Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening during the adjournment debate as the federal member for Perth to make some remarks about the late John D'Orazio, a former Labor member of the Western Australian state parliament. He died suddenly on Monday, 11 April. John D'Orazio was a lifelong friend of mine and remained a friend until his death. Fortunately from a personal perspective, I had the opportunity to have a good conversation with him by phone on the Friday before his death. He told me that that day was a good day. He was suffering from amyloidosis and he had his ups and downs. As ever, when we spoke, we spoke about politics, we spoke about his pharmacy business and we spoke about family.

I have known John since we were both in grade 7. He lived in his beloved Bayswater and attended Christian Brothers College Bedford. I lived in Mount Lawley and attended Christian Brothers High School Highgate. In those days, CBC Bedford only went to junior, so for subleaving and leaving the Bedford boys came to Highgate. When we finished school together, he went to what is now Curtin University and graduated as a pharmacist, and opened his pharmacy in Guildford Road, Bayswater. He subsequently became a councillor and mayor of the city of Bayswater, a mayor of long standing. It was here that he made his mark and left a longstanding and great impression on the local area and the broader city of Bayswater community.

It was a great personal and professional privilege in my early years as the federal member for Perth from 1993 to 2000 to work closely with him when he was mayor of the city of Bayswater. He retired as mayor in 2000 and subsequently became a state member of parliament. His great achievements as mayor included the development of the Galleria shopping centre in Morley and what is widely regarded as the best waste and recycle collection system for a local authority in Australia. He established the first citywide 24-hour security watch for a local authority in Australia. And he made sure his council became debt free. I was very pleased to be able to work closely with him to establish the first Bendigo Community Bank in Western Australia, in Bayswater itself. I also worked very closely with him to protect the residents of the city of Bayswater from aircraft noise from the Perth airport.

When he entered the state parliament in 2001, he had my very strong support for Labor Party preselection and my very strong support for his election to parliament. His preselection and his subsequent election was widely welcomed and broadly acclaimed. He was a person regarded as a future minister, and he duly became a minister. Initially that was a happy experience, but it was not without its difficulties. The political difficulty never justified the treatment he received at the Western Australian Corruption and Crime Commission in respect of which he was subsequently exonerated, nor did it justify his peremptory expulsion from the state parliamentary Labor Party at the hands of the then Western Australian Premier, Alan Carpenter. This action was both unjustified and unjustifiable on the part of the Premier and it was a mistake for which he would pay dearly. The Premier, the Labor Party and the Labor government paid a heavy price for that mistake when Labor, at a subsequent election, lost the seat of Morley, thereby enabling a Barnett-led minority government to take the helm in Western Australia.

I was honoured to be able to attend John's requiem mass at St Columbus in Bayswater and to attend his service at the Karrakatta mausoleum. I was pleased to be able to express my condolences to his son, Greg, his daughter, Jessica, his wife, Ailsa, and his first wife, Ros, whom I have known for many years. I again extend those condolences.

His departure from public life was not a happy one. It was unfortunate. But he retained the respect of his community and his friends, of which I was proud to say I was one. His untimely and early death was a tragedy for his family. I again express my regards to his family and his broader family and his brothers. As we ended many conversations since grade 7, I do so in the same way tonight: arrivederci, paisan.