Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Simon Findlay Crean's untimely death, I think, was a shock to many Australians but particularly those in the Labor Party and the broader labour movement. Certainly in my home state of Tasmania it was met with great sadness by so many. Unknown I'm sure to many in this place, Simon was a great friend of Tasmania. His brother was also our state Treasurer for six years, from 1998 to 2004. At this time we are thinking of David and of course Simon's family. It has been a very difficult time, I'm sure, for his family members, and my sincere condolences go to Carole, the children and the grandchild and, of course, to David, Sue and their family. It must be an incredibly difficult time. We're so sorry about the untimely death of such a great man and such a giant of the Labor Party.

Indeed, Simon was very well known for his love of regional Australia. He loved nothing more than to get out and about. Like so many, I have some wonderful stories of times with Simon out and about in my electorate and in the Tasmanian community. As a great friend of Tasmania he was down very frequently. Importantly, as a minister in the Hawke and Keating years and then again in the Rudd and Gillard years, Simon often brought with him funding for great Tasmanian projects, which was much appreciated by the Tasmanian community.

He understood regional development, which so few in this place do. He understood how it could transform regional communities. He understood that sometimes governments need to invest in ideas that will generate regional economic activity and that towns and regions can grow from that. Some of the things he was instrumental in in Tasmania I want to run through, because they were significant.

He established the first cooperative research centres, including the CRC for the Antarctic and the Southern Ocean at the University of Tasmania, way back in 1991. That was incredibly significant at the time and we have now, in Tasmania, got more scientists per capita in Hobart around the Antarctic sciences than anywhere else in Australia. It is quite significant. That was started by Simon back in the day, and I'm sure many others. He then went on to add to that with his investment in the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies down on the waterfront. He was determined to secure the future of the Australian Maritime College in Northern Tasmania when it was desperate for funding back in the mid-1990s.

He really understood what we were doing in Tasmania in terms of diversifying our economy, but he also understood that, in diversifying our economy, some of the economies of old needed future investment and innovation to transform, such as our forestry industry, for instance. He was instrumental in providing funding to do additional processing and value-adding of this timber product in Tasmania. He was also instrumental in the APPM Boyer Mill in providing them with funding to rejuvenate and revitalise the facility there to allow them to innovate and diversify in terms of products. That allowed what were large employers in Tasmania to continue to employ Tasmanians while at the same time modernising and moving with the times. He really understood what it meant to those regional communities in which some of these businesses were based. With a bit of government support, they could change and they could innovate, revitalise and change direction slightly to keep that employment in those regional economies.

He was much loved by many of our local mayors and local governments in Tasmania. He spent a lot of time talking to them about projects. I remember one particularly in my own electorate that was taking a waste product from sewage and reusing it in area that traditionally didn't get a lot of rainfall. It opened up agriculture in the Coal River Valley in my electorate and the electorate of the member for Lyons. We now have in the Coal River Valley a whole stream of vineyards. It's a great success. We also have from that area some of the world's best whiskeys, can I say, from some of our distilleries. You think back to the decades that that investment has had a return for the Tasmanian economy, and it was only by people with a vision and understanding of regional communities that some of that transformation happened. That's the person that Simon Crean was. That's why he was so loved in Tasmanian communities and by so many local government members across our state.

His brother David was of a similar vein and did some transformational things for the Tasmanian economy. I know that David must really be missing his brother Simon during this period of time, and reflecting on things where they worked together that made Tasmania a much better place.

Simon, of course, contributed in so many other ways. But I thought it was important for me, as Tasmania's senior member in the Labor Party, to put on the record our love for Simon and our honour for his achievements on our behalf. I thank Simon and his family for allowing him the time to invest in our communities and in his roles as a member of parliament and, importantly, as a minister that did make such a difference to the lives of so many people, particularly in my home state of Tasmania. Vale, Simon Crean.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 11:41