Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to note the passing of a great Australian and my dear friend, Mr Les Erdi OAM, who died on 27 January 2013—and in whose seat I often sit in the old synagogue where he and I both worshipped. Les stood just over five feet, but, to me and to many people who knew him, he was a hundred feet tall.

Les came from Budapest, from a very typical acculturated Hungarian Jewish background, with his wife, Eva. They settled in Melbourne and, from the beginning, made a great contribution. With his sometimes impenetrable Hungarian English he became a great friend of the Myers family, of all people. But Les was one of those great, post-Shoah giants of the Australian Jewish community who came to this great country and who made it greater. Together with his beloved wife, Eva, he was the life force in Melbourne of many key philanthropies, a businessman of great acumen and a great Australian patriot who was committed to our pluralist way of life.

It is interesting that, at this very moment, we have in this country Zsolt Nemeth, Hungarian Secretary of State. Australia's gain was Hungary's loss—that is all I can say to the visiting Hungarian Secretary of State—when our friend Les came to this country. He had many friends in this House who will mourn his passing. He was on first-name terms with political leaders on both sides of the political spectrum, in state and federal politics. At one of the memorial services I attended I met both the former Premier of Victoria Steve Bracks and another great migrant business success: Mr Frank Costa, the very well-known patron—I was going to say of the Geelong Football Club, but one could almost say of Geelong.

Les literally helped build Melbourne and Australia. He claimed to me that he had built 65 major buildings in Australia since the Second World War. And here is a man who came to Australia with nothing. He was the only public living figure I knew of to have had a public building or square named after him in the city of Melbourne while he was still alive. It is the square at the end of the Sandridge railway bridge, which I attended when it was opened by the then Mayor of Melbourne, John So.

Les had the vision to preserve the Sandridge railway bridge, which links South Bank with the city of Melbourne. He insisted that it include these incredible moving sculptures, which go up and down the bridge on any normal day. That bridge also contains the display of tens of national groups who make up the pluralist society of Melbourne and Australia. That was also endowed by him.

One of his greatest achievements was his restoration of the Grand Hotel in Spencer Street—that grand Victorian headquarters of the former railway administration in Victoria. It is an extraordinary building that, when Jeff Kennett, then Premier of Victoria, almost suggested it to him as a project, was black with the dust of endless trains that go past that corner of Spencer and Flinders streets. I urge any of you who visit Melbourne, on your way to the football, which is now in that area behind it, to have a look at this magnificent building, which he restored and which you can stay at in its grand corridors. You can stay in the hotel, or three levels of it are also apartments. It has the most magnificent staircases. It is almost like that song from Fiddler on the Roofone going up and one going down, just for show. He opened it probably at the height of his building pride, with then Premier Jeff Kennett in his efforts to restore Melbourne in that period when Mr Kennett was Premier.

Mr Erdi was also the leading donor behind the now very successful Jewish Film Festival. He was responsible for the Ageing in Place units at the Emmy Monash Home for the Aged— (Time expired)