Bob Day (SA, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

Others have noted the late Jim Carlton's distinguished service for the voters of Mackellar in Sydney; his term as health minister; his service to the Red Cross, receiving their highest honour; later academic contributions; and the Order of Australia recognition.

As chair of the Bert Kelly Research Centre and someone familiar with the group within the Liberal Party known as 'the dries', I met Jim regularly at Ray Evans's lunch meetings in Melbourne. Jim participated forcefully in the many debates at those lunches. I do not recall Jim ever missing a meeting.

Jim was a true liberal and in economic matters supported market based competitive policies. Jim, John Hyde and others got together to press on with the cause that Bert Kelly had started but that had been cut short by the end of Bert's parliamentary career. Jim and Bert's parliamentary terms did not intersect. Bert concluded his service prior to the 1977 election that saw Jim enter parliament.

The former member for Tangney Peter Shack observed in The Australian just before Jim's mid-January funeral that the remaining dries realised after the 1977 election that there was 'much which needed to be done to drag Australia out of the protected mercantilism of the 1950s and sixties in order to ensure a more internationally competitive nation and greater prosperity for all its citizens'.

Whilst John Hyde took a leading role in the dries, Jim provided the opportunity to sharpen their arguments, posing the wet side of the debates. Jim realised the importance of winning not just the economic arguments but also the moral arguments. Protectionism, for example, had to be exposed as not only economically foolish but also morally wrong. It had to be discredited and Jim was very good at this because he never played the man, only the ball, and was respected by all sides of politics for his gentlemanly conduct. Jim Carlton contributed to the style, tactics and strategies that the dries adopted to win a decades-long campaign of shifting public opinion and economic policy change.

On a personal note, Jim supported me becoming a member of the Society of Modest Members, which continues here today in honour of the late Bert Kelly, the original modest member. I thank the Senate for the time to mark Jim's passing and, like many here, I am happy to carry the torch of reform that Bert, Jim and others have passed to us.