Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to pay tribute to the life of a good friend of mine who passed away last week, Councillor Mike Downie, mayor of the Central Coast Council in the north-west of Tasmania. Mike was born in 1945 and spent his formative years in Victoria. He worked as a plumber around the Collingwood area of Melbourne where, unfortunately, he came into contact with asbestos, and it was that which finally took Mike’s life last week.

Mike and his wife, Kath, came to Tasmania from Victoria in the early 1970s and took over the store at South Riana. They fell in love with that district and, as I understand it, never sought to reside anywhere else. In fact, one of Mike’s last wishes was that he be able to die at home, and fortunately that wish was able to be facilitated. Mike and Kath settled in the district, raised a family, and Mike became a significant identity in that community.

He first ran for local government in 1979 and went on to represent his community for 29½ years in local government—making a significant contribution over many years to that community. When the Penguin municipality was combined with Ulverstone, he went on to maintain a position on what became the Central Coast Council. So he was a councillor for the Penguin Municipal Council from 1979 to 1991, including three years as treasurer, and he was a councillor on the Central Coast Council from 1993 until 2010. He was deputy mayor from 1996 to 1998 and he was mayor from 1998 until 2010. He made a huge contribution over that time to his local community and he was obviously respected by that community, because they continued to elect him as their leader for 12 years.

He was also a founding council representative on the Cradle Coast Authority, an organisation which was formed in 1999 to take over from the then north-west municipal councils association. It was an organisation that was set up with a very different structure: one where the councillors formed a council representatives group and set the policy for the region. A board appointed by that group made the local decisions. It has proved to be a very insightful structure for the region, because it took a lot of the local politics and the parochial politics out of the decision making for the region.

Mike, I think, was the chair of the council representatives group from the outset of that organisation until quite recently, but he is regarded quite rightly as one of the founding fathers of the Cradle Coast Authority. Roger Jaensch, the executive chairman, said last week:

We are going to miss him terribly … He was one of the people who worked very hard to get the idea up and get it right. … And once the authority was formed he held it to account at every turn.

And that was very much the way of Mike. Even though he was part of setting something up, he was always prepared to ask the hard questions and he was always prepared to ensure that an organisation was operating in line with community expectations.

He was a member of many local government bodies—including, the Premier’s Local Government Council from May 2002 to June 2008 and from May this year until September this year, when he passed away. He was a member of the general management committee of the Local Government Association of Tasmania and Cradle Coast Authority representatives group. He was also a council owner representative on the board of the newly created Cradle Mountain Water.

Obviously Mike’s passing has drawn tributes from a number of identities. I know that the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition in Tasmania paid tribute to his family on his passing. But I think Jan Bonde—Mike’s fellow councillor and the acting mayor at the moment—got it right when she made some very poignant comments in our local paper in the last couple of days. She wrote:

Mike will be missed around the council table for his unsurpassed knowledge of local government affairs, his ability to ask the hard questions and stand up for his community, his strong leadership and great sense of humour. In the office, Mike loved to chat with staff, especially when Collingwood had a win, and his easy and friendly manner will be sadly missed …

Mike was a mayor for the people. He loved talking to people, whether in the street helping ratepayers resolve issues or attending the many community functions and events where he always had a joke to share and a positive word. He led by example, wearing his ‘Hello’ badge proudly and believing that our community would be a better place if we lifted our heads, smiled and said ‘Hello’.

I have to say I can only agree with Jan, particularly with regard to Mike and his hello badge. It was a feature. He always wore it on his lapel. In fact, he appeared in national media on a couple of occasions promoting the concept that, if we were all prepared to say hello to each other, the place would be a much warmer place to live in and we would all get on so much better. That was very much a mark of Mike and what he was about. He was about being a warm and friendly face within his community.

He was also known for his love of sport. His sons were very adept athletes and were a feature of the coastal carnivals and you would see Mike at those sorts of events. He took up lawn bowls in the eighties and played division 1 pennant. He also involved himself in the administrative side of local sporting clubs, and as a councillor he worked really hard to see that the Central Coast region had the very best of facilities for the region’s sports. I know that one of the things he was really proud of was the new showgrounds facility that was recently opened at Ulverstone. He did an enormous amount of work with his council to bring the local community together and to actually bring that facility into being. It required a lot of work. There were a lot of groups that had very different perspectives and views on what they wanted as a regional facility, and he managed to bring them all together. He really did work hard to pull those things together.

Mike was also a candidate for state political office in 2002 for the Liberal Party. Unfortunately he was unsuccessful, by virtue of the vagaries of the Hare-Clark system in Tasmania; Mike got quite a good vote but was not elected. It is just one of those things. He maintained his relationships with all sides of politics and was respected by all sides of politics. I know Bryan Green, the Labor member for Braddon in Tasmania, paid significant tribute to Mike after his passing last week. Mike was prepared to give either side a bit of stick if he felt they deserved it—if it was in the interests of his communities. By the same token, if there were accolades to be handed out, they were handed out in equal measure. He was interested in the best interests of his community. And I think that says a lot about the man.

As I said, he had a number of wishes. One was to pass away at home, and I am delighted that he was able to do that. Another was to die in office, and again it is a mark of the kind of person Mike was that his council facilitated that—he was highly respected. He did not want his illness to be prolonged, and, thankfully, it was not; but he was expected to have more time. Unfortunately that was not the case, and we were all a bit surprised when Mike passed away last week. I suspect too that he wanted to see Collingwood win a flag—he was a great Collingwood supporter—but unfortunately he was taken a little bit too soon to see that happen.

I pass my condolences on to his wife, Kath, who was always at Mike’s side at community events and continues to work for her community, and to their children, Andrew, David, Michelle and Vanessa. Mike was a significant contributor and character within our community, and he was taken from us much too soon.