Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to add my comments to those of my colleagues in recognition of former senator John Watson. I thank them for their comments. I also acknowledge his daughter Rosemary and son Geoff in the gallery, alongside some people who worked with John. I think we have some of the staff who worked on the Senate committee with him here in the chamber as well—Richard Gilbert—which is also a recognition of the respect that John is held in. I'll start by extending my condolences to Jocelyn, his wife of 62 years, as has been said, herself an extraordinarily qualified lady who served her community strongly, as well as John's children, Ian, Fiona, Geoff and Rosemary and their families and all the grandchildren.

John's Senate record is quite an extraordinary one, as has been mentioned. In talking to some colleagues today, mentioning the fact that he served in this place for 30 years did raise some eyebrows. And of course John, in that context, was what you'd have to call a survivor. He served from 1978 to 2008 and, as Senator Cash indicated, just because he hadn't had enough public service he went on to do five years on the West Tamar Council to continue serving his community. But that was John. John was somebody who had an extraordinary radar for the community. He had strong connections to the community. Senator Wong mentioned the closure of a business that he was manager of in the 1970s, when things were changing significantly economically. We heard a couple of weeks ago at the celebration of his life that he went around town looking for jobs for every member of that business and found a job for everybody—and at the end of the day he was the one without a job! So he came here for 30 years.

They were the things that grounded John Watson, and they were the things that set John Watson up and connected him to his community and followed him and drove him for a long period of time. He said in his valedictory:

The tragedy of the Kelsall and Kemp closure changed my attitude to life and refocused my priorities when I reached Canberra. Those on low incomes, the disadvantaged and refugees, in fact all those who have had difficulty in getting their voice heard, have been high on my agenda.

He did that all through his career—

This has been reflected through my close association with community organisations such as refugee groups, churches and City Mission—

an organisation that itself recognised his length of supporting giving to that organisation over so many years quite recently—

and in the later years with Australia's oldest benevolent institution, the Launceston Benevolent Society.

John was very closely connected to his community. That's a demonstration of the sort of person that, in 1978, came to the Senate from Tasmania.

As you might imagine, and as has been indicated by colleagues, someone who serves here for 30 years has a committee membership list as long as your arm—or both arms! John was an extraordinarily qualified person. He was a part-time lecturer at the Launceston Technical College, a chartered accountant, a company director, a part-time lecturer at the College of Advanced Education and a member of the Scotch College Council. He was a farmer, and he loved his farm. His sheep, I understand, won a blue ribbon at the last Exeter Show; John was quite rightly proud of that. So he was still actively involved.

To his qualifications, he was a fellow of the chartered institute of secretaries, a fellow of the Australian Institute of Management, a fellow of Certified Practising Accountants, a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and a fellow of the Taxation Institute of Australia. He had a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Tasmania. You knew that when he was asking questions at a Senate inquiry they came from a learned background. He brought all that to the Senate.

John served for 27 years on the Joint Standing Committee of Public Accounts and Audit. That in itself is somewhat of an achievement. Apart from a short period as a shadow parliamentary secretary, John served his entire career on the backbench. He resigned his position as a shadow parliamentary secretary because he crossed the floor due to not agreeing with some proposals that were being put up and supported by the opposition, and happily went back to his committee work on the backbench. He did say in his valedictory speech that he didn't cross the floor quite as many times as his immediate predecessor in this place, who crossed the floor 150 times; John only managed three or four. But it's a different world today. Sir Reginald Wright, his direct predecessor, had quite a reputation and, I think, still holds the record for the number of times crossing the floor; in fact, he may have had a track backwards and forwards in Old Parliament House! But John did make that reflection in the context of his work.

While he served for 27 years on the Joint Standing Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, I think it was his work on the Select Committee on Superannuation that really made John stand out. As the new system of superannuation was being developed in this country, the parliament decided, on a motion moved by the Australian Democrats at the time, that there needed to be a select committee to scrutinise the development of the new legislative frameworks. That committee was established. Over its time it only had about 20 members on it. John served on that committee for the entire time of that committee, and there were only ever two chairs: Nick Sherry was the first chair, who chaired for two years, from 1991 to 1993; and the chair from 1993 until 2003, when the committee ceased to exist—remembering that this was a select committee, not a standing committee of the parliament—was John Watson.

When you consider that this particular committee was also a committee that scrutinised legislation, the fact that John Watson was appointed as its chair in 1993 until 1996 under a Labor government is a testament to John Watson—an absolute testament to John Watson. The fact that he had the integrity to work with the other members of the committee—which was one of the features of the committee that's mentioned in the reports, I have to say. They were intent on working together. They were intent on building a knowledge base within the committee so that they could effectively scrutinise the legislation that was being brought before them and make the contribution that they have made to the superannuation system in this country.

That particular point—that John, as a member of the opposition, was chairing the committee that scrutinised legislation on behalf of the parliament and that that appointment was made by the Labor Party—is a real testament to John. I'm not sure that sort of appointment would be made today, to be frank, but it is a real tribute to John Watson that that appointment was made. He chaired the committee then until 2003, when it ceased to exist—for over 10 years.

The committee was quite prolific. It tabled 56 reports. It made 276 recommendations. It held 188 hearings, which is an average of one every three weeks for twelve years. It took 4,762 submissions, and, at one point when superannuation was quite hot, the committee's website reached 42,000 hits per month. So the work of the committee was being watched and scrutinised, and John was driving that work. It still holds the status of the longest running Senate select committee in the Australian parliament's history—12 years and three months. I'm not sure another one would survive that long in the future. I would like to acknowledge Richard Gilbert, who worked in the secretariat for the committee.

There were a number of comments made on its formation. Senator Sid Spindler, who was the Democrat spokesman for Treasury, moved the motion for the committee and said:

We were concerned that there was no formal vehicle for independent input to the Government's decision-making in this increasingly crucial area of economic and social policy.

That was the rationale for the committee being put together in the first place. The committee had a strategy and a modus operandi that was paying specific attention to the question of how it was going to manage its work, the tasks allocated to it, and even devoted one of its reports to describing and reflecting upon a very self-conscious approach.

There were a number of themes: the inquiry process was something that needed to be consciously planned; the committee must remain focused on policy and not get sidetracked by trying to solve specific problems; if the committee's work was to be relevant to the policy debate, its reports would need to be timely, and they were; the committee must develop its own expertise, which I've already mentioned; and the committee must be self-confident and proactive. The committee was quite proactive, sometimes to the chagrin of portfolio ministers, I have to say. One of the committee's key roles would be to promote debate and public awareness, and, as I've mentioned in the stats of the number of people who interacted with the committee website, the committee certainly achieved that.

As has been mentioned, there are some tributes to the committee and the work of John and former senator Sherry in the conduct of their work:

I want to pay tribute to … its chairs, Senator Watson and Senator Sherry, who have been fiercely independently minded and have given their governments a right royal razzle dazzle whenever required over the course of the last 12 years.

So they were very, very determined to make sure that their work was effective. The quote goes on:

It is an example of the Senate working at its best over a long period of time. It is an example of what Senate committees can do when they work together: look at the information, put politics aside and actually produce good policy. As a result the Senate Select Committee on Superannuation has been one of the most effective committees this Senate has seen over the past 12 years.

Senator Sherry said:

We cannot test this information by referring the bills to the Senate Select Committee on Superannuation—

This is when the committee was disbanded—

We cannot test this information by referring the bills to the Senate Select Committee on Superannuation. That committee has been abolished or it has lapsed—they are having a barbeque after 12 years, which I am missing—so there is no opportunity to ask those detailed questions.

So Senator Sherry was obviously lamenting the fact that the committee was leaving. Senator Coonan, not so unhappy to see the committee go, said:

Driving a stake through its heart! … I don't think it will be dead until you cut off its head and stick an apple in its mouth.

So, as I said, it did do its job in asking questions.

A friend of ours—and I'm sure Senator Askew might elaborate on this a little later—mentioned at John's celebratory celebration that at one point in time during a committee debate John Watson stood up and said to the minister, 'This will have this bad effect if you pass this amendment.' The minister argued a little bit but then asked that the committee report so that he could go away and find out whether John was right. The minister did not go on with the debate because he knew that John Watson had stood up and said there was a problem with this amendment. So he suspended the debate, came back and continued with it after having checked it out. That was a comment passed to Don from a former clerk of the Senate, who noted that action. So the respect for John goes across the parliament.

I found this article that was published on 23 June 2008, not long after John had retired from the parliament, by Alan Thornhill, who asked the question, 'Who is John Watson, Anyway?' And the article starts:

You may never have heard of outgoing Tasmanian Liberal Senator John Watson, but you will probably have good reason to thank him one day.

Your retirement will almost certainly be much more comfortable than it might otherwise have been, because of his work.

Paul Keating has, quite rightly, taken much of the credit for overhauling Australia's superannuation industry. But it was the quiet work that Senator Watson undertook in the shadows of parliamentary committees that made Keating's vision of worthwhile superannuation for all Australians a reality.

I think that's a great tribute for John, along with the respect that was paid to him by others in the parliament at the time—to chair the committee as an opposition senator.

As I said before, to survive for 30 years in this place, you have to have a pretty decent survival instinct, and John certainly had that. In 1996, I was a candidate for preselection for the Senate—along with a number of other notables, including former premier Robin Gray—and John, very keen to continue his parliamentary career, rolled up with a lawyer's trolley full of Senate inquiry reports that he had authored through the Senate committee and rolled that into the preselection room to demonstrate his efforts and the work that he'd done. And it was effective, because neither myself nor Robin Gray were preselected for that particular election. Jocelyn Newman, Paul Calvert and John Watson prevailed for that particular ticket.

In the subsequent preselection that he contested in 2000, for the 2001 election, John turned up with his pathology reports to demonstrate that he was still fit and ready to go and could serve another term, and he succeeded in being preselected at No. 2 on that ticket and served until the next election. Of course, as we know as senators, there's always someone who's looking for our job or thinks that someone else might be better. So these were—deservedly and properly—very robustly contested preselections.

Yes, Senator McKenzie, former senator Abetz was a player. There's no question about that in that process. The ticket in 2001 was Paul Calvert, John Watson and me. That was the point at which I first came to work with John as a colleague.

As has been mentioned, John was a man of faith, and, through the words that I took from his valedictory, you can see how he applied that. He actually lived that. He actually lived that in the way he interacted with people in this place on a daily basis. He wasn't somebody who shoved it down your throat. He wasn't somebody who was an evangelist as such. But he lived his faith and he observed it. He was a pioneer in the place, as has already been mentioned. He and colleagues in the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship pioneered the first National Prayer Breakfast, held in Old Parliament House, which continues today as an annual event. John was part of starting that.

Something that I didn't know about John is that he contracted polio as a child. He went on to become a very good athlete. He used to race the trains and the trams home, and he held a state record in athletics for many years. That's not something that I necessarily would have associated John with, but it showed his persistence. He loved his farm, his cattle and sheep and spent quite a deal of time there, and his family remember those times, I know, very fondly. As I mentioned, he won a blue ribbon very recently.

His engagement with Launceston City Mission, in particular, I think is something worth noting. Of course he was deservingly recognised with a membership of the Order of Australia after his retirement from the parliament. I don't know that I can think of anyone who would be more deserving of that honour.

I want to finish with a little bit of a poem that was read by his son at the celebration of his life, because I think it also encapsulates John. It's the poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling. He encouraged his children to learn the poem, and they did. I think it says something about John's philosophy and the way that he worked and operated in this place. It goes:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

There are a number of other verses to it. I won't put all of that on the record, but I think it's worth going back and having a look at because it's probably not a bad message, either, for all of us. But it says a lot about John Watson that that was something that he valued and taught to his children.

In closing, I extend my deepest sympathies to Jocelyn and the family. It's great that some of them are able to be here and that others can watch the live streaming today. It was a terrific tribute to his life that a few of us attended a couple of weeks ago. It was a deserving tribute to somebody who made a significant contribution to his local community and to his state but particularly to the country through his work on the Select Committee on Superannuation.