Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted this evening to rise to honour four friends and colleagues, all of whom were honoured in the Queen's Birthday honours list last weekend. The first of them—on a night when we recognise and farewell a great warrior of the National Party from Queensland, although he was originally a Western Australian, Ron Boswell—is my friend the Hon. Hendy Cowan, who has been made an Officer, AO, in the General Division of the Order of Australia. When I called Hendy the other day, his first comment was, 'I didn't want any of these honours.' Hendy had been the Leader of the National Party, the Deputy Premier to Richard Court, in Western Australia, and a person who cast an enormous shadow over the state of Western Australia. But in fact it was not his time in politics for which he was honoured. It was more for his contribution to higher education in Western Australia.

He is the Chancellor of the Edith Cowan University, named of course in honour of his great-aunt, who was the first woman to be elected to the Australian parliament. Hendy also, in his contribution beyond his years in politics, heads up the Cancer Council in Australia and brings his considerable wealth of knowledge and influence to that role. I am very pleased to say on a personal basis that his contribution to agricultural and agribusiness education in Western Australia has been strongly recognised by the work that he did on behalf of the government of Premier Colin Barnett in helping Muresk Institute get underway again with an agribusiness degree, this time run by the Charles Sturt University. I congratulate Hendy on a thoroughly deserved award.

The second is my very, very close friend and relation by marriage Murray Meaton. Murray has been made a Member in the General Division of the Order of Australia. Murray was an agricultural economist originally, is an economist, and is better known now in the mining, oil and gas industry. It is for this work both here in Australia and overseas, particularly in Africa, that Murray has been recognised with his AM. We have been close friends for many years. He is married to one of my very favourite first cousins. He and I have sailed together for many years. He is a person whose opinion I always value very highly. Being an economist, of course, he is very dry. Every time I go to see Joe Hockey, I go to see Murray first, and Murray winds me up and tells me all the things that Joe is going to say no to. Afterwards I wonder whether Murray has been in contact with Joe, because I never seem to get very far beyond Murray Meaton.

Murray has done an enormous amount of work in the mining industry, representing both Indigenous communities in their negotiations with mining companies and, indeed, mining companies in their negotiations with Aboriginal communities. So highly regarded is Murray by both sides that in fact his word, very often, is the one that holds sway, whether it be on behalf of the mining companies or on behalf of the Aboriginal communities. He most recently has been working in Africa, where he has been assisting them in the royalties area for minerals. It is just typical of the calibre of this particular man that he would give his time so generously, based on the experience he has had in Western Australia during the time in which he headed up the royalties division of the department of minerals and energy and of course more recently in his own private practice.

Whilst Murray and Hendy, I guess, would not have passed each other in their careers all that often, both have strong agricultural heritages. Murray's brother is a very successful fine-wool merino breeder in the Great Southern of Western Australia. I know I join Murray's family in honouring him for what has been such a wonderful acknowledgement for him and Christine in his membership in the General Division of the Order of Australia.

Being Western Australian, of course, does not confine me just to the borders of Western Australia. The third of the people who have been recognised whom I wish to comment on this evening is Don Heatley, from Queensland. Don has been honoured with the Medal, OAM, of the Order of Australia in the General Division in the Queen's Birthday honours list. Don most recently was the chairman of the board of Meat and Livestock Australia. He had seven years, I believe, as its chairman, succeeding another person who was honoured in recent years, and that of course was David Crombie. But Don spent 13 years on the MLA board. He is a pastoralist, a grazier, in Central Queensland, a man of enormous stature in that state. He is a person who has been at the forefront of animal production, cattle production, progress and enterprise with the introduction of Leucaena legumes in his region of northern Australia. He is a person in whom the industry placed an enormous amount of trust. My contact with Don and the then CEO, David Palmer, was probably most to the fore when, unfortunately, we had the ban on the live export trade on 8 June 2011 and the events that followed. Whilst the MLA has been the subject of criticism, those within the industry have quite rightly looked internally as to where the issues rested. I can assure industry, and I do so this evening, that they had no greater champion than Don Heatley. Under enormous pressure at that time from every sector, out of this place in Canberra, around the world and around the industry, Don Heatley stood up. He stood up with a degree of maturity and common sense that only comes from a man on the land. I believe he exhibited enormous leadership at a time when, it is fair to say, the industry was floundering. There were not a lot of us who were speaking coherently and maturely on behalf of the industry. He steered the MLA and indeed the cattle industry through very turbulent waters during that time. I congratulate him on what I believe has been a very justified awarding of the Medal in the General Division.

The fourth person who has also been awarded the Medal, OAM, in the General Division, and who is close to me is my great friend Eddie Watling. Eddie was awarded this particular accolade in the Queen's Birthday Honours list for his service to the tourism sector in Western Australia. When he and I were associated back in the 1980s—and as I said to him the other day in our discussions when I rang to congratulate him—at that time you could not get people around Australia to even accept that tourism was a serious industry. Most people in Australia are of course very lucky. We go to the beach. We do not actually plan, we do not save so much for recreation and tourism—at least we did not in those days—and it was Eddie Watling who, at that time, stood apart from his colleagues as a person who put tourism on the map and explained to the wider community, particularly to government at that time, the importance of tourism as an industry.

He was the first general manager of the Western Australian Tourism Commission. He consulted to government. I think he was 15 years with the Department of Tourism. He was a member of the Tourism Commission in the areas of finance, marketing and development. Then, together with a group of friends and colleagues, including my very close friend the late Bill Quinn, he formed a company Tourism Coordinates. I think Eddie did have something to do with my own success in being appointed the chief executive of the Rottnest Island Authority in 1988. After seven years of that institution, I do not know whether I should have thanked or condemned Eddie for a role that he may have played. But at all times this was and still is a man of enormous integrity, a person who has always seen the value of the industry, intrastate tourism, interstate tourism and of course international tourism. I understand that, associated with the same industry, Eddie is now deputy chairman of the Western Australian Liquor Commission and a member of the Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour Marine Facilities Advisory Committee.

It is my privilege this evening to acknowledge the efforts of these four people and the fact that they have been so honoured in the Queen's Birthday Honours list.