Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to inform the House of the death of Ron Monaghan, better known to Queenslanders as Mono, who died on Sunday, 30 June 2019. Mono was the much loved former branch secretary of the Queensland branch of the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, or 'the Missos', as we always called them, now known as United Voice. He was also the former Queensland Council of Unions general secretary and former president of the Queensland branch of the Australian Labor Party.

Mono fought for decent wages and better conditions for more than 2.2 million Queensland workers. He started in the union movement in New South Wales in 1979, before he saw the light and moved to Queensland 10 years later. Queensland has rarely seen such a passionate and effective warrior for working people as Ron Monaghan. Ron was a man who loved his family, and he treated the Queensland Labor movement as part of that family.

Ron fought his last battle courageously and is survived by his wife, Vicki, their eight children and four grandchildren. When I visited Mono in hospital shortly before he passed away, he was so proud to show me his big family photo and talk to me about all of the things that were happening with his grandkids and kids. He'll always be remembered for his generosity of spirit, his tenacity in pursuing what was right and the leaps and bounds he made for working people. These leaps and bounds were not only in their standards of living but in the respect that he knew they deserved—in our hearts and minds and at the forefront of everything we do in this great movement.