Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to use the opportunity of the grievance debate today to acknowledge the lives of four remarkable Australians who we have lost recently. A few weeks ago, Australia lost one of its greatest benefactors, Susan Wakil, a woman whose generosity and philanthropy are overshadowed only by her love for Australia and its people, and her husband of over 60 years, Isaac.

I was honoured to meet Susan and Isaac last year after they were appointed Officers of the Order of Australia for their extraordinary charitable efforts. Although not of robust health, Susan was hospitable, attentive and charming. Arriving in Australia from Romania at the age of 15 with her aunt, Susan had already faced and overcome more than most do in a lifetime. Her father had been imprisoned in a Siberian gulag and her mother had passed away from illness. In Australia, the young Susan was heralded by her educators at Sydney's Holy Cross College as a tenacious student whose learning ability and achievements belied her non-English speaking background.

Susan was a lifelong student of how to live a decent and meaningful life, deliberately seeking out teachings beyond her own Jewish faith to guide her. She was courteous and well mannered, admired by fellow students and educators for her uncanny ability to find pleasure in hard work. Susan saw her match in Isaac, and together the pair formed an exceptional, inseparable partnership that would last a lifetime. They quickly became wildly successful garment manufacturers, thanks to their work ethic and clever minimalist production of clothing staples. Savvy business people, Susan and Isaac reinvested much of their profit into property throughout Sydney's more dilapidated central suburbs.

Embodying their core belief that individuals have an obligation to use their opportunities, Susan and Isaac committed their wealth to fostering health, the arts and culture, and developing Australia's future leaders. The scale of their philanthropy reached unprecedented levels following the transformation of their business and property portfolio into the charitable Susan and Isaac Wakil Foundation. They Wakils made the largest ever donation to Sydney University, funding $47 million for the construction of the Susan Wakil Health Building, along with 12 annual nursing scholarships in perpetuity. They also made the largest donation ever to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, with $20 million to construct a new modern art wing. Their support of Opera Australia, Vision Australia's Black and White Committee and the Sydney Jewish Museum has allowed these organisations to thrive in their work and benefit so many Australians.

Wanting to empower younger generations with the skills and values necessary to make an effective contribution to society, Susan and Isaac funded a fellowship for passionate student leaders. I'm proud and honoured to support this fellowship and, as an official mentor to one of the future leaders, I'm delighted to have a Susan Wakil fellow, Jeremy Estrin, interning in my parliamentary office. Susan's legacy lives on through the fellowship, as it does through the many other charitable activities that bear Susan's name, and in the hearts and minds of those touched by her generosity. We all enter this world hoping that through our efforts we can leave it a better place. Through Susan's efforts there's no doubt that she achieved this. My thoughts are with Susan's husband Isaac at this time. May her name continue to inspire and her memory be a blessing.

I was absent during the condolences motions for Sir John Carrick and Jocelyn Newman, and I wanted to take this opportunity to offer some personal reflections on both of them.

Sir John Carrick's career in this place and his service to the Liberal Party are well known. He was its, almost, founding general secretary in New South Wales, a Leader of the Government in the Senate and a minister in a range of portfolios during the Fraser government, most particularly in the space of education. Sir John Carrick made an enormous contribution to Australia, to the Liberal Party and to thinking about education policy in this country. But even before he came here, he made an extraordinary contribution as a serviceman in Australia, as so many did. He was originally a serviceman in Sparrow Force. He was then captured and taken prisoner in Changi. He survived the horrors of the Burma Railway, as did my grandfather and one of the heroes opposite, Tom Uren. Both Sir John Carrick and Tom Uren formed a very strong friendship although they were quite ideologically and philosophically different people. They travelled together to Thailand to visit the Burma Railway where they had been servicemen with so many of their colleagues.

I first met Sir John in the 1990s through our mutual involvement in Australians for Constitutional Monarchy. Sir John was one of a number of former Fraser ministers involved in that organisation who hoped to keep the crown. I saw him regularly at those events, but the first real conversation of any great depth we had was in relation to a book that I was working on, which was the missing biography in the Australian Prime Minister biography set. There is no biography of Sir William McMahon, and I thought it was important to try to rectify that, so I contacted Sir John and asked if I might have an interview with him about Bill McMahon and his leadership. In summer 2007 I went to Sir John's home in Burwood. There he was in a very faded white shirt. It was almost see-through. It was only subsequent to his death that I learnt that he never wore new clothes. He would always buy clothes in second-hand stores, and it was very apparent that day.

Sir John really wasn't interested in talking about Bill McMahon. In fact, he wasn't really interested in being interviewed at all. Instead, he wanted to speak to me, as the person charged with the responsibility of carrying the party's traditions in my role as executive director of the Menzies Research Centre, about what I was doing to try to build a stronger Liberal Party. In his view, a strong political party meant that we have a strong Australia, because political parties choose parliamentarians to serve in this place, from parliamentarians a cabinet is chosen and the cabinet appoints people to the High Court and to the Reserve Bank. You can't have a strong Australia if you don't have the fundamentals of strong political organisations. He challenged me over six hours in his place—it was a tour de force: what was I doing to make these things better? It was inspiring. He probably would have gone on even longer but for the fact that his wife and daughter returned home and interrupted our conversation, giving me some relief. But I'll never forget that day. Sir John and I maintained a strong correspondence, and we would see each other from time to time.

At the Menzies Research Centre, one of the books that we published was a book called Variety and Choice: Good Schools for All Australians, a history, effectively, of the state aid debate. John had been active in that debate as a party official. He saw the sectarian divide that existed in Australia as useless. He kept trying to tell Robert Menzies to hop the fence and talk to the nuns: 'You'll find that they are very similar to us.' He had a profound impact on John Howard and the thinking of the Liberal Party more broadly about the importance of the need to provide funding for non-government schools. It was great that, in his early 90s, he came to the Northern Beaches Christian School and launched this book. The twinkle in his eye as he spoke to the young students was absolutely fantastic.

My memory of Sir John is warm and long, and I was very saddened by his passing. I was particularly saddened because, when we had the 75th anniversary of the fall of Singapore, I mentioned him in a speech. I sent a copy of the speech to him and said, 'We must catch up.' We'd exchanged correspondence and tried to find a time to catch up, but it was not to be. I regret that I didn't have a final conversation with John.

The second person who we lost who made a real contribution to this place is Jocelyn Newman. Jocelyn Newman came from a political family. Her husband, Kevin, had been the member for Bass, winning the famous Bass by-election, and her son, Campbell, was Lord Mayor of Brisbane and later Premier of Queensland. Both men had served in the Defence Force, and Jocelyn had a deep interest in Defence matters. Indeed, I think Jocelyn was always disappointed that she didn't get to serve as defence minister in the Howard government; although she had been, at various times in the coalition's period in the wilderness, shadow defence minister. I got to know Jocelyn, again, through my work at the Menzies Research Centre, and she helped us launch a book called So Many Firsts: Liberal Women from Enid Lyons to the Turnbull Era. She talked about some of the struggles and the challenges that she'd faced being a woman in the Liberal Party and a woman in parliament. She is rightly remembered for the extraordinary work that she did in relation to welfare reform, particularly the overhaul of the old Commonwealth Employment Service and the establishment of Centrelink and the Job Network, which she created with, among other people, Tony Abbott and David Kemp. I think she was a really special lady. She had a great sense of humour, and, in later years before she got ill, she used to do holidays on container ships, where her company was the crew, and they would cook amazing Filipino food and so on. It was a very practical approach that Jocelyn had to life. It was a very practical approach she had to holidaying as well.

The final person I want to very quickly mention is Stuart Devlin, who hasn't been greatly eulogised in this place. Stuart Devlin passed away recently, and my constituent, Valentino Musico, a playwright and lawyer, remarked that no-one had said much about Stuart. Stuart is the person who designed the coins that came in as part of our decimal currency. Not only did he design the coins in our country but he designed coins in a whole range of countries. His passing should be more noted than it has been.

To Stuart's family and to the families of the other people I have mentioned, may their loved one's memory be a blessing.