Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would just like to associate myself with the remarks of Senator Polley in relation to the women inducted last week. There are some brilliant achievements there, and the comments were very well made.

My contribution tonight is to pay tribute to a really good friend of mine who unfortunately passed away two or three weeks ago, Alderman Maurice Hill OAM, PHF—PHF meaning Paul Harris Fellow—who was the Deputy Mayor of the City of Devonport. Maurice’s community achievements are legend at a local level, and he was given a more than fitting tribute and sending off by his local community, by Rotary International and by all his very, very good friends.

This presentation perhaps should have a classification warning, not necessarily for anything bawdy, but it does demonstrate how times have changed over Maurice’s 65 years. Maurice enjoyed life to the full. He lived it well, but he got the most out of it too. Some of the things that Maurice did during his time would not be considered politically correct today, but he was a man of his times and he certainly made a significant contribution to the city over the years. I just make the point that he lived a good life and he lived it well, and I do not want people to be offended by some of Maurice’s antics. I just make that point.

Just to summarise his community involvement, he was a member of the Apex Club of Devonport from 1963 to 1977. He was a member of the Mersey Rowing Club from 1963 to 1967, having previously rowed for Grammar and been a member of the winning Head of the River crew. From 1964 to 1989 he was a volunteer fireman for the Tasmanian Fire Service. We have heard some fantastic stories about Maurice and his family association. He was awarded the National Medal in 1985 for diligent long service to the community in hazardous circumstances, including in times of emergency and national disaster. He was a board member of the Mersey General Hospital, something he was very proud of. From 1982, he was a justice of the peace; from 1992 to 1996, a member of the Queen Elizabeth II trust for young Australians; from 2002 to the time of his passing he was an alderman on the Devonport City Council and from 2007 he was deputy mayor; and in 2009 he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for service to Rotary International, to local government and to the community of Devonport, something that I know he was very proud of and certainly deserved.

I met Maurice through a number of forums, but I got to know him really well through Rotary. We were both members of the Devonport North Rotary Club. I will just put a couple of his achievements—because they are many—in respect of Rotary on the record. He was a Rotary group study exchange leader, a district governor of Rotary, a district governor nominee-designate trainer for Australia, a trustee of the Australian Rotary Foundation Trust, an Australian representative for new model Rotary clubs, a seven-time international convention attendee as a Rotary International president representative and the Rotary International health and hunger taskforce coordinator for Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific.

From a personal perspective, I will talk about some of my memories of Maurice. I remember on election night in 2001 that he was the first person to congratulate me on being elected to the Senate. It was about 10.30 pm, the broadcast was coming to an end for the night, and Peter Costello made the comment that Richard Colbeck would get elected to the Senate. I was not all that confident of that, but Maurice said that, because Peter Costello had said I was going to get elected, that was going to be the case. I am very happy that it was the case, but it was just one of those things where Maurice was more than confident about the outcome, and he was the first person to congratulate me on my election. And he sometimes reminded me of that.

He had a great sense of humour. In the local paper last year, in 2010, there was an article about the sale of Victoria Parade in Devonport. For those who do not know Victoria Parade, it is highly valued parkland in the community along the Mersey River. Maurice Hill was in the paper with the general manager of the council and a local real estate agent, Esley Dunham, talking about the sale of the Mersey foreshore, Victoria Parade, by a Scandinavian developer by the name of Loof Lirpa. Needless to say the phones lit up at the newspaper and at the council from those who did not realise that Loof Lirpa is actually April fool spelt backwards. But the front-page story did cause a bit of excitement in the newspaper. Those were the sort of things that Maurice liked to participate in.

He loved his children and his family. In fact, I would have to say he actually worshipped them. His involvement in Rotary, particularly inducting new members and helping them to get involved, to become part of the club, was really something that he was very well known for. Don Maurice, who was on the President of the Senate’s staff when Paul Calvert was President, and worked for me for a while, rang me after Maurice passed away and said that the skills that Maurice showed at home were also on display abroad. He was an extraordinary orator. He could give speeches without any notes. He had done his research, he could just digest all the information and then regurgitate it. I do not know too many who were his peer in that respect, and he was certainly highly valued in the Rotary community. Those skills were also demonstrated outside.

I would just like to put on the record quickly some comments from other members of the Rotary club. We had a fantastic meeting a couple of weeks ago to commemorate Maurice’s life and involvement in Rotary. A number of Rotarians put some things on the record. Maurice loved fast cars, and Mac Russell, who worked with his family, recalled his love of fast cars and getting from point to point in the quickest time possible—although, when he was going to the east coast, which is probably a three- or four-hour trip from Devonport, it was known to take up to 11 hours because he would stop at every pub along the way, just to make sure they were sufficiently lubricated. You could not do that these days—I understand that—but that was the way Maurice liked to get from one side of Tasmania to the other. He was a great salesman, and both Mac and Gerald O’Dea recalled that. Gerald recalled the day he went in to pick up a favourite record and came out with the record, a stereo and having joined Apex at the same time. So Maurice had great skills in that capacity.

In 1990, the Rotary club that we were involved with—Devonport North—was organising the opening day entertainment for the World Rowing Championships. Maurice found a little business in Hobart that was making tin cups. The debate was whether we bought 1,000 or 2,000. It took us some time to make that decision, as you might understand, in a Rotary club. We were making a fairly significant investment. But this was a really old business. They were doing all this stuff by hand. It was effectively a little tin can made by hand, everything soldered together. We sold 2,000 of these things that day. We could have sold 4,000. But Maurice was always one to go for the upper scale as far as the decision making was concerned. It proved to be a real symbol of our involvement in the opening day for the World Rowing Championships.

John Thorn, who was a district governor, said of Maurice that he lived the four-way test better than almost anybody else. The four-way test—I mentioned it in my first speech and it is a pretty good set of principles—goes like this: is it the truth; is it fair to all concerned; will it build goodwill and better friendships; and will it be beneficial to all concerned? And I think John Thorn was right, Maurice did live that better than most, and it is a real tribute to him.

Leon Wootton told us of a number of things: Maurice’s capacity as a really good friend; his self-deprecation; and his desire to make sure that his bowel cancer was well understood and that people did the best for that. One day when I saw him and asked him how he was going he said: ‘Well, mate, I’m pretty good. The doctor told me I was supposed to be dead last week’. Eighteen months on, he was still going. He once said that he had picked up a jar of Vegemite and it had a longer expiry date than he did.

I would like to offer my condolences to Roz and to his family, whom I know he adored. I think it is fitting that Maurice is remembered in this way. I am sorry I do not have more time to complete a bit more detail, but I really would like to pay my respects to his family and all those who knew and loved him.