Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise on behalf of the Labor opposition to acknowledge the passing of former minister and member of the House of Representatives, the Hon. Dr Douglas Nixon Everingham, who passed away last week. As Mr Shorten said, today the Labor family salutes the life of a faithful son. I convey our condolences to the family and friends of Dr Everingham.

In the condolence for Rex Paterson last year, I described him as a quintessential member of a great Labor generation. Doug Everingham is another one who fits this description. Like his fellow Queensland representatives, he was one of those who paved the way for the election of the Whitlam government and brought to it expertise as well as firm ideological views. He would serve in Whitlam's cabinet for the life of that government, returning after a brief hiatus to continue to serve in the opposition that followed as well. Like those with whom he served, his achievements and legacy stand as a monument to the fundamental progressive change implemented by that government for the benefit of the Australian nation.

Doug Everingham was not always a Labor man. He disclosed in his first speech that it was the less belligerent approach to class differences and the insanity of extremism on the Right of politics that led to him changing his voting from the Liberal Party to the Labor Party at university. Born in New South Wales in 1923, he completed his medical qualifications in that state but would eventually permanently settle in Queensland with his family. As a medical professional, he was able to bring the skills and experience gained as a family doctor and in public and private hospitals to the parliament and then later to the ministry. He joined the Labor Party in 1959. As the Leader of the Government in the Senate has said, he was elected as the member for Capricornia at a hard-fought by-election in 1967, following the death of the incumbent Labor member. In that process, he became one of a new guard of parliamentarians marshalling behind the new Labor leader, Gough Whitlam. I note that the by-election was won against one of his in-laws, his wife's sister's husband.

Hailing from Rockhampton, he became another voice for working people in the industrial cities of Central Queensland. It is no coincidence that Rex Paterson, from the neighbouring seat of Dawson, who was elected in a by-election close to the time that Doug Everingham was elected, was one of those who led him into the House of Representatives for the first time. Doug Everingham would go on to serve as the member for Capricornia until 1984, with the exception of the period between 1975 and 1977.

In his first speech, he decried the approach to government of the reigning Liberal and Country Party coalition. He lamented:

The Government professes sympathy with the plight of the poor while spending lavishly in less urgent directions.

He also made the case vociferously against war in Vietnam and made arguments about a better way forward for Australian foreign policy during the Cold War era. Consistent with someone who placed different ideas on the table, his views on these and other matters were not always without controversy. He was also a prolific writer to numerous periodicals and journals both prior to his election and afterwards. As Senator Brandis has said, one of the causes for which he advocated included an ongoing campaign for simplified spelling.

In addition to his role as Minister for Health from 1972 to 1975, Doug Everingham also served in the opposition's shadow ministry after he returned to the House of Representatives in 1977. His portfolio of responsibilities included Aboriginal affairs and northern Australia, the Australian Capital Territory, and Veterans' Affairs. But it was as Minister for Health that Doug Everingham made his most substantial and lasting contribution on the Australian political landscape. It is testament to his foresight and vision that many of the groundbreaking reforms he initiated and championed remain pillars of Australia's health policy. For example, with the Minister for the Media, Doug McClelland, he introduced a phased ban on the advertising of cigarettes and tobacco on television and radio. This was a landmark tobacco control initiative and paved the way for other initiatives in the future, such as funding for anti-tobacco advertising, the ban on advertising tobacco products at sporting events and plain packaging for cigarettes. These are matters on which Labor has continued to lead. It is often the case that far-sighted reforms such as these need principled sponsors and staunch defenders, and Doug Everingham was one of those. There are other policy positions which he advocated which came to be realised well beyond his time in office. For example, we now know from released Whitlam cabinet documents that he was an advocate for the deinstitutionalisation of mental health many years before this became accepted as mainstream policy.

The signature health and social policy reform undertaken by the Whitlam government was Medibank. Doug Everingham first spoke of the benefits of what was widely derided as socialised medicine in his very first speech. He pointed out that governments of both political situations were happy to support free hospitalisation in his home state of Queensland, but, in Canberra, those on the opposite side of the chamber were not supportive. He saw it as unjustifiable for a person to be charged for medical treatment by a specialist, a hospital, a chemist or a physiotherapist if they had been referred for such treatment by a doctor. We often forget today just how much of a fight the Labor government under Gough Whitlam had in introducing Medibank, its scheme for universal health care. It succeeded in enacting it amidst a raging inferno of opposition from the conservative side of government, the Australian Medical Association and many others. The government had to overcome initial scepticism of many voters and unrelenting parliamentary opposition to make it law. To do this, after it was blocked twice in the Senate, the government held a double dissolution election and the only joint sitting of the parliament under section 57 of the Constitution.

Yet, even with all of this, the Fraser government effectively abolished Medibank upon coming to office, with the original scheme closing some years later. It was only with the return of Labor to office under the prime ministership of Bob Hawke that universal health care, now known as Medicare, was re-enacted and entrenched by a Labor government. Medicare has become one of the most popular and successful pieces of public policy in Australian history, and Australians owe a great debt to people like Gough Whitlam, Bill Hayden and Doug Everingham, who fought for universal health care and ensured that subsequent governments continued to fight for it. Labor people have always been and always will be defenders of universal health care. We defend it not just to ensure basic healthcare rights for millions of Australians but also to protect the legacy of those who fought so hard to establish it, including Doug Everingham.

In his statement issued to announce his retirement in 1984, Doug Everingham stated that he wanted to devote more time to, amongst other things, peace education, and so it was that one of the central themes in his first speech still burned bright at the end of his time in parliament. That he maintained his activism in this area is evidenced by an open letter he signed in 2001 seeking a lifting of the economic sanctions on Iraq. He saw these as an ineffective method of bringing about change where it was needed, within the Iraqi government, that instead brought misery and degradation to ordinary people, especially children. I note that cosignatories to this letter included former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and the then Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, Leonard Faulkner.

At the time of his retirement, Doug Everingham was described as a sincere and compassionate man, and it was these qualities that were at the heart of his approach to politics. He sought to improve the lives of those who, especially at the time of his election, had little or no voice in Australian politics and were often ignored by the government of the day, and, when given the chance to implement practical changes in office, he did so with energy, with vigour, bringing to it the benefit of his prior experience in medicine.

With the death of Doug Everingham, we lose another member of a famous government that changed the nature of this nation. Labor mourn the loss of one of our own—a Labor man who never stopped advocating for the many causes in which he believed, a man of decency and intellect. We again extend our deepest sympathies to his family and friends at this time.

Question agreed to, honourable senators standing in their places.