Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to be associated with this condolence motion because I am probably the only member of the House of Representatives who served with Kim Beazley Sr. It was a great privilege to do so and I intend to outline something of the circumstances of that service. I might say, before the member for Canberra departs, that I am sure Kim Beazley Sr would have supported a welcome to country, and her request that that have an ongoing place in our new parliaments I am sure would have met with his approval.

Firstly, I extend my condolences to his wife, Betty, his son, Kim Jr, his daughter, Marilyn, and each of their children. It is not generally known that I was in fact born in Canberra. I claim to have a museum site as a birthplace. My father was here in Canberra and knew Kim Beazley Sr. I noted, in reading his first speech, that it was a speech about postwar reconstruction. My late father was firstly a chief investigations officer in prices and then a deputy commissioner in prices and was very much involved in the administration of the policies that I noted Kim Beazley Sr adverted to in his maiden speech.

It was a speech about the importance of economics. It was a speech about the postwar reconstruction period. I noted that he commended the budget for a number of reasons. In the first place, it recognised a number of fundamental problems in the immediate postwar period, namely that there was an excess of purchasing power and capacity to invest. My father later became a Liberal member of parliament in New South Wales and a minister but, notwithstanding the fact that he administered price control, he was very much against those sorts of intrusions of the state. But, in the context of what he was doing at that time, he had a clear role that brought him in touch with many, and one of those was Kim Beazley Sr.

In my own period in the parliament, he was father of the House. I now have that honour. His service was for 32 years, from 1945 until 1977. Being elected in 1973, I saw him as a fine Minister for Education. I did not always agree with all of the policies he implemented, but he was someone who people recognised was a ‘conviction politician’. Of course, he was in opposition in 1975. By that time I had become, as the member for Canberra noted, actively involved in Indigenous affairs and I was chairing the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs. Our first brief was to examine the alcohol problems that Aboriginal people were experiencing and it brought me into conflict with Kim—and, I might say, with Ralph Hunt, who was the Minister for Health at the time. They conspired, I think, to broaden the terms of reference of the House of Representatives committee to look at health generally rather than just at what they saw as being a limited problem. He was a person who was fundamentally interested in the plight of our Indigenous people. He was, I think, very close to the late Professor Fred Hollows, who talked to him about these health issues, and, as befits somebody who was senior in service in the parliament, he continued to play a constructive role.

I noted when I was reading the material prepared helpfully by our Parliamentary Library—they always prepare helpful material—that it noted his very fine education. He was born in 1917. He succeeded John Curtin as the Labor member for Fremantle. He was the youngest member of the House of Representatives when he was elected, he was known as ‘the student prince’ and he held the seat until he retired. But what follows is something that is far more interesting. He was, it says ‘a committed Christian and member of Moral Rearmament’, and it was in that context that I have a great deal of personal admiration for what he was able to do and achieve.

He was not the only member of this parliament engaged with Moral Rearmament. Members perhaps do not know that Moral Rearmament has had a change of name, but they are still active in the environs of this parliament. If you ever have the opportunity to go to Caux in Switzerland and participate in one of their forums, it is a great and unique experience—even better than Hayman Island. The fact is that Kim Beazley and the late Dr Malcolm Mackay, a Liberal member of parliament, played a significant role and engaged me very much in Moral Rearmament. But, reading the material, it is far more interesting than that, because he came with conviction. It says:

... Beazley was prominent on the right-wing of the Labor Party during the ideological battles of the 1950s and 1960s. During the leadership of Arthur Calwell (from 1960 to 1967) he was considered a possible future leader of the party, but his right-wing views, particularly his support for the U.S. Alliance, cost him support ...

And Whitlam emerged as leader. Kim Beazley Sr was a person who had the courage of his views and conviction—even more so after the defeat of the Whitlam government, when he was elected to the Labor frontbench but resigned when it was revealed that the then ALP National Secretary David Combe had been seeking money from Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi Baath Party to pay off what were then party debts. As one who has, on a matter of principle, set myself aside from my colleagues, I have to say that it is not easy to do. In Kim Beazley Sr we saw a man who was not prepared to serve on the Labor frontbench because of the strong principles that he held. He was quirkish, he was adversarial, but he was a person I greatly admired. He had an impact on me in the parliament and I very much wanted to be associated with this condolence motion.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand it is the wish of honourable members to signify their respect and sympathy by rising in their places.

Honourable members having stood in their places—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Committee.

Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That further proceedings be conducted in the House.

Question agreed to.