Senator HARRADINE (Tasmania) (5.59 p.m.) — Before anything else, I want to — and, in fact, need to — acknowledge those friends who have affirmed the principles upon which I have stood and for which I have worked for the many years since I was elected in 1975, and even before then. Thank you. To my family, the bedrock of unwavering strength and inspiration, you are a blessing to me. To Marian, our shared faith has transformed the stresses of political life and reinforced our lifelong commitment to our marriage and the family. To Bede, Anthony, Gemma, Paul, Mary, Fiona — whose birthday it is today — Richard, Phillip, Nicola, Ann, Cushla, David and Benjamin, it is great to see you all present here tonight on this occasion. To all 31 grandchildren, you are an affirmation of life and hope for the future.
My current members of staff and former members of staff, I thank you for your dedication. Working for me was not terribly easy at times. To Margot Scales and Virginia Challenger, electorate officers for 18 years and 22 years respectively — an amazing achievement — I thank you. I thank Melinda Tankard Reist, adviser on bioethics and human rights issues; Jeremy Stuparich, an indispensable adviser and researcher on legislative measures; and my part-time staff, Ros Seselja and Kate Mitchell. I thank all the other staff who have served my office so well over the years: Denis Strangman — my chief adviser for the first 16 years — Lyndel Dean, John Shaw, Terry Dwyer, Phil Vincent, Justin Kearney, Bede Harradine, Gary Scarrabelotti, Christian Fabricius, Kathryn Millar and Catherine Cooney. I especially wish to acknowledge the professionalism shown by my staff during the balance of power years.
Tribute
I was first elected in 1975 with the full support of my first wife, Barbara, who sadly died only five years later. I wish to pay a special tribute to her tonight. I thank all who worked so hard through six successive election victories — 1975, 1980, 1983, 1987, 1993 and 1998 — and all who contributed to those successful victories. They were spearheaded by my great mate and campaign manager, Mick Noonan. I really do not know of any other campaign manager who can equal that sort of record. To Kath Venn, John Jones and Colin Sacco, I pay recognition tonight for their vital contribution as my electoral running mates, in the times when you had to have electoral running mates. As an independent senator, I have valued the professional advice of so many highly qualified individuals across Australia. I acknowledge this generous counsel and advice, freely given over the years. Some of the measures that come before us are very complex, and these people have been absolutely excellent.
I also extend my gratitude to the staff of the Senate and, in particular, the Clerk, Harry Evans; the Deputy Clerk, Anne Lynch; assistant clerks Rosemary Laing, Cleaver Elliott and John Vander Wyk; the Black Rod, Andrea Griffiths; and all of their staff. Deputy Clerk Lynch is retiring on 30 June after 32 years service — an amazing record. Her advice and demeanour have always been absolutely impeccable, and we wish her the very best and good health in her retirement. My thanks go to the Library staff, who have provided detailed and expert assistance, often to meet tight deadlines. Indeed, everyone in this place, including the Comcar drivers and Protective Service personnel, deserve my thanks for their untiring courtesy. To those in the press gallery who made the effort to grasp the nature of the big picture issues with which I have dealt, you perform an important service to democracy. I have also enjoyed, from time to time, the creativity of political cartoonists in the depiction of my more prominent features.
Sometimes there can be an impression that parliamentarians are always divided on ideological lines and that there is no room for personal regard. One of the privileges of being here has been to see the humanity of colleagues, of senators, and to receive expressions of support, especially in times of tragedy and illness. Be assured, I very much appreciated your concern for my wellbeing during my recent illness. Thank you. And that goes also for the many friends that I have in the House of Representatives, in the other place.
Senators often reflect on the key elements of their maiden speeches during their valedictory speeches. I intend not to be any different. Three elements of that speech stand out. The first may come as a surprise to many of you. I made it known in that speech that I in fact never wanted to be a senator. I came to this place after 17 years working in the trade union movement. It was my expulsion from the ALP by the federal executive, under socialist left domination, by nine votes to eight in 1975 which led me to this parliamentary arena. The Tasmanian branch always supported me against the federal executive, but when the final vote came I realised there was in fact no alternative but to appeal over the heads of the federal executive to the voters of Tasmania, and I was elected a senator.
Democracy
The second element should not come as any surprise — it is my consistent defence of the rights and responsibilities of this Senate in pursuit of the proper ends of our parliamentary democracy. The night before my maiden speech, one senator, who many of you probably know but who is not here at the present moment — and who expected me to become a one-term-wonder — lectured new senators about Senate power in these terms:
What the newly elected senators have to learn is that what one says in this place has very little relevance, very little value, in terms of parliamentary democracy.
In short, as new senators we were being told not to waste our time. In my maiden speech I rejected this. I leave this place in the knowledge that I have defended the Senate in its proper function as a house of review and not as a rubber stamp for the government of the day.
Our grasp on democracy is fragile indeed. It stands or falls not merely upon the values which it embodies and promotes but on the way that power is exercised, and to what end. I have always championed accountability to parliament. Senate estimates committee hearings are a key element in this process. The current trend towards the shielding of important decisions from parliamentary scrutiny by diverting them to unelected agencies or elites makes a mockery of transparency and accountability. It is for these reasons that I have challenged the lack of full accountability to the parliament of numerous publicly funded bodies.
Defended
As an elected representative of the Australian people, I have defended true parliamentary democracy by demanding oversight of decisions, challenging the increasingly dominant smokescreen of commercial-in-confidence, using the mechanisms of the Senate to ensure that the true intentions of parliament are understood and enacted and questioning the growing dominance of the executive over parliament, sometimes using coordinating bodies like the Council of Australian Governments which, through lack of accountability to this chamber, pose immediate threats to the democratic process. Furthermore, I have affirmed the Senate’s importance as a states’ house. I have always understood that our parliament and our nation will be diminished if the smaller states are deprived of the fair go that is enshrined in our Constitution and in the workings of this parliament.
The need to negotiate without abandoning fundamental principles in order to get controversial measures through the Senate has been a strong point of Australia’s democracy. For example, it enabled me to help negotiate the Wik agreement through the parliament. This not only provided an equitable outcome for Indigenous Australians but also avoided a race based election. Though the dynamics of this place will change after 1 July, I urge the government and all senators to reflect upon the importance of these functions to the health of our democracy.
And so I come to that third and final reflection on my maiden speech. I entered this parliament with one fundamental objective that would guide my approach to issues of public policy. The objective I outlined in this maiden speech was to contribute to the development of an economic and social order in which persons can live with freedom and dignity and pursue both their spiritual development and their material wellbeing in conditions of economic security and equal opportunity. I was determined to defend the uniqueness and dignity of each individual human being. In three decades I have witnessed the encroachment of utilitarianism, crass materialism and particularly, more recently, moral relativism. Each of these has negative implications for true human flourishing.
Morality
Against this backdrop, my approach to public policy has at times been summarily dismissed as an attempt to legislate morality. As the great natural law philosophers pointed out, the public policy issues of equality, fairness, justice and the common good are indeed profoundly moral questions. Is it not the case that all legislation is a reflection of a moral position? I have consistently addressed matters of public policy through a rigorous analysis of the proposal against a framework of social justice principles that are able to be understood and supported by persons of goodwill who are committed to a free, equal, just and life-affirming society.
This is why I fought for economic justice for workers and their families against the slavery of economic rationalism. It is why I have defended human dignity against the objectification of women by the pornography industry and been involved in efforts to stop children being exposed to pornography through the internet. It is why I have objected to mistreatment of refugees and asylum seekers. Recent cases in which errors of judgement have been made and people have been wrongly deported have reminded me of the case which moved me to call for a Senate inquiry into the operation of our refugee program. It was the forcible deportation of Zhu Quing Ping, a Chinese woman almost nine months pregnant who was aborted on arrival under China’s coercive population control program. We failed her and we must ensure we do not let grave miscarriages of justice like this happen again.
Farewell
It is why I have maintained that the true measure of our society and our civilisation is not how rich, powerful or technologically advanced we are. Simply, it is how we treat the weakest and most vulnerable among us. It underpins my unwavering defence of pro-life, pro-human values against the despondency of abortion and euthanasia. It motivates my criticism of the technological imperative that what can be done should be done. There is a growing pressure to allow the cloning of human embryos, which is a direct threat to humanity itself. Even now, taxpayers’ money is being used to fund destructive experimentation on human embryos. This imperative has reintroduced a eugenic mentality which wrought such sorrow and destruction for a previous and not long distant generation. It inspires my support for a better deal for families and my defence of marriage between a man and a woman as the fundamental building block of a life-affirming society confidently providing for its future.
For all of us here tonight, the title of our office and its privileges can mask the true importance of who we are as senators. It is the gravity of what we do and who we represent which should humble us immensely. This week, I leave here for the political wilderness to spend more time bushwalking the beautiful Tasmanian wilderness, God willing. But I will still take a keen interest in the decisions of parliament.
I have devoted nearly 50 years to Tasmania and to Tasmanians. Tasmania has been transformed during my three decades in the Senate. It is now a growing economy with unemployment rates at last coming down. I am happy to have gained some significant extra funding from successive governments for the smallest state in our Commonwealth. As an Independent, I had the luxury of always being able to put Tasmania first. To those who are retiring from this Senate — all of that class — I wish you all the best. I have enjoyed working with you. To those who will remain, and to all newcomers, I can only but echo the prayer which we say each morning and with which we start the day in this chamber: may God continue to bless, direct and prosper your deliberations.
Farewell.
Honourable senators — Hear, hear!
The PRESIDENT — Senator Harradine, I do not know whether you realise that, apart from all your other supporters here tonight, there is a large contingent of members of the Fatherhood Foundation in the public gallery who came in to listen to your speech.
The Senate will now move to valedictory statements. I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate a specific time to each of the speakers. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.
Leonard Colquhoun
June 30, 2005 at 08:28
Retiring Senator Brian Harradine exemplifies several of the complexities of those who participate in public life and those who [presume to] comment on these participants.
These are some of the threads running through the Senator’s career in general and his valedictory in particular:
(i) remember the saying usually attributed to Voltaire – “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it !” This strong declaration of the right of free speech deserves to be seen as one of the most important foundations of liberal democracy; many would, and did, disagree with Harradine’s Catholicism, but that ought not to have debar him from having, and expressing, Church-sourced opinions. Inflicting sectarian solutions on a secular nation is another matter entirely, however.
(ii) the ideologists’ either-or, all-or-nothing dualism – that one is 100% for or against “x”, there being no middle ground. This often shows up when a government or an authority ameliorates a politically sensitive difficulty, and then gets lambasted from both sides for doing far too little/much. Most of the time, this attitude is incompatible with representative democracy, where “compromise” is not necessarily a political four-letter word. Commentators have pointed out where Senator Harradine was able to reach compromises which enabled government measures to procede, but which were denounced as sell-outs on the all-or-nothing principle. The proverb claimed as traditionally Chinese comes to mind: “Half a loaf is better than no bread”, especially if it’s other people’s bread that is in dispute.
(iii) “We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow” [Lord Palmerston, 1784-1865, British PM 1855-65, from Hansard 1st March 1848] – Harradine’s criticism of the human rights record of The People’s Republic of China, and, by implication, of those whom he would see as “soft” on this matter, is timely when Australia seems to be going through another “special relationship” attitude to China. Interesting that it is the federal Coalition that seems to have donned the rosy-hued spectacles, seduced by dollar signs with zillions of zeroes. Interesting that Senator Harradine also cautioned the Whitlam government’s boosterism about Gough’s “special relationship” with China’s one-party dictatorship. Australia ought to have no “permanent” relationship with any of its neighbours, if “permanent” means an unchanging one, and one – but only one, albeit an important one – of our permanent interests ought to be human rights, though not necessarily as an absolute determinant in our international affairs.
(iv) finally, Brian Harradine’s 30 years in the Senate of the Commonwealth Parliament shows that political careers do not have to be self-serving, grubby perk-seeking mirrors of our baser instincts. Not every politican is one whom the nation deserves.
Dr Kevin Bonham
July 2, 2005 at 18:16
I can only breath a sigh of relief on this state’s behalf at the departure of this Senator because whatever good he may have done (and there’s a view that his positive influence has been immensely overstated) his views on abortion were exceedingly illiberal and his views on censorship generally were of a kind that no truly liberal democratic constitution should permit the enforcement of.
Harradine’s philosophical feeblemindedness on those moral issues he was squeamish about remained to the end, as exemplified by his peculiar claim that “I was determined to defend the uniqueness and dignity of each individual human being.” To ascribe dignity to an unborn foetus is simply a category mistake, and to argue that forcing women to bear unwanted babies to term is either upholding the uniqueness of those women or preserving their dignity is as laughable as it is offensive. To use dignity as an argument against euthanasia when one of the very guiding principles of voluntary euthanasia is the right to choose a dignified death over a squalid one, is equally ludicrous.
I could continue in a similar vein for some time but Harradine is a finished force whose election was a quirk of political history. It’s more concerning that his silly religious moral attitudes are more or less shared by several of the incumbent Tasmanian Liberal Senators.