and he was a valued friend to many. I'm lucky enough to be able to count myself as one of those.

For many Australians, and particularly for those of us from South Australia, Nick Bolkus was more than a senator. He was a reformer, a strategist, a Labor legend and, above all, a believer in the power of public service to improve lives. Nick was born in Adelaide in 1950 to migrant parents from the island of Kastellorizo in Greece, and his parents ran a greengrocer shop in Adelaide's West End. He was educated at Adelaide High School and Adelaide University—a true local. He showed his interest in politics early, fundraising and hand-delivering letters supporting Don Dunstan in 1965 and 1966 at the tender age of 15.

After a brief career as a lawyer, he unsuccessfully ran for the seat of Torrens in 1975 and for federal Senate in 1977 before being elected as a federal senator for South Australia in 1980. Entering parliament at just 30 years of age, he quickly developed a reputation that would follow him throughout his career. Nick was intellectually sharp, politically courageous and never afraid to engage in the contest of ideas. His wife, Mary, says he was always certain of his position, and she wondered how it was that two people who were always right ended up married to each other!

He understood that democracy is not a spectator sport. It requires conviction, resilience and a willingness to stand up for what you believe is right, irrespective of the cost. And Nick brought those qualities in abundance. He was a key minister in the Hawke-Keating governments: Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister Assisting the Treasurer for Prices and Minister for Administrative Services. But he's perhaps best known as having been Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. In this latter role he reviewed the Migration Act and the Australian Citizenship Act and established the Refugee Review Tribunal. He was instrumental in allowing thousands of Chinese students to remain in Australia after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Thousands of lives were changed.

At Nick's state memorial service we heard from Dr Hang Quach, a professor of haematology from St Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne. She told the story of her father being sentenced to life in prison as a political prisoner in Vietnam after the war and how her mother fled in fear to Australia as a refugee with two small children. Dr Quach was aged four at the time. They didn't know if her father was dead or alive or if they would ever see him again. As a 15-year-old, she wrote to Senator Nick Bolkus. One day she answered the phone at her home, and, to her great surprise, it was Senator Bolkus. It took a couple of years, but he performed the miracle. He managed to negotiate for her father to be released from prison and deported to Australia. At the state memorial, she showed a photograph of Nick and her father meeting for the first time, her father as a free man. Of course, she and her mother re-met the father that she couldn't remember, having not seen him for the best part of a decade and a half. Her father lived out his years in Australia, and his daughter is now changing the lives of Australians through her clinical research. She spoke of being forever grateful for the compassion and the second chance her family got in this wonderful country thanks to Senator Bolkus.

It's impossible to know how many hundreds of thousands—maybe millions—of Australians' lives have been changed for the better because of the work Nick Bolkus did in immigration, citizenship, multicultural and ethnic affairs fields. He approached legislation with rigour and seriousness, always conscious that the decisions made within these walls ripple far beyond Canberra into households, workplaces and communities across Australia. But what truly distinguished Nick Bolkus was not simply the positions he held but the principles that guided him. He believed in fairness. He believed in opportunity. He believed in multiculturalism and that diversity makes us a stronger and greater nation. He believed that government, at its best, could be a force for dignity, particularly for those whose voices were too often unheard.

Those who knew him personally speak not only of his intellect but of his loyalty and warmth. Politics can be an unforgiving profession, yet Nick forged friendships across factions and across the aisle. The capacity to disagree without disrespect is a lesson all of us in public life would do well to remember. The Nick I knew was sharp, witty and very, very softly spoken, but you always leant forward to hear what he was saying because it was always worthwhile.

Nick died on Christmas Day last year after a long illness that tried his patience. My heart goes out to my dear friend Mary, to Aria, to Mikayla, to Nick and to his sister, Ana.

Nick believed future generations deserve a nation more just, more prosperous and more compassionate than the one they inherited. He was not one who believed in pulling up the ladder after himself, and he demonstrated that through his work and through his life.

While political careers eventually conclude, bodies age and memories fade, the impact of public service lives on. It lives on in stronger institutions, fairer laws and expanded opportunities for others. It lives on in the lives of those you have impacted. Nick's legacy lives on in individuals like Dr Quach and all the patients she helps, in the SA Labor Party, forever changed by his guidance and support, and in the multicultural Australia he helped shape.

Nick Bolkus understood that legacy is not measured in titles but in the difference one makes and in the lives you change. May he rest in peace.

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