George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

It was with tremendous sadness that I learnt of the death early on Saturday morning of my friend Warwick Parer. There is a sense in which both metaphorically and literally I followed in Warwick Parer's footsteps: metaphorically because when Warwick left the Senate at the beginning of 2000 I succeeded him by filling his parliamentary vacancy, and he kept a watchful eye on my parliamentary career in the years since; and literally as well because as it happens I occupy the same premises in Canberra as Warwick used to occupy—which he shared with, among others, John Howard, Richard Alston, Peter Costello and other notables down the years. So as I trudge back to my place of abode each evening after a weary parliamentary day I am literally following in the footsteps of the former Senator Warwick Parer.

We have heard from our leader, Senator Abetz, of Warwick's early life and how he lost his father in New Guinea in the war and was a nephew of the famous war photographer Damien Parer. He went to Nudgee, that very noble Queensland institution which has been the alma mater of so many prominent Queensland business figures and leaders in other walks of life, and then to the University of Melbourne. He had most of his career, though, as a figure in the mining industry in Brisbane. He was active in the Liberal Party in Brisbane in the 1970s and early 1980s. He was the chairman of the relevant Liberal Party policy committee. He was one of the relatively few senior business people who were active in Liberal Party politics in Queensland in those days. That is where I first met him.

But my first close involvement with Warwick Parer was in fact not in the political world but professionally. In 1991 I was briefed as junior to Cedric Hampson to act for the late Ken Talbot in a most vicious dispute over the control of Macarthur Coal, one of the big Queensland coal companies. It was an enormously bitter dispute. There were hundreds of millions of dollars at stake and a deeply divided board of directors.

The two factions on this board of directors had settled upon Warwick Parer to be the independent chairman and try and bring some stability to the board. I think it tells you everything that you need to know about the kind of man Warwick Parer was that, such was his experience in the industry but such was his reputation for fairness and integrity, both sides of this bitterly and factionally divided board of directors were prepared to trust Warwick to try and bring some stability to that company.

Warwick, by that time, was a giant in the coalmining industry in Queensland. He was, for many years, one of the senior executives of Utah Construction and Mining Company. He was their principal negotiator. It was at a time in the 1970s—as a Queensland senator you will remember, Mr President—that the Bowen Basin and the other coal interests were being established. Warwick was the lead negotiator for Utah in the contracts with that company's Japanese customers. I remember he told me once that, over a period of years, he made at least 20 return trips to Japan a year for several years. He became the leading Australian representative of the industry, and, for that reason, between 1976 and 1979 he was chosen to be the chairman of the Australian Coal Exporters Association.

Mr President, as you know, coal is to Queensland what iron ore is to Western Australia. It is one of the principal economic backbones of the state. In those days, the principal export market was not China; it was Japan. So it gives you an idea of the substance of this person and his importance to the economy of Queensland—and, by extension, of Australia—that he was the leader of that industry who established those contracts and carved out that market.

In 1984, a backbench senator from Queensland resigned from the Senate. An opportunity arose for Warwick to go into public life. I know that he was a very reluctant starter, but the then state president of the Liberal Party, John Moore, put a lot of pressure of Warwick. He eventually, to his enormous credit, agreed that he would go into the Senate. He served in this chamber with distinction for some 16 years.

At the time he joined the Senate he was, I would say, the most significant business person to join the Australian parliament. I would say that, from the industry of which he was a leader—that is, the coalmining and coal exporting industry—this parliament has never had a more experienced or a more authoritative figure. Naturally, therefore, Warwick made that his chosen field. It was the most natural thing in the world that in 1996, with the election of the Howard government, Prime Minister Howard would make Warwick the Minister for Resources and Energy. He served in that portfolio for two years and brought to it all of the shrewdness, sophistication, knowledge and skill that you would expect from somebody of his background.

There was a controversy in 1998—which in no way whatsoever, in my view, reflected on Warwick's integrity—and he stood aside. After the 1998 election he was not included in the ministry. As we all know, when you lose your footing in this business sometimes it is hard to regain it. I think that not including Warwick in the ministry after 1998 was a mistake. I am sure it is a mistake that Mr Howard regrets. By the beginning of 2000, I think Warwick had decided that he had had enough, and, as others have observed, he left this place on his own terms.

In the years since, he made a very significant contribution both to politics and to the community. In the political world, that contribution was most particularly to be seen in his period of service as the state president of the Liberal Party between 2005 and 2008. He succeeded, in that role, Michael Caltabiano, his protegee, who, I am pleased to say, joins us in the public gallery today, and whose presence I would like to acknowledge. It is entirely fitting that Michael Caltabiano, who was so close to Warwick, should be in the Senate chamber today to hear these valedictory words.

It was while Warwick was the president of the Liberal Party that he and his friend Bruce Scott, the member for Maranoa, who was also, as it happened, at the time the state president of the National Party, put their heads together and mapped out the amalgamation of the Liberal and National parties, which occurred subsequently in 2008. Senator Abetz has recited the several other community and public service appointments that Warwick Parer occupied in the years since his retirement from parliament. Indeed, at the time of his death he was the chairman of the Stanwell Corporation.

Warwick was a gentleman of the old school. He was decent. He was avuncular. He had common sense. He was very practical. Although he would have regarded himself as being on the more conservative side of the Liberal Party, he was by no means an ideologue. He was a decent and gentle man who contributed to the parliament from the wealth of experience that he had earned as a significant business figure. All too seldom does this parliament attract to it people who, at the prime of their careers in commerce or the professions, are prepared to come into parliament and give of themselves, and give to the parliament the benefit of the wisdom and experience they have earned in their first careers. So we are indebted to him.

It would not be right for me to sit down without making mention of Maureen Nagle. Maureen Nagle was Warwick's secretary for all the years he was a senator. A lot of coalition senators fondly remember Maureen well. I hope she is listening to the broadcast now. When I succeeded him, she became my secretary. She, with occasional exasperation, helped me through the early steps of my career as a senator as well until her retirement after the 2007 election.

Warwick was very happily married to Kathi. They were a great Catholic family. They had seven children, one of whom, Justin, I knew particularly well. He was a president of the Young Liberals. There were many, many grandchildren, one of whom was a friend of my daughter, in fact. They were one of the great Brisbane families. He was one of the great figures of his time, in his industry, and was a very, very well-liked figure in the Senate and in the Queensland Liberal Party.

In closing, let me extend my condolences to Kathi, to his children and to his grandchildren, and I associate myself with the remarks of my leader.