Slade Brockman (President) | Hansard source

I will just add a few short remarks. I also wish to give my sincere condolences to the family of Michael Beahan. Michael Beahan was the fourth Western Australian President of the Senate but the first at that point for 50 years, and so it was a long time between innings.

His career as an electrician, I understand, was cut short by an industrial accident in which he lost a finger. He actually began his pathway to the education system and then, obviously, to this place due to one of those acts of fate that affect our lives, seemingly in a terrible way, but which in actual fact delivered to Australia a wonderful servant of this place.

He was comfortably elected to the Senate from the fifth position on the ALP Senate team for the 1987 double dissolution election. His views on the Senate changed over time; as Senator Keneally noted, he said that the role of the Senate was increasingly important and was an increasingly effective and necessary check on the power of the executive—any executive. This perhaps can be contrasted with an earlier view that he had when he was a much more junior senator, when he said about the Senate:

… people speaking in empty chambers, people running around to bells like Pavlovian dogs; the constant repetition of quorum calls or divisions …

So his views did evolve over time, as I think all of our views evolve over time about this place. In becoming President of the Senate, obviously, he played a significant role in lifting the work of this chamber and enshrining the committee system, which we all know and value so highly.

He was defeated in the 1996 federal election, contesting the third position—only the third incumbent Senate President to be defeated at the polls. He relinquished the role in August 1996 when the new parliament met. One of his perhaps lesser known but key contributions post his Senate career was saving the bluestone lanes around his house where he lived in Brunswick, Victoria. Obviously, that is something which all Victorians now cherish. In 2011 he was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia for services to the Parliament of Australia, to the promotion of international bipartisan political debate, to the pharmacy profession and to the community. I cannot think of a higher honour.

Michael Beahan AM was a conscientious servant of the Senate and his chosen political party who made a varied and constructive contribution to public life in Australia before, during and after his time in this place. I would ask senators to join me in a moment's silence signifying assent to the motion.

Question agreed to, honourable senators joining in a moment of silence.