Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This month we mark 20 years since the death of the late Neville Bonner, AO, and former Australian senator. He was Australia's first Indigenous federal parliamentarian—indeed, Queensland's first Indigenous parliamentarian at any level of government.

Many senators never really enter into the public consciousness, but Neville Bonner broke all the moulds. And by being fiercely independent, true to his values and incredibly down-to-earth, he became a very identifiable and hugely popular figure across party lines. On his death in 1999, The Courier-Mail wrote that he became 'one of the best known of Australia's politicians, listened to by the broader community'. Neville Bonner had that amazing inclusive style of representation, and an unwavering commitment to the cause of diversity, and for this reason he remains a real role model for so many of us that follow in his footsteps.

At a time when Indigenous rights were heavily debated and racial tensions were often greatly contested, Neville Bonner was sworn into the Australian Senate on 17 August 1971. The traditional custodians of the Brisbane area are the Yugara and Turrubul people. Neville Bonner's arrival in the Australian Senate was a momentous occasion for an Aboriginal man and a Yugara elder. In many ways, he was a representative not just for Queensland but for all Australians, and particularly for Indigenous Australians.

Neville Bonner represented his constituents with both grace and pride. He was a deeply empathetic man who'd overcome great hardship and discrimination in his own early life and was conscious of the need to stand up on behalf of those who he described as being 'at the bottom of the ladder'. Yet he never allowed himself to be shackled by his personal adversity and disadvantages, and in this way he was an inspiration to many. As Kim Beazley said in his condolence speech in February 1999:

There is no person who's come into this chamber who's lived as hard a youth as Neville Bonner—none.

The only formal education Neville Bonner ever received was the completion of third grade at Beaudesert State School. This would lead him in his maiden speech to say he felt overawed by the obvious education of other honourable senators within that august chamber. He continued by remarking:

I assure honourable senators that I have not attended university or a high school and, for that matter, I do not know that I can say I have spent very much time at a primary school. But this does not mean that as a senator from Queensland I am not able to cope. I have graduated through the university of hard knocks. My teacher was experience.

Throughout his Senate career, he worked towards bettering the lives of the disadvantaged, even when this drew him into conflict with members of his own party. He had the courage of his convictions, crossing the floor many times on issues like Indigenous justice, pensioners, the environment, the elderly and East Timor. And, in keeping with his understated and humble style, Neville Bonner believed his greatest achievement was, quite simply, the fact that he was there in parliament, that an Aboriginal man was there.

Yet, such an assessment does not begin to do true justice to his achievements and his impact. At Neville Bonner's funeral, his grandson said that Neville would not have been comfortable with the praise that has been given to him since his passing. Neville once said that he would like to be remembered as a good man who tried his best and did his best. He was much more interested in achieving practical outcomes than in enacting merely symbolic gestures. It was Sir Jim Killen, his good friend and fellow prominent Liberal at the time, who, in delivering the eulogy at Neville Bonner's funeral, reflected that he had spent his whole life, 'Building a bridge over hostility to concord, that it was never easy and he found himself sometimes in a state of despair. But no matter what the disappointment, setbacks or criticism, he never used the word 'hate'. He was a man gifted with grace.'

In 1979, Neville Bonner was awarded Australian of the Year. In 1984, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia. The Queensland federal electorate of Bonner is named after him, as a tribute. We owe Neville Bonner a huge debt of gratitude for everything that he had achieved. He truly was a great Australian.