CONDOLENCE MOTION

7 May 2014

[3.38 p.m.] Mr BARNETT (Lyons) - I stand in support of the motion moved by the Premier and support entirely the views expressed by the Leader for the Opposition and the member for Bass, Kim Booth.

As a former senator, having worked with Brian Harradine in his role as a senator, it was a great privilege to know him. He was a very humble man. He did not seek publicity. He was honoured with a state funeral, as has been referred to, at St Mary's Cathedral in Hobart on Wednesday, 23 April. I know that many in this House were there, including the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition, together with the former Prime Minister, the Honourable John Howard, and also my former senate colleague, Don Farrell, a current senator for South Australia because Brian Harradine was born in South Australia and had a background with the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association. Both gentlemen had quite a bit in common. They knew each other well and it was great to see Don Farrell again and catch up with him.

He served as an independent member of parliament from 1975 to 2005, so for some 30 years, and was father of the Senate. Interestingly, when he concluded in his time as father of the Senate, a former senator, John Watson, took over as father of the Senate. Brian Harradine was a values- driven politician and he was a fighter for Tasmania.

The principal celebrant at the service was Archbishop Julian Porteous and he did a terrific job. I concur with the remarks of the former speakers. I also note that he had a very large family and they participated in the service, which was lovely. The readers included Matthew Harradine and Theresa Sheehan, prayers of the faithful from Anne Redmond, and the pallbearers included Bede Harradine, Anthony Sheehan, Paul Sheehan, Richard Harradine, Phillip Sheehan, David Harradine and Benjamin Sheehan.

He did not seek the spotlight and he specifically said he did not want the service to eulogise himself. I read what Bede Harradine produced at the back of the program on the day. He said that in death his dad most certainly had no desire to be eulogised.

He was a very humble man, but a giant in many ways. In terms of Brian's longevity, I joined the Senate in February 2002 and at that time Brian Harradine had already been in the Senate for over 26 years, so he was a veteran of both the old Parliament and the new Parliament and he had served under five Prime Ministers: Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating, and John Howard, who was at the state funeral.

Depending on where you sat, his negotiations in Parliament were characterised by some as being either straight or maddening. Former Prime Minister John Howard said of him that:

He had the great skill of leaving you in total doubt when he left the room as to precisely what he had agreed to in the course of negotiations, but you never felt that he had misled you because somehow or other you felt that his understanding of the subject embraced matters that totally eluded you.

That describes perhaps the maddening and the straight description of Brian Harradine. He was known as a wily fox, but a very lovable wily fox and a man with a big heart and a love for others, P a g e | 2 particularly the underprivileged. He had a commitment to Tasmania and that has been referred to. He was always straight. I happened to be in the Senate at the time when he was negotiating with John Howard and former Senator Richard Alston, the former minister for telecommunications and Telstra. They came back to our party room and expressed their frustration and dismay at lack of progress, but in the end he did the deal for Tasmania of some $300 million extra funds for Tasmania for the National Heritage Trust. Many of you would recall that and delivering significant support and benefit to Tasmania over many years.

He stood up for the battlers. He was well known with respect to the GST comment. At the end of his speech people were thinking which way is he going to go and during his speech he said with respect to the GST, 'I cannot'. They were the words that everybody was thinking: which way is he going to go and he went against it, but the Democrats ended up negotiating with Howard and Costello in terms of the GST.

He was a humble man, he shunned publicity, but I had quite a bit to do with him in a whole range of areas. We attended the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship together, the Parliamentary prayer breakfast and were like-minded in a range of other areas, including our view with respect to family values. I shared those common interests of dignity of life from conception to death with respect to abortion legislation that was brought up from time to time in the Federal Parliament. He had a very strong position on euthanasia, pornography and anti-pornography measures, and was very active in terms of the impact on children. He was very strong and stood up on those issues.

When I wrote to the Prime Minister in 2004 about the need for the definition of marriage to be enshrined in legislation, he supported that legislation wholeheartedly, which was terrific. We stood together on the issue of cloning and stem cell research and on dignity-of-life issues and supporting of families.

It would be remiss of me not to mention Brian's love of his family here. He married Barbara and had six children. Two years after she passed away in 1980 he married Marian, a widow with seven children, so he had a very large family and he loved them all. At the state funeral his son Bede said:

In Marian, Brian was blessed with an ardent supporter, a confidante who gave wise counsel, a loving wife and mother, and a careful steward of the household.

They both shared a faith and a love of bushwalking, as was indicated on the back of the program where there is a lovely photo of Brian contemplating in a natural environment next to a river, no doubt in Tasmania, because he loved the bushwalking and the outdoors. They often retreated to the wilderness for a little time away.

I conclude with some words from that eulogy given by his son, Bede, and I quote:

It was supremely fitting that the drama of Dad's final struggle took place in the week of Christianity's central drama. How frequently we heard him recall the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. He reflected upon this often, telling us how it renewed his own commitment to follow Christ in his personal and public life.

Brian Harradine remained to the very end a faithful servant to family, to friends, to society, and to God. May he rest in peace.