Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I rise on this condolence motion to express my condolences on the death of a very great Western Australian, Sir Charles Court. Sir Charles was not born in Western Australia, but he did arrive there at the age of three months. He is one of the most significant historical figures in the history of my state. He is certainly a historical figure in the history of our country. In many ways, the good fortune that Western Australians and Australians are enjoying at the present time—through what is called the mining boom—is as a result of the efforts of Sir Charles when he was deputy premier, a minister and ultimately premier of Western Australia.

Sir Charles entered parliament in 1953. Prior to that, he had been an accountant and a soldier. He had founded the accountancy practice Hendry, Rae & Court that still exists in Perth. During the war he served in the AIF. He rose very quickly from a private to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was married twice: firstly to Rita, who died in the early 1990s, and secondly to Judith, who survives him. He also had five sons: Victor, Barry, Ken, Geoffrey and Richard, many of whom have been very prominent Western Australians also—in particular, of course, his son Richard, who went on to succeed him as the member for Nedlands and also went on to be Premier of Western Australia.

When Sir Charles entered the Western Australian parliament, Western Australia was a very different place from what it is today. It was very much a laggard state. There was not a lot going on in the way of the Western Australian economy. Generally, what happened was that if you grew up in Western Australia you would leave to find opportunity in the eastern states or elsewhere. That was the reality of Western Australia in the 1950s. Sir Charles was determined to change that. When you think back, it is astonishing that his first big battle to do that was to try to convince the federal government to allow Western Australia to export iron ore. When you think of that, it seems quite extraordinary—that the state government would be required to battle the federal government to export iron ore. There was a lot of opposition to that going on at the time, believe it or not. In winning the battle, and in the efforts that he made to develop the resources industry in the north-west of Western Australia, he really sowed the seeds of the state’s, and of course the nation’s, current prosperity.

Sir Charles rose very quickly to be Deputy Leader of the Opposition in 1957. Then, when the Liberal Party won government in 1959, he became the Minister for Industrial Development and the North-West, Minister for Transport and Minister for Railways. He had an extraordinary presence. In that portfolio he travelled the world. He went to boardrooms in Tokyo, he went to boardrooms in New York and he went to boardrooms in London, and he convinced them about the viability of the Western Australian resources industry. He was also an extraordinarily loyal deputy to the then Premier, Sir David Brand, who was of course a very significant Western Australian also. But it was really in that time when he was Minister for Industrial Development and the North-West that he became the architect of the current resources boom. In doing so, he took Western Australia from being a laggard state, a mendicant state, to being the powerhouse that it is today. All Australians owe him a great debt for doing that.

He served very loyally as the deputy to Sir David Brand, and ultimately he succeeded him as Leader of the Opposition after the Brand government lost to John Tonkin in 1971. He took the Liberal Party back into office after just three years in opposition, which is a feat that has not occurred very often in Australian politics. Indeed, I understand that it was only the second time that it has happened. In 1974, when he won that election against John Tonkin—who I might add is also a much loved Western Australian former Premier—he became Premier and took on the portfolios of Treasurer, Minister Coordinating Economic and Regional Development, and Minister for Federal Affairs.

During that time, in Canberra there was the Fraser government. There was not a lot of love lost between Sir Charles and the Canberra authorities, regardless of which political party they represented. Sir Charles really did not have that much time for party loyalty. His loyalty was to the state of Western Australia. He was something of a fearsome advocate. Indeed, the then Prime Minister, John Howard, came to attend Sir Charles’s 95th birthday, a big celebration that we had in 2006 in Perth, and he relayed some of the stories about Sir Charles being an extraordinarily formidable man to deal with. Robert Menzies noted that Sir Charles—and Robert Menzies was a relatively formidable man himself—refused to ever take no for an answer. Menzies had the greatest of respect for him. I note that former Prime Minister Paul Keating was also a great admirer of Sir Charles.

Sir Charles, above all else, was fiercely Western Australian. He really did not approve of terribly much that went on in Canberra, and he held the Canberra authorities in contempt in many ways. He was an extraordinarily strong public presence. He had a tremendous sense of humour, which was not often noted about Sir Charles. He was also a very formidable leader. I suspect that, for some of his ministerial colleagues when he was Premier, he was quite an exasperating leader. He used to be famous for calling them at 4.30 in the morning. He would get up, read the papers, call his ministers extraordinarily early and expect them to be on top of their brief. He always had extraordinarily high standards of probity. He refused to let the treasurer of the Western Australian Liberal Party tell him anything about who was financing the Liberal Party of Western Australia, because he did not want to know.

As well as being a tremendous leader, a very formidable presence and someone who, it was said, did not suffer fools gladly, he was not an arrogant man. I think that is very important. He was a leader but not an arrogant man. He remained a very humble man. Throughout his period as Premier—and I think this is quite extraordinary—he kept his phone number in the Western Australian phone book. He used to school his boys on answering the phone if someone were to call up to complain about specific aspects of the governing of Western Australia. He expected his sons to treat anyone who called the house with respect and he gave them instructions about how they might pass the message through to him. That is the sort of man he was. Even when he was Premier, he remained humble.

I had the privilege of attending the celebrations for his 95th birthday. Sadly, that was only about 16 months before he passed away. He gave a powerful speech, as he always did, without notes. He spoke for about 40 minutes. Sir Charles opened that speech by chastising the audience for not having faith that he was going to reach his 100th birthday and for celebrating his 95th. But of course that proved prescient in the end as Sir Charles passed away towards the end of last year.

It is very important that the House pay its respects and condolences to one of the greatest Australians to have served in a political arena, former Western Australian Premier Sir Charles Court. He will be sadly missed. He often advised Western Australian Liberals of all ages about appropriate courses of action. We will certainly miss him, as will all Western Australians. Australia has lost a very significant political figure.

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