Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's my great honour to deliver a short eulogy to my friend and mentor and local legend Fred Moore. Fred was born in September 1922 just outside of Cobar. His dad was an underground miner, and the family worked in the mines throughout New South Wales for many generations. Fred, abhorred racism in all its forms, and this was probably borne of his experience playing with the local Aboriginal kids in his neighbourhood. They were amongst his best friends.

During the Depression, as the mines closed, Fred's family moved to Lithgow, where his dad worked as a miner in the coalmines in that town. He was nine years old when he witnessed the clashes between the fascist new guard and the trade unionists on May Day in 1932. It was a formative experience. The poor health and safety in the mines in those years meant that at an early age Fred's dad was a dusted miner, and they had to move to the inner city so he could be close to the specialist medical treatment that was available to help his silicosis.

He was the very opposite of a one-dimensional man. He was a talented boxer and a gifted musician. He mastered the harmonica like a virtuoso, and even into his 90s he could be called upon to play 'The Internationale' on the harmonica. He even had the honour of performing live on national television on Andrew Denton's Enough Rope program.

Fred met his wife, May, 70 years ago, and they were a family in every sense of the word. They were a partnership both in the home and outside. They moved to their new home in Dapto on the very edge of the world-famous Dapto greyhound track. They lived in that same home, a modest fibro home, until Fred passed away a few weeks ago. They had five wonderful daughters, Josephine, Colleen, Gail, Debbie and Susie. For the last 10 years of Fred's life, Susie was his all-time companion and all-time carer.

When he moved to Wollongong, he worked at the Nebo Colliery, which was owned by Australian Iron and Steel. It fed the steelworks at Port Kembla. He was a hard worker and well respected by his colleagues, and he quickly rose to the rank of what I would call the local union delegate; the miners have all sorts of names for these things. He became a legend within his workplace, within the local lodges and within the miners federation nationally. He became a life member of that union. He was the only person I know who was awarded life membership of two unions—one of which he never worked in, which was the Maritime Union of Australia. He was a communist, a socialist and a proud communitarian. He would often remark on the struggles between the Left and the Right within the Labor movement that the Left went to jail and the Right went to parliament. Well, here I am!

He was a loved and committed Aboriginal activist from the earliest age. Through the union movement, he organised for industrial action against businesses that discriminated against local Aboriginal people, that wouldn't serve them or let them try on dresses or clothes within the local stores. He was the driving force with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander campaign on the South Coast for recognition and the right to vote. One of his greatest honours as a white man was to be initiated as an honorary elder in the Jerrinja tribe.

He was a feminist, at home and beyond the home. He was one of only two people who were awarded honorary life membership of the Miners Women's Auxiliary, and he used to wear the badge with honour and call himself an honorary woman. He was an internationalist. He organised collections in his workplace for the African National Congress so that those workers could be funded in that country.

Fred's spirit lives on, and we'll remember him every afternoon as that cool southerly blows across the thin plains of the Illawarra. He's gone, but he's not forgotten. He was my friend and my mentor, and he was a friend and mentor to so many. Vale, Fred. We love you.