Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service and Integrity) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to pay tribute to a distinguished former national secretary of the ALP, Mr Cyril Wyndham, who died recently aged 82. He died on 2 July this year, at Newcastle.

Cyril was born in London, where his father was a compositor and a staunch unionist. Cyril grew up steeped in the ideals of the Labour movement. At the age of 17, shortly after the close of the Second World War, he contacted the headquarters of the British Labour Party, and his earnest zeal must have impressed them, because they gave him a job. He continued working there for a decade until he was persuaded by Doc Evatt to come to Australia and work for our party, the Labor Party. Cyril became Evatt's press secretary, and later Arthur Calwell's press secretary.

Cyril thought he might spend a couple of years in Australia before returning to England. In fact, he found he liked Australia, he met and married Nola and ended up staying here. In 1961 he became the secretary of the Victorian branch of the ALP, and his industry and effectiveness in that role had much to do with his appointment in 1963 as the Labor Party's first full-time paid national secretary. Previous occupants of the position had been concurrently secretary of a state branch.

Cyril was short, taut, intense and highly capable. He was known variously as the Cockney Sparrow, the Mighty Atom and the Cerebral Cyril. His dedication was exceptional. He had minimal support staff. He had once said, 'The biggest problem in a job like this one is whether one is doing enough, because there is so much to be done'.

In 1964 the ALP federal executive authorised Cyril to review the party's national structure, and he produced an insightful, visionary report. The Wyndham plan recommended the enlargement and reconstruction of both the federal conference and the federal executive, and advocated various measures to improve the party's branch membership, internal coordination, financial strength and appeal to younger Australians—a familiar story.

Regrettably, only some of these measures were implemented—again, a familiar story. Wyndham's proposals to increase party democracy were not heeded. The ALP would be a stronger party today if the Wyndham plan had been more fully implemented at that time. Cyril ended his stint as federal secretary in 1969 after six gruelling, tumultuous years of Labor opposition dominated by the Vietnam War, ALP leadership tensions, the faceless men, the state aid for schools debate and numerous other controversies. In the end he felt, understandably, ground down by it all and he decided to withdraw from active involvement in politics. But he had been a bridge from the Labor of Evatt and Calwell to the hope of Labor under Whitlam. In many ways, the Wyndham plan and Gough Whitlam's program sat comfortably together.

Cyril spent his more recent years living quietly with Nola at Newcastle, where he followed politics closely, but continued to stay out of the limelight, with very rare exceptions. I last spoke to Cyril just a few months ago. He was bright, alert and keen to help a young student on a PhD project on party organisation. Cyril Wyndham is not widely known these days, but he made a magnificent contribution to the Australian Labor Party, and through our party, to our nation. I thank him, I salute him and I express my condolences to Nola. (Time expired)

Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! In accordance with standing order 193 the time for constituency statements has concluded.