Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's with a lot of sadness but also a great deal of affection and pride that I want to make a contribution on the motion that was moved by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition's address to it about the passing of Nick Bolkus. Nick was a huge figure in this parliament for a quarter of a century, but he was an even bigger figure in the South Australian community, in the western suburbs that I have the privilege of representing, and particularly in the Labor Party and the left of the Labor Party, which I want to talk about a little bit. He was an enormously important figure to me and to many of my colleagues, like Penny Wong, Jay Weatherill and so many others, and I'll talk about that a little bit.

Nick was born in 1950. He tragically passed away on Christmas Day, at the age of 75, and he lived an enormously rich life—albeit one that, in the last six or seven years, was very seriously hampered by illness, and I'll talk a bit about that. His family didn't follow the path that is typical of Greek Australians who came to Australia mainly in the postwar period and, to a degree, a little bit during the Depression in the 1930s, when we opened up our immigration channels to continental Europe. His family was from the very, very small island of Kastellorizo, which is a very short distance—a Kazi, as the Minister for Multicultural Affairs says. This is a small island, very close to the coast of Turkiye. In the early part of World War I, it was very seriously impacted by the Ottoman Empire and some thousands of Kazis fled their homes and crossed the ocean and built a new life either in Canada or in the US—happily, for many of them. I think there were only 8,000 or so at the time in Australia. Nick's grandfather was one of those who left his island home in about 1915. So his family had been well established in Adelaide for a long period of time, before Nick was born in the city, in the West End of Adelaide. He went to Sturt Street Primary School. After it closed, he was a leading figure in lobbying the then Wran government to reopen the Sturt Street Primary School that is still again going strong.

Nick, from a very early age, was drawn to the Labor Party. In his teens, he campaigned for Don Dunstan in the seat of Norwood in the 1960s. He was an unsuccessful candidate for state parliament in the mid-1970s in his 20s. He'd worked as a staffer in the Whitlam government before the age of 25, and he was an unsuccessful candidate on what we generally call an unwinnable position on the Senate ticket at the '77 election. But he was allocated a winnable spot by the party in 1980. He was only 30. He was a Greek Australian at a time when it was unusual to obtain pre-selection support, and, most suspiciously in the eyes of the powerbrokers of the South Australian branch of the Labor Party at the time, he had a university degree—a law degree, for that matter—that made him an egghead, and many other names that are not able to be repeated in this chamber because of standing orders and the decorum of the parliament. But he won at the age of 30, and that was the beginning of an extraordinary parliamentary career, extending a quarter of a century.

I know the Minister for Multicultural Affairs and the Minister for Skills and Training, who had that portfolio before Dr Aly, will talk about Nick's extraordinary contribution to multicultural affairs, to the immigration portfolio, which he held, to changing, through some extraordinary stories, the lives of tens of thousands of people. It's well known the story that he had responsibility for implementing the promise that Bob Hawke, as Prime Minister, made to people from China in Australia, at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre, that they could stay here. Nick implemented that and changed the lives of so many besides that. At the state memorial service that I had the privilege of being at a little while ago, a Vietnamese Australian woman told the story of Nick and Gareth Evans helping her father, who had been in prison in Vietnam for years and years, be released and come and join the family: the mother and the children, who had then grown up and still live in Australia—just some of those little pearls, the stories that immigration ministers are able to reflect upon as their time in this place concludes.

So he made an extraordinary contribution. He had the privilege of serving as a minister in some extraordinary governments, led by two extraordinary prime ministers. He was the first Greek Australian to be appointed to cabinet, and that was something he was deeply proud of, because he was so proud of his culture and he was so widely respected in what is a large Greek Australian community in Adelaide, particularly in the western suburbs of Adelaide that Nick called home for many, many decades.

I first met Nick in my teens—in my late teens, when Nick was a junior minister, not yet appointed to cabinet—in the late 1980s at a famous, or to some degree infamous, restaurant in Adelaide's Rundle Street called Da Clemente. What struck me then about Nick was his willingness to listen to a young lad who was probably a complete pain in the backside, and that was what people talk about when they reflect on their time with Nick or observing Nick. He was the most active listener, I think, I've ever encountered. When people sat down with Nick, he wasn't one of those people whose eyes were darting all around the room to see who they could talk to next. People went away from a conversation with Nick feeling like they had been listened to—actively listened to—and that was really one of the enduring things that I think people take from Nick. It's something I see so deeply in his daughter Aria, particularly, who has worked with me for the last couple of years and is campaigning now for the state parliament as well.

When I got to know Nick a little bit better in my early 20s and into my 20s, he had the privilege of having a faction named after him. The Bolkus Left was one of the insurgent factions at the time in South Australian Labor Party politics and ultimately won the tussle between warring subfactions of the Left, and the Bolkus Left just became the Left. Although that sounds sort of funny and tongue in cheek, it was actually a really important thing for the South Australian branch, because what came out of Nick using his networks, his experience and his wisdom to seek change in the Labor Party and re-establish what had been a long consensus culture in the branch of the Labor Party in Adelaide has set the party up—as Peter Malinauskas, the Premier, said at the state memorial service—for three decades of real success. This is the best branch in our party. I think it's the most stable. It's had four leaders in 35 years, and our current leader, Peter Malinauskas, is likely to be there for a long time to come. It's been electorally very successful and has made real change in a state and a jurisdiction that's not easy. It doesn't have a lot of the natural advantages that other states have, whether it's the resources you see in Western Australia and Queensland or the big population centres of the two big states. And so Nick's contribution—largely in partnership with now Senator Farrell and also with Pat Conlon, a dear friend of Nick's who worked for him for some time and then became a minister in the Rann government—has set up that branch—which had had a patchy history, I think it's fair to say, before the mid-nineties—for real success and a real contribution to the interests of South Australians. And I think we're all very grateful to him for that.

But, while being a busy cabinet minister and then a busy shadow cabinet minister who paid a really leading role after we lost government in 1996 in this place, he always had the time to mentor younger members of the party. I know what an influence he was on Penny Wong. I've witnessed it. I know what an enormous supporter he was of her potential and the need for us as a party to get her into parliament and to use that potential for, in part, our party's interests but, more importantly, the nation's benefit. And he used to have us round the barbecues. He used to talk to us respectfully—with much more respect than I think sometimes we deserved, as precocious pains in the backside, as I said. But it was something that characterised Nick right through his time as a minister, as a shadow minister and then after he left the parliament in the mid-2000s.

It reflected the way he'd come up. It really was something for Nick—as I said, a 30-year-old legally qualified Greek Australian—to come into the Australian Senate. It's not so unusual now, which is a terrific thing, but it was. It really was, 45 years ago. That reflected the vision and the support that he got. As I'm sure my friend the member for Makin remembers—he worked in the Whitlam government as a staffer with Nick—it was the support of two giants of the Labor movement, real giants of South Australia, Mick Young, the then member for Port Adelaide, and Clyde Cameron. Clyde was such an important part of the modernisation of our party but really the leader of our branch for three decades or more. He recognised what Nick could bring to the parliament and to our party and the need for us to start making real connections to communities like the Greek Australian community. Nick passed that on. He learned that from Clyde and from Mick and from Reg Bishop and others. He passed it on to Jim Toohey and he passed it on to the next generation, and I for one am so enormously grateful.

These things are sometimes tense. The master-apprentice relationship is not always easy and is sometimes a little tense. And John Rau frankly said that Nick might have wanted to spend more time in the parliament and would have made an enormous contribution. But, after leaving the parliament after 25 years, he made every day count. He continued to support the party. He continued to mentor young people. He built an extraordinary career in business. It's not always that people make that transition from being a successful minister to being a successful businessman. Nick undoubtedly did.

He had a lot more to contribute and a lot more to give when he was very cruelly struck with an illness 6½ years ago. I was due to have lunch with him and Mel Mansell, the editor-at-large of the Advertiser, and Nick, unusually, was late. After making a call, he had been taken to the Royal Adelaide Hospital and never really recovered. He spent time at Hampstead and then some years at Westminster, a nursing home just near his house and around the corner from my house as well, and was cared for wonderfully, according to his family, by the staff who were there. He rang the bell a lot, agitated a lot for better conditions, as you'd expect. I think we all missed the contributions that Nick otherwise would have made over those last six or seven years.

Thank you for the indulgence to say a few words about someone who had such a big impact on my life. In conclusion, I want to say how much the South Australian community, the Greek Australian community in Adelaide and the Labor family have tried to wrap their arms around Nick's family: Nick's wife Mary; his older son Nick, who has built an extraordinary legal career himself—and I know how proud Nick was of the younger Nick—and his two younger daughters, who are now in their 20s, Mikayla and Aria.

I've talked about Aria. Mikayla, who I think is only 23, gave an extraordinary address to the memorial service. I know she found it difficult, but it was reflective, it was wise, it had an extraordinary amount of analysis, and it was just so loving of her father. Aria, who I know much better and is, as I said, the candidate for the state seat that I live in—I would love to see her be my local member—was typically strong and forthright and, as her dad would have insisted, used the opportunity to advocate for better policy in aged care and stroke care in particular. Mary said, with tongue in cheek, that the fact that all three are now lawyers showed a real failure of parenthood, and maybe to a degree she was right. They really are apples that didn't fall far from the tree. There's a lot of Nick in all three of them and a lot of their mum as well.

I know how proud Nick would have been about the way in which—it's very confronting, I imagine—the community has taken notice of Nick's passing. It's a high-profile passing, and it was a very big funeral at the church, a very big state memorial service. Talking about your dad, who was such a high-profile figure, can't be easy while you're grieving yourself, and they did it with such dignity, warmth and pride of what their father did for their family and did for their community. I couldn't have more respect for all of them than what I have for the way in which they've handled this period of real grief.

To Nick I say thank you for the advice and the mentoring that you gave to me. It's meant an enormous amount to me. Thank you for the hospitality you showed us over many years. It was not just instructive; it was fun. It was fun to spend time with you on so many occasions with your family and your friends down at Henley Beach. May you rest in peace.

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for International Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too want to record my deep sadness on the death of the Hon. Nick Bolkus and honour his outstanding service to our nation. Senator Bolkus was a pillar of the Australian Labor Party, as the minister outlined in his speech just then, and he was also a pioneer of multicultural Australia. As the first federal cabinet member of Greek heritage, he demonstrated to many of us who were watching from the outside that representation is not just symbolic; representation matters.

Senator Bolkus didn't simply inherit the story of migration; he lived it. And he lived that story through his longstanding career advocating for people from every background. He was a minister in the Hawke and Keating governments, and in 1993 he was appointed Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs and the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Multicultural Affairs. In both of those positions he worked relentlessly to ensure that the immigration system of this country was fairer and more inclusive. He understood what many in the labour movement understand: inclusiveness is not just an abstract exercise; it has a profound impact on the day-to-day lives of ordinary Australians in their ability to secure employment, in their ability to access services, in having their views heard and in their sense of belonging to this nation.

Senator Bolkus was the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs at a time when the Keating government asked Australians to look outward to Asia and inward to our own social cohesion. He understood that multiculturalism had to be about inclusion and participation, not just about food and festivals, and that we recognise a community not just because their food tastes like chicken but because of the many contributions that they bring to Australia. One of his greatest legacies was his stewardship of the Racial Hatred Act 1995. He was the early architect of the legislation that protects Australians from hateful attacks based on their heritage, the colour of their skin or their place of birth. It's unsurprising that this was, of course, a hotly contested ideological battleground back then, but sadly that is still the case today.

Senator Bolkus at that time had to navigate some contentious debates within the other place, and he had to build cross-party agreement in order to get the bill passed. He did that by championing the argument that, in a successful multicultural democracy, freedom of speech does not include the right to destroy another person's dignity because of the colour of their skin or their heritage, and his speeches from that period reflect a clarity of purpose that continues to inspire us today. He said then that Australia's future lies not in assimilation but in the rich tapestry of cultures that weave our national identity, and indeed those words are true today.

In that same sense, we acknowledge that Senator Bolkus was behind the formation of the Multicultural Advisory Council, a standing body of coordination and advice to government, ensuring that our most diverse communities had input into how multiculturalism was shaped, and it formed the foundation of today's Australian Multicultural Council, which continues to do that important work.

Prior to Senator Bolkus, the then ethnic affairs portfolio was responsible for delivering government services to non-English speakers. He took the portfolio in a different direction, a direction that would have been perceived as being groundbreaking at that time, rightly arguing that our diversity is in fact an economic asset. He recognised that our diaspora communities are not just people in need of assistance but, rather, bridges to the global economy. He advocated the view that Australians who speak Greek or Mandarin or Vietnamese or Arabic are our competitive advantage in a globalised world. He, in fact, moved multiculturalism from being at the periphery of social policy to the centre of economic policy. Every time we refer today to cultural capability in business or in government, or when we refer to the trade links created through people-to-people relationships, we are drawing upon the same arguments that he advanced 30 years ago. That is some legacy.

When I was a child, we didn't practise our cultural heritage or traditions publicly. We listened to Umm Kulthum and Abdel Wahab in the quiet of our living room. We fasted for Ramadan by politely refusing food and drink so we were not having to answer questions about why we didn't drink water during the day, and we broke fast quietly over home cooked meals in our dining rooms. We didn't practise publicly. Something changed that, and one of the most profound things that changed that for my family was SBS. SBS gave us leave to speak our language publicly, to eat our food publicly and to celebrate our cultural traditions publicly. Under Senator Bolkus's leadership, SBS grew. He really championed it and advocated for expanding SBS. It developed from this specialised broadcaster into what it is today: a national organisation that reaches millions of Australians with news and programs in over 60 languages—a broadcaster that truly reflects the diversity of our nation.

He also made significant advancements in Australia's refugee policy—as if all of that wasn't enough, there's more. In response to humanitarian crises around the world, he streamlined visa processing for those fleeing persecution, and, as many before me have noted, in 1993 he played a critical role in granting permanent residence to tens of thousands of Chinese students and their family members—those who had come prior to the Tiananmen Square incident, which is recalled quite vividly by those of us who can. That decision garnered international recognition, and in his valedictory speech many, many years later, he referred back to that moment with great pride, stating: 'The sky didn't fall in and the hordes didn't invade.'

Sadly, though, those same expressions of border anxiety exist today. The passage of time proved that Australia, when tested, rises to the challenge and holds firm on our values of equality and humanity—values that Senator Bolkus put into practice all those years ago in 1993. Today, we also draw inspiration from his steadfastness in holding these values, even while other political and social forces seek to exploit division, appeal to fear and undermine our democracy.

Arguably, his most lasting legacy is in relation to the status of citizenship itself. Senator Bolkus believed that Australian citizenship should be a celebratory occasion, not just an administrative requirement. I've heard this described variously as moving beyond formal citizenship to citizenship actually being something that we feel, that we celebrate and that we that we take in, in the way in which we practice our lives. He worked to enhance the significance of the pledge of commitment. He wanted the experience of becoming Australian to be a moment of profound inclusion.

Like many members in this House, I attend citizenship ceremonies quite regularly. At the most recent one, there were about 200 people taking the citizenship pledge, and I reflected with them on that part in the citizenship pledge where we pledge allegiance not just to Australia but to Australia and her people. I asked the people in the room to look around and take in the environment and the atmosphere of that citizenship ceremony and to recognise that they were about to stand up and pledge their loyalty to the people in that room with them today, as well.

I watched the faces of the people who were getting their citizenship as I spoke this and watched them again as they spoke those words when they took the citizenship pledge. I saw the intense pride when they spoke those words, the intense pride and the recognition that becoming Australian meant that you were pledging your allegiance to a people—to sharing their values and their democratic beliefs, as well as their rights and responsibilities. Indeed, every time I'm fortunate enough to attend a citizenship ceremony, I reflect on just how significant Nick Bolkus's impact was in making sure that they are celebratory moments, as is that very significant part of the citizenship pledge.

I've spoken a lot about Senator Bolkus's contributions to multiculturalism and to modern Australia because they matter to me. They mattered to me as a young woman growing up in Australia, being able to look at somebody in the parliament who reflected my own feelings, my own voice, my own desires and my own sense of what it means to be Australian and what it means to belong in this nation. I think that gives you all a sense of just how significant and just how impactful Senator Bolkus was as a minister in the government here in this place. I never knew him. I never got to meet him, and I never got to shake hands. I would have loved to have had the kinds of experiences that the minister for health was speaking about. I would have loved to have sat with him and garnered some of his wise words and just drunk all of that in. But I am living proof that what he did mattered. I am living proof that what he did had an impact and will continue to have a lasting impact on this nation.

In closing, I just want to also extend my sincerest condolences to Senator Bolkus's wife, Mary, and his children. We mourn the loss of a great advocate for migrants and a distinguished parliamentarian. I hope that his family finds comfort in the knowledge that his contribution to Australia in opening the hearts and the minds of successive generations will never be forgotten. Rest in peace, Senator Nick Bolkus, and may we continue to build the inclusive Australia that he spent his life striving for.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:29