Madam Speaker, I move: That the House record its deep regret at the death on 26 January 2015 of the Hon Thomas (Tom) Uren AC, former Minister and Member for Reid, and place on record its appreciation of his long and meritorious public service and tender its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.
Madam Speaker, Tom Uren was a prisoner of war, a Member of this Parliament, a Minister and a Deputy Leader of his party.
Tom was born in Balmain, but then his family moved to Harbord on the Northern Beaches at the age of five. He attended Manly Boys’ Intermediate High School, he was a surf lifesaving champion at Freshwater and he played for the Manly Warringah in the President’s Cup rugby league competition.
And Madam Speaker while it’s true to say that Tom Uren grew up in my own electorate, I suspect his heart was always in Balmain.
He was an aspiring boxer, he was an outstanding athlete and he joined the army at the age of 20 and subsequently deployed to Timor.
He spent his 21st birthday – and the following three birthdays – as a prisoner of war of the Japanese.
He lived through the brutality of the Burma-Thai Railway, through daily extremes of suffering and privation, but he took from that experience the principle of “Weary” Dunlop: “the fit looking after the sick, the young looking after the old and the rich looking after the poor”.
On one occasion while he was a prisoner of war, a Japanese guard was about to throw a prisoner from a bridge, Tom Uren risked the rage of the guards and their rifle-butts, he confronted the guard and saved his comrades life.
After being transferred from Japan, he saw from a distance the sky turn crimson with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
Madam Speaker, despite experiencing humanity at its worst, Tom Uren rejected hatred – because he said “hatred scars the soul”.
In word and in deed, he was anti-war. It was not a belief that he developed in a coffee shop or in a lecture theatre – it was a belief he came to because of his own bitter experience and it was a sincere, passionate, lifelong belief, and I first met Tom Uren at a Palm Sunday peace march in the mid-1980s.
Madam Speaker, once as a Minister he was addressing an audience at Sydney University, he intervened to break up a fight between two students, and the former boxer said that “the only thing I fight for now is peace.”
He served our country all his days.
In 1958, he entered the Federal Parliament as the Member for Reid and represented the electorate for 31 years, leaving as Father of the House.
He became Minister for Urban and Regional Development in the Whitlam Government, and pioneered the protection of Australia’s historic and natural heritage.
He also served as a Minister in the first two Hawke Governments.
When he retired, as I said, he was the Father of the House and he remained long into his retirement an active conservationist. He was, indeed, Madam Speaker a strong supporter of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust and in the lead-up to the formation of that trust under the Howard Government, I joined him in some protest rallies in my electorate which he’d come back to, at least to visit, against the policies of the government which earlier he’d served – at least in that respect.
Tom Uren once reflected, “I’m a much gentler man than most people believe. There are two sides to me – I’ve got a gentle side and a harder side and as I’ve got older I’ve got much gentler”.
This of course was his way of saying that he cared and felt for people but nevertheless he did always fight for principle.
He was a warrior in this House but above all else, in war and in peace, he was a warrior for a better Australia.
In his life and through his actions we saw valour, sacrifice, service to country and a love of others over self.
It is right that his party has extensively honoured him, but Tom Uren will always be remembered as more than simply a son of his party. He will remembered as a great son of Australia.
So, on behalf of everyone on this side of the House, and I’m sure on behalf of all Australians, I extend to his widow Christine, and to his family the deepest condolences of the Government and of the Australian people.
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