Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I rise on behalf of National Party senators and the National Party of Australia to extend our condolences upon the death of former senator John Owen Stone AO to his children, his grandchildren and all those who knew, loved and admired him.

John Stone was elected to the Senate from the National Party in Queensland in 1987. In fact, I think that was the first election that I handed out in, and I would have handed out for then senator Stone. He was immediately appointed to the position of shadow minister for finance and was Leader of the National Party in the Senate for the duration of his term until 1990.

John Stone had led a life of distinguished service long before entering parliament. Indeed, prominent obituaries, such as that in the Australian Financial Review on Saturday 19 July headlined 'Ex-Treasury secretary Stone dies', have extensively honoured his legacy as a public servant, an intellectual, a think-tank leader and an author, and have focused upon the exceptionally high esteem in which he was held. Former prime minister John Howard said that Australia had enjoyed the professionalism and advice of many talented public servants, but, in his experience, none surpassed John Stone, who served in Treasury for 12 years prior to his role as executive director for Australia, New Zealand and South Africa at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington, DC. He returned to the treasury department in 1971, where he was secretary from 1979 to 1984. He is renowned for tutoring former prime minister Paul Keating in economics when Keating unexpectedly became Treasurer, rather than Minister for Minerals and Energy, in the new Labor government in 1983. Stone did, however, oppose former treasurer Keating's decision to float the Australian dollar, as he fervently espoused economic conservatism, small government, lower taxes and less government spending. In his maiden speech to this chamber, he said:

… in matters of government I have come increasingly to the view that small is beautiful.

Over his Treasury career, John Stone worked with eight treasurers: Billy Snedden, Gough Whitlam, Frank Crean, Jim Cairns, Bill Hayden, Phillip Lynch, John Howard and Paul Keating, which gave former South Australian premier Don Dunstan the foundation—as you said, Senator Cash—to describe his influence as the Stone age. He became the only Commonwealth departmental secretary to become a member of the Australian parliament, and, well before becoming the head of Treasury, he was its principal policymaker and spokesman, exerting a major influence on several federal governments. He most often voted Liberal at federal elections but at least twice voted for the Labor Party, before joining the Queensland National Party in 1987.

Born in Perth in 1929, with his childhood spent in the Western Australian Wheatbelt, John Stone graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Western Australia in 1950, with an extraordinary first-class honours in mathematical physics, before reading philosophy, politics and economics as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University. When returning to Australia from the United Kingdom, Stone joined the Commonwealth Treasury in 1954, the same year he married Nancy Hardwick, who was his beloved companion and intellectual equal for almost 70 years until her passing in 2023.

Following his short term in the Senate and ill-fated tilt as the National Party candidate for the House of Representatives seat of Fairfax in 1990—which, as an aside, I should tell you was treated as one of the great disasters of the century by the McDonald household—John Stone maintained a high profile as he transitioned to the role of conservative public commentator.

John and Nancy lived in Melbourne from 1990 until 2000 before finally settling in Sydney. He co-founded the Samuel Griffith Society, dedicated to promoting discussions on the Constitution, decentralisation and federalism. He continued to participate in the HR Nicholls Society, of which he was a founding father and whose tie he wore on the day of his maiden speech in this chamber. He became a senior fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs and wrote frequently for the Australian, Quadrant, the National Observer, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and the Spectator Australia, and he delivered numerous lectures throughout Australia. He continued his role as an uncompromising right-wing commentator on public affairs and was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2022 Queen's Birthday Honours for distinguished service to the people and parliament of Australia and to public administration.

We acknowledge the loss of a man who was revered, praised for his brilliance and challenged for his obstinacy but who was always recognised as one of the most influential Australians to serve in the Public Service and in public office. John Stone died on 17 July, aged 96, and is survived by his five children. On his stint in politics, he said: 'I wouldn't have missed it for the world. It was enormously interesting and it was fun.' May we all leave this place with a similar sentiment. Thank you for your service and vale to John Stone AO.