Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the opposition I would like to support the condolence motion moved by Senator Minchin following the death last week of the Hon. Don Chipp. I would like to convey to his family the sincere condolences of all Labor senators and note his outstanding contribution to public life. It is certainly the case that Don Chipp’s passing is the subject of quite sincere and widespread regret in the Australian community. He made a profound, distinctive and enduring contribution to political life in this country through his service as a local councillor, a member of the House of Representatives, a senator and a minister. He is one of only 43 parliamentarians who, since Federation, have served in both houses of the federal parliament. Of course it is for his time in the Senate and his role as founding leader of the Australian Democrats that Don Chipp will most likely be remembered. He was a skilled political operator and a man noted for his idealism and determination, which he displayed throughout his public life.

Don Chipp was born in Melbourne in 1925 and grew up in a working-class family in the suburb of Northcote. I understand that his dad was a staunch Labor man and his mother a secret Liberal voter. I can understand why you would keep that secret! This was no doubt a fitting background for a man who founded a political party aimed at occupying the centre between the two major political forces in this country. He left school at 15 and worked as a clerk at the State Electricity Commission and studied part time for a degree in commerce at the University of Melbourne. In 1943, at the age of 18, he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force and served as an aircrew member until his discharge in September 1945.

Don was a keen sportsman—a cricketer, footballer and runner. In the early 1950s he became registrar of the Australian Institute of Accountants and the Australian Society of Accountants. In 1955 he became chief executive officer of the Olympic Civic Committee of the Melbourne City Council, with responsibility for organising accommodation for visitors to the 1956 Melbourne Games. It was also in that year that he was elected a councillor of the City of Kew, a position he held until 1961. In the late 1950s he was director of the Victorian Promotion Committee and in 1958 he was chairman of the first Cancer Doorknock Appeal.

Don Chipp was elected to parliament in 1960 at a by-election for the Victorian seat of Higinbotham following the death of Frank Timson, who had held that seat since 1949. Don was subsequently re-elected on three occasions and, following an electoral redistribution, won the seat of Hotham in 1969—a seat which he held until his retirement from the House in 1977.

His ministerial career began in 1966 when he became Minister for the Navy in the Holt government. He went on to serve as Minister for Tourist Activities, Minister for Customs and Excise and Minister Assisting the Minister for National Development. In 1971 he became Deputy Leader of the House and, in the last days of the McMahon government, took over the role of Leader of the House from Sir Reg Schwartz, who was also remembered by the Senate with a condolence motion earlier this year.

As Navy minister, Don Chipp had to manage the aftermath of the Voyager naval disaster of two years earlier, setting up the second royal commission into the incident when new allegations surfaced following an earlier inconclusive royal commission.

He was excluded from the first Gorton ministry as he was not thought to be a backer of the new Prime Minister. However, late in 1969 Gorton appointed him Minister for Customs and Excise.

Don Chipp was committed to the small ‘l’ liberal tradition in the Liberal Party and, in the spirit of the late 1960s, was the minister responsible for freeing up Australia’s antiquated censorship laws. When he became minister even the list of banned books was banned. Speaking on the ABC’s Denton program in 2004, he noted that at one point even the Noddy books were banned. But Chipp was a strong believer that adults should have the right to decide such matters for themselves. Press coverage from the period noted that he met with fierce resistance from what was described as the extreme right wing of the Liberal Party.

He was a supporter of multiculturalism, drawing fire from a range of sources in 1972 when he said:

I’d like to see a more tolerant nation so that we can receive ideas and cultures and even people from overseas. I would like to see a stage in the 1980s where Australia is becoming the only true multi-racial country. That is the Liberal Party aim, which is quite often misunderstood.

Don Chipp was also very concerned for the status of Indigenous Australians. In his first speech in 1961 he argued the need for economic development in northern Australia, and in his first speech to the Senate, in 1977, he addressed the dispute between the people of Aurukun and Mornington Island, and the Queensland government. He spoke of his experience, as part of the 1963 joint select committee investigating the grievances of Aboriginal people on the Gove Peninsula. He said on that occasion:

We as members of the Labor Party, the Country Party and the Liberal Party presented to the government what I thought was a wonderful report. Then there was an election and that report has been gathering dust ever since. Its recommendations were never implemented. When I go to Gove today I do not see a happy people living in harmony with nature. I see lots of alcohol. I see many of the white people’s scourges, which have virtually decimated that beautiful race of people.

He went on to say:

I plead with the minister from this seat in the Senate to find time to see these people, to talk about their problems and to learn first hand of the massive problems that they have. If no further action is contemplated by this federal parliament, the decimation of a race of people is not impossible.

This reflected his very deep commitment to Indigenous people in this country.

During the period of the Whitlam government, Don Chipp served as a shadow minister and the Liberal spokesperson on international trade and tariffs and, later, social security and welfare. For a short time in late 1975, during the Fraser caretaker period, he was simultaneously Minister for Health, Minister for Social Security and Minister for Repatriation and Compensation.

He expected, I think, to continue in those ministries after the 1975 election but was not chosen by then Prime Minister Fraser. He was understood to have had a frosty relationship with Malcolm Fraser and that apparently led to his omission from cabinet. But his status as a backbencher allowed him more freedom to take an independent stand, speaking out against government policy with which he disagreed.

His backbench status prompted him to look beyond the Liberal Party, an organisation with which he had experienced frustration for some time. In a notable speech to the House of Representatives in March 1977 he explained his resignation from the Liberal Party. He noted his public comments of opposition to the Fraser government’s actions of cutting overseas aid, abolishing the Australian Assistance Plan, proposing to abolish financial benefits for pensioners, failing to honour a promise to index pensions and deciding to devalue the currency without lowering tariffs.

His resignation speech was highly critical of both major parties and he suggested that it may be time for ‘the emergence of a third political force’. It is certainly true that the political and economic turmoil of the 1970s had led to widespread public dissatisfaction with politics. The newly formed Australian Democrats, with Chipp as leader, looked to capitalise on that disaffection and gather support by presenting themselves as a new style of political movement.

Chipp is reported as having hoped that other Liberal members would break away and join him, a scenario which failed to eventuate. Nonetheless, his experience and charismatic leadership was vital to the young party and he energised the Democrats’ national campaign and drummed up significant public interest. He was certainly highly effective in capturing the support of many people who sought an alternative to the major parties. Polls taken at the time of the federal election later in 1977 indicated that Chipp enjoyed a higher level of personal popularity than either Gough Whitlam or the Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser.

Under his leadership the party recorded a significant vote at the 1977 election—more than 11 per cent nationally. They can only dream of such results now. At that election they gained two Senate seats, Chipp’s being one of them. He defined his party’s role as seeking a middle ground in policy and what I think we could fairly call ‘the accountability of government.’ Those roles could be summed up by his ubiquitous phrase: ‘Keep the bastards honest.’

The election of 1980 saw three new Democrats elected to the Senate, among them the late Janine Haines, who had sat briefly in the Senate after her appointment by the parliament of South Australia to replace the Liberal Movement’s Steele Hall.

Don Chipp entered the Senate at a time when the Fraser government held a majority in this chamber. His party winning an additional three seats in 1980 contributed to the loss of that majority. From 1981 until July last year the Democrats, either alone or in combination with other minor parties and Independents, held the balance of power between the major parties in this chamber. Under Chipp’s leadership, and after his retirement, the party he founded was very successful in getting senators elected to this chamber and played an important role in the development of the Senate’s role as a strong check on government.

During his time in the Senate, Don Chipp served as the Democrats spokesperson in a range of portfolios and took an active interest in many policy issues. He was particularly passionate on the nuclear issue and also came to express deep regret at the role he played as Minister for the Navy during the time of the Vietnam War.

Among the personal characteristics that Chipp may be remembered for were his idealism, his willingness to debate ideas and his capacity to accept different arguments. His movement through the Liberal Party, the ministry, the backbench and then to the Democrats represents a significant political and personal journey.

He was always a passionate and persuasive advocate for his beliefs; he continued to speak out right up to the time of his retirement and post his retirement from the Senate. In the year of his retirement, 1986, he joked that he had missed his best chance when he was Holt’s Minister for the Navy and acting minister for the Army and Air Force, saying:

I often contemplate the glorious opportunity I missed, as ministerial head of the three services, of staging a bloodless coup in this country without having to do it the hard way of forming a third political party.

In retirement he continued to be an active and outspoken public figure and play a leadership role in his party. Perhaps not surprisingly for a man who said, ‘Politics is not a profession—it’s a disease,’ he ran for election as Lord Mayor of Melbourne in 2001. I hope I have better things to do in my retirement!

In an address to the Democrats National Conference in 2003 he continued to berate both the Labor and Liberal parties, to argue for his beliefs and to insist on the primacy of the parliament over the executive. He noted his pride in the important role he had played in the preservation of the Franklin River and in tax reform measures in the 1980s. As senators are aware, in the final years of his life Don Chipp developed Parkinson’s disease. Appearing on ABC TV in 2004 with his wife, Idun, he said that he wanted people with the disease to know that they could still lead ‘a valuable, happy life’. Don Chipp passed away last week on 28 August, a week after his 81st birthday. A state funeral was held for him at St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne on Saturday.

On behalf of all Labor senators I would like to recognise the very significant contribution he made to this country through his long public service, and particularly through his service to the Senate. His was a vibrant and interesting life and a very important contribution to parliamentary democracy in this country. He will be long remembered as a character in an age when blandness is encouraged and characters are no longer highly regarded. I think he will be remembered as a very significant figure and one, as I say, who brought a great deal of character to Australian political life. I would like to extend our thoughts to our colleagues from the Australian Democrats, for whom I know his passing is a great loss, but most particularly I would like to offer our profound condolences to his wife and family at this time.