Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate records its sadness at the death, on 25 December 2025, of the Honourable Nick Bolkus, former Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Administrative Services, Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Multicultural Affairs, and senator for South Australia, places on record its gratitude for his service to the Parliament and the nation, and tenders its sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

I begin by offering my personal condolences, and those of the government, to Mary, to Aria, to Mikayla, to Nicholas and to all who knew and loved Nick Bolkus. Nick Bolkus was a leader in shaping modern multicultural Australia. He was a giant of the Australian Labor Party in South Australia, a driving force of progressive politics in our state, and a powerful advocate for multicultural Australia who broke barriers as the first Greek Australian to serve as a cabinet minister. Many of us in South Australia in Labor looked up to him and were guided by him, including me.

As Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, he changed countless lives. He helped give practical effect to the Whitlam government's earlier renunciation of the White Australia policy, and, in doing so, Nick Bolkus changed the face of our nation. He made us more open, more tolerant and stronger.

Nick was elected to the federal parliament as senator for South Australia in 1980, and he served as a cabinet minister in the Hawke and Keating governments across a range of portfolios, from consumer affairs to immigration and multicultural affairs.

Nick Bolkus's life story is the story of modern multicultural Australia. He was born in Adelaide on 17 July 1950, the son of Greek migrant parents. His parents came from Kastellorizo, a small Greek island in the eastern Mediterranean, just over a kilometre from the Turkish coast. Like so many from Greece and beyond, the Bolkuses left in search of security and of opportunity, travelling to Australia in the difficult years between two world wars. Their journey was hard. They travelled in steerage, cooking for themselves over small burners for months at sea before eventually arriving in South Australia. They first settled in Port Pirie, where Nick's father worked on the transcontinental railway line. From there, the family moved to the west end of Adelaide's CBD and later moved to West Beach. Here, Nick grew up surrounded by other migrant families building new lives, often with little more than determination and hope for a better life for future generations.

Nick Bolkus became synonymous with Adelaide's western suburbs—a part of the city shaped to this day by a dynamic mix of migration, industry and beach-side life. Like so many migrant kids, he grew up acutely aware of the sacrifices his parents had made and of the barriers they had faced. Nick attended Adelaide High School, where he excelled academically—the first in his family to finish high school. As he would reflect on in his valedictory to the Senate in 2005, the western suburbs of the 1950s and 1960s offered few obvious role models for a political career, but he was moved to public life by admiration for the reforming Labor governments of Dunstan in South Australia and Whitlam federally. Nick went on to study law at the University of Adelaide—again, the first in his family to attend university. This sort of opportunity was exactly what his parents had in mind when they left Greece.

Nick became involved in the Labor movement as a teenager, helping deliver campaign material in electorates with strong migrant communities. His early political engagement was practical and grounded in organising, persuasion and community connection, values he would hold true to throughout his career. Growing up as he did in working-class migrant communities, Nick Bolkus knew better than many the tensions of assimilation and identity. He knew what it meant to straddle two worlds, and he understood how easily people like his parents could be marginalised. These experiences drove his lifelong commitment to multiculturalism, to social inclusion and to democratic participation.

From the outset of his political career, Nick Bolkus established a reputation as a formidable intellect and a quietly spoken but always effective parliamentarian. He combined intellectual rigour with an instinctive understanding of politics as a practical craft, and he quickly emerged as a senior figure within our party, respected for both his command of detail and his strategic judgement. Nick was appointed to the Hawke ministry in 1988, serving initially as Minister for Consumer Affairs and Minister Assisting the Treasurer for Prices. In these roles, he focused on strengthening consumer protections and ensuring that economic reform was balanced by fairness and accountability. His approach reflected a consistent theme throughout his career: markets must serve the public interest, and government has a responsibility to protect those without power.

In 1990, Nick entered cabinet as Minister for Administrative Services, a role in which he oversaw significant reform to the machinery of government, and he was committed to improving transparency, efficiency and integrity in public administration. He understood that trust in our democratic institutions depended on their ability to function fairly and that people must sense this in their everyday lives. But it was during his time as Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, from 1993 to 1996 in the Keating government, that Nick made what I believe was his most enduring contribution. In this portfolio, Nick played a central role in shaping modern multicultural Australia. He approached immigration policy with a blend of humanity and hope combined with a heavy dose of pragmatism. He understood migration as being essential to our economic vitality, to our cultural richness and to our international standing. He believed above all else that migration policy must be grounded in dignity and in fairness.

Alongside his immigration responsibilities, Nick also served as Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Multicultural Affairs. Nick Bolkus believed deeply in the benefits of migration and multiculturalism to our people and to our nation, a belief grounded in his own family and grounded in his lived experiences. Nick was a strong advocate for multiculturalism as official government policy at a time when it was both transformative and contested. He knew that multiculturalism is not an abstract ideal but the lived reality for millions of Australians. It is one that has enriched us a nation and has made us stronger. After the defeat of the Keating government in 1996, Nick continued to serve with distinction in senior opposition roles, such as shadow Attorney-General, shadow minister for justice and shadow minister for environment and heritage. As shadow Attorney-General, Nick Bolkus played a central role in the longest ever debate to take place on a single bill in this place. The debate on the Howard government's amendment to the Native Title Act went for over100 hours. Nick himself moved over 900 amendments on behalf of the opposition.

Nick Bolkus remained a central figure in parliamentary debate and party leadership until his retirement in 2005. For Nick Bolkus, the Labor Party was not simply a vehicle for power nor a tribal identity only, although it was both those things. It was also a moral project, one rooted in fairness, opportunity and progress. In his first speech to this place, he outlined what Labor meant to him:

The Australian Labor Party is the oldest political party this country has and every other political party has been a reaction to it. … It is the Australian Labor Party which has provided the real benefits of being Australian and living in Australia. It is the Australian Labor Party which has consistently and without hesitation fought for the rights and aspirations of Australians. It is the only political party which has the interests of Australians at heart.

Nick believed deeply in Labor values. He shaped them and he lived them, and he was a leading figure in our party, particularly in our left faction in South Australia. His guidance and mentorship in my younger years, and as a new senator, were formative. Nick Bolkus played a key role in delivering the stability that has enabled our party to be so successful in South Australia in recent decades. He sought to deploy power not only for its own sake but rather in the interests of working people.

As many people have remarks since his passing, Nick was particularly proud of his role in one decision as minister. In the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Nick was central to the Hawke government's decision to grant permanent residency to almost 40,000 Chinese nationals—predominantly students. At a time when fear and division could so easily have prevailed, Nick Bolkus had the courage to advocate for compassion anchored in principle. This was not without political risk, but it was right, and history has vindicated that choice. Those who have stayed have contributed profoundly to Australia's economic, intellectual and cultural life, but, beyond that outcome, the decision matters because of what it said about us as a nation—that we could act with humanity and extend protection to those who needed it, and that we could put our values into action.

You see, Nick Bolkus understood something that is so important: government decisions do not only determine outcomes. In a democracy they also declare who we are. In his valedictory speech in 2005, Nick described politics as an ongoing 'learning experience'. He reflected:

It was so easy when I first got here. There was East and West, the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, fixed currencies, no internet and, indeed, no mobile phones.

But Nick Bolkus knew that time stops for no one, in this place or in any other. He knew that our role is to face the future and to do what we can to shape it towards fairer and more just outcomes. He said:

As I learnt very quickly in this environment, I had to engage and develop my attitudes if I was to be of any relevance to the national political agenda. Defending and maintaining the status quo was not a sustainable option. Defending the status quo, in this age of mobility, is more likely to mean embracing irrelevance.

Nick Bolkus loved our state. He loved South Australia with that fierce, unpretentious loyalty familiar to so many of us. Nick loved Adelaide's western suburbs, its beaches, the communities along them that shaped him and, of course, Joe's kiosk at Henley and the West Adelaide Football Club. He was proud of his state, and he was proud to represent it. And his daughter Aria continues that legacy, standing for the state seat of Colton at next month's South Australia election.

The last few years of Nick's life were difficult for him and for those who loved him, as he faced major health challenges. His daughters, Aria and Mikayla, spoke lovingly at the state memorial service on 22 January about helping care for their father; about the insights Nick imparted and the small shared moments of love and laughter that sustained them; and about how his experience of our healthcare system only strengthened his commitment to universal health care.

Nick Bolkus's contribution to Australian life is enduring. He helped build a more open, respectful and compassionate nation. This is a proud legacy. I pay tribute to a remarkable Labor man, and I extend, again, my sincere condolences to Mary, Aria, Mikayla and Nicholas and all those who knew and loved Nick Bolkus.