Senate debates

Tuesday, 18 June 2013

Adjournment

Deniehy, Mr Daniel

10:10 pm

Photo of Ursula StephensUrsula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Daniel Deniehy was a significant political figure in Australia in the 19th century. He was famous for his opposition to the Wentworth Constitution Bill, which he claimed would support a bunyip aristocracy in Australia. He was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as the member for Argyle and lived in Goulburn during the 1850s. Recently, as part of the 150th birthday celebrations of Goulburn, we held the inaugural Daniel Deniehy Oration—an opportunity to consider the shaping of Australia as a nation, the contribution of the Goulburn region to national politics and the importance of honouring those who have championed social justice, fairness and the republican movement. More than 100 people attended, including former Irish ambassador to Australia Richard O'Brien and the current ambassador, His Excellency Noel White and his wife Nessa Delaney.

Daniel Deniehy declared:

… my eye is fixed on one point—the doing my duty in establishing Republican Institutions and advancing in every genuine method, my native land.

Deniehy wanted Australians to care about and talk about our country and the future we would share. The inaugural Daniel Deniehy Oration was presented by Dr Jeff Brownrigg, cultural historian and adjunct professor at the University of Canberra. A gifted raconteur, Dr Brownrigg was awarded a Commonwealth Centenary Medal for services as Australia's wandering historian for the Centenary of Federation.

Daniel Deniehy in his short life was a brilliant orator, gifted poet, publisher, satirist, democrat, republican, politician, lawyer, land reformer and man of letters. Although he is almost forgotten, he played an important role in creating the kind of Australia that we now enjoy. He was the only child of two emancipated Irish convicts. Born in 1828, he was a Currency Lad—a first generation Australian after settlement. His father's business was successful enough to allow the family to return to Ireland and England and for Daniel to have university tutors and continue his studies back in Australia, articled to Scot solicitor ND Stenhouse—a very significant lawyer in those days.

In the late 1840s, Deniehy involved himself in political issues which included demands for the extension of self-government in New South Wales, plans by conservatives to renew transportation and the opening up of large estates. He made political allies such as John Dunmore Lang and he worked for the Australian League in the liberal constitution committee with Henry Parkes and the poet Charles Harpur, but his crowning achievement and most famous speech was at a protest meeting in 1853 against Wentworth's proposal for an antipodean version of the British landed aristocracy. At the time he was 25 years old. Speaking for the proposition 'That this meeting pledges to resist, by every constitutional means, the formation of any second chamber which is not based on popular suffrage', he concluded:

… I suppose we are to be favoured with a bunyip aristocracy.

That speech is widely credited with ending Wentworth's dreams for an Australian House of Lords. JD Lang would later write:

It was a narrow escape for the Colony from the would-be Earl of Wingycarribee and the Vicount Curraducheidgee.

It inspired Charles Harpur to write:

Little Dan Deniehy

Brilliant Dan Deniehy

Dear is the lifght of thy spirit to me!

Dear is the streaming ray

Out of the gleaming bay

Is to some weather worn bark from the sea!

Deniehy was opposed to the Crimean War and the flag flappers who supported sending Australians to faraway lands.

He helped form the Electoral Reform League, to wrest power from the rich and powerful squattocracy and the unelected appointees of the governor. He was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1857 but lost his seat three years later. Dr Brownrigg's inaugural lecture set the economic, political and social scene in which Deniehy was active. His presentation included lively renditions of Deniehy's delightful poetry, his stirring writings, a sympathetic description of Deniehy's decline into alcoholism and impunity, and his excommunication from the Catholic Church because of an attack on Archbishop Polding and Vicar-General Father Gregory. This led to Deniehy being denied his rights of a Christian burial when he died at the age of 37. He was redeemed 23 years later by Cardinal Moran's approval for his remains to be reinterred. It was Henry Lawson who wrote:

Southern men of letters, seeking kinder fields across the waves,

Tell a shameful tale entitled "Deniehy's Forgotten Grave".