Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I have the privilege to pay tribute to a man described by the Governor of Western Australia, His Excellency Dr Ken Michael AC, as someone who will be remembered as ‘a great Western Australian and a great Australian, whose pioneering vision and leadership provided the foundations for the economy of Western Australia that we all enjoy today’. That man is, of course, the Hon. Sir Charles Court AK, KCMG, OBE, a former premier of my home state of Western Australia, who passed away in Perth on 22 December 2007 at the wonderful age of 96. Sir Charles Court had a remarkable life which included a 29-year political career, with 20 years as a minister and eight years as a premier.

Born in the Sussex town of Crawley on 29 September 1911, he came to Australia from the United Kingdom with his parents in 1912. His parents were working-class battlers. His father was a master plumber and trade unionist, whilst his mother worked as a domestic. As boys, Charles and his brother Sydney delivered papers and did odd jobs to help supplement the family income. He showed considerable musical talent as a cornet player and at 14 years of age joined the musicians union, playing in the annual May Day parades. In 1930 he won the brass solo section of the national band competition, being named the champion of champions. This musical ability was not always a blessing, as he found out later, upon entering the military.

On leaving high school, Charles Court’s goal was to study law, but his parents could not afford the university fees. Undaunted, he studied accounting at night school and was articled to a firm of auditors. No doubt it was a first for his family, given their working-class roots, to have their son enter a profession. Eventually he qualified as an accountant and went into his own practice in 1933. In 1938 he became a foundation partner of the accountancy firm Hendry Rae and Court, now known as Grant Thornton, and remained as a partner of the firm until 1970. He was a life member of both the Institute of Chartered Accountants and the CPA and in 1983 was named the Australian chartered accountant of the year.

Between the two world wars, Charles Court completed national service and then volunteered with the 44th Battalion of the Australian Army. However, because of his skills as a musician, a band trainer and a conductor with the RSL Memorial Band, he found he was seconded to the band in both cases. Anyone who knew Sir Charles would agree that he always wanted to be right in the thick of the action, so upon his enlistment to serve in World War II he took steps to ensure he was not relegated to the band yet again. He enlisted in the AMF, with the RAASC, with a view to being transferred to the AIF as an infantryman as soon as possible.

He soon rose through the ranks, from private to lance corporal, corporal, lance sergeant and sergeant, and received a commission, lieutenant and temporary captain. He went to great lengths to avoid service with the band. An opportunity arose for him to transfer to the AIF and he was posted as a lieutenant to the 1st Armoured Regiment at Puckapunyal. Promotion to captain and adjutant of the division’s ASC support group followed.

Following service in Mingenew, Western Australia, he was promoted to temporary major and then transferred to the Northern Territory. The Japanese were by now bombing Darwin and the nation was under serious threat of a Japanese invasion from the north. Under the command of General Allen, Court led a team which undertook a military appraisal of the possibility of using Darwin and the Northern Territory as a base for offensive operations against the Japanese. General Blamey, Commander in Chief, accepted his plan. Having attained the rank of major, Charles Court was posted to the 2nd Australian Army Corps in Bougainville, New Guinea, where he served until the Japanese surrendered.

One of his final World War II duties was to head up a small infantry force to Buin in Bougainville to disarm and disperse the main body of Japanese forces on the island. He was demobbed in 1946 and returned to civilian life, but not before having earned an OBE for his service between April and September 1945 in maintaining and coordinating communication and supply lines in the outer islands. It was typical of his humour that Sir Charles always insisted that the OBE stood for ‘the other bloke’s efforts’.

Civilian life offered new challenges. In 1946 Charles Court joined the Liberal Party, then known as the Liberal and Country League, in Western Australia and in 1953 he successfully stood for the seat of Nedlands. The party was in opposition until the 1959 state election. Following the defeat of the Brand government at the 1971 election, the leader, Sir David Brand, retired and was replaced by Charles Court in May 1972. Two years later, in 1974, Charles Court found himself the Premier of Western Australia after the Liberal-Country Party coalition defeated the Tonkin Labor government.

As Minister for Industrial Development and the North West in the Brand government from 1959 to 1971, Charles Court grasped the enormity of the wealth potentially available to the state of Western Australia through the mining resources being developed at that time. In relation to the mining industry he was and will long remain the father of the boom.

As Premier, Charles Court convinced the federal government of the time to lift its ban on exporting iron ore from the Pilbara region of Western Australia to the nation of Japan, which only two decades earlier had been our wartime enemy. As a result, companies such as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto grew out of the riches generated by the vast mineral deposits of the Pilbara region. He was condemned by many for building the 1,600-kilometre Dampier to Bunbury natural gas pipeline at a cost of $1 billion—a figure unheard of in those days in a state populated by fewer than one million people.

History, however, has proved his vision to be spot-on, with the pipeline now undeniably the industrial artery of the state, underpinning huge export and job-creating industries such as Alcoa’s alumina refineries. In fact, the foundations for the huge growth which Western Australia continues to experience today were laid by Sir Charles Court. It is not exaggerating to say that, without the vision and energy of Sir Charles Court, Western Australia may still be coming cap in hand to Canberra to seek special financial assistance, as it did in the 1930s. Now, thanks largely to his efforts, Western Australia generates massive wealth from its natural resources each year, much of which goes into Commonwealth coffers for the ultimate benefit of all Australians.

Sir Charles was a firm believer in the need for a strong bureaucracy to reduce the amount of red tape and get the job done. He hired quality staff, listened to them and gave them the necessary support and responsibility to complete the task. Sir Charles established the Department of Resources Development as a ‘one-stop shop’ for resources developers, something unheard of prior to that time. Many people with an industry background could be found in this department during Sir Charles’s time as Premier, with his mandate and support to guide and, if necessary, push developers through the bureaucratic obstacle course which stood between them and their ultimate goal.

It is worth remembering that in the 1960s Australian industry still enjoyed the buffer of government tariffs, which provided assistance with preferential deals and protected market access. In order to bring Australia’s resources sector to a state of international competitiveness, Sir Charles adopted a ‘no favourites’ approach in his aim to use the state’s huge iron ore and gas resources to develop an internationally competitive local industrial base. Local businesses in WA needed to compete with the world, even on their competitors’ own home turf, something which has stood them in good stead ever since.

Many people have paid tribute to his persistence and determination to achieve his goal of seeing his beloved Western Australia—not ‘West Australia’; it always had to be ‘Western Australia’—transformed from a Cinderella state into an economic powerhouse. My Liberal state colleague the Hon. Norman Moore MLC put it this way:

In my view, he’s the greatest Western Australian ever. I doubt the resources development we have now would have started in the same magnitude it did if it wasn’t for him. He didn’t want WA to be a mendicant State. He was determined WA would pay its way and be a unique contributor to the Commonwealth. He could see that WA could have a world class resources industry when most people didn’t think we were in the game. He had the drive, tenacity and intelligence to make it happen.

Charles Court was always a champion of state rights, undertaking legendary epic battles with Commonwealth governments of both political persuasions to ensure that Western Australia received a fair go from the ‘centralists’ in Canberra. Perhaps not quite so well known was Sir Charles’s commitment to the arts and culture in Western Australia. During his term of office, he oversaw the inauguration of Murdoch University, the restoration of His Majesty’s Theatre, the construction of the Perth Entertainment Centre and the opening of the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 1979 as part of the new Perth Cultural Centre.

But, in paying tribute to Sir Charles’s achievements, I do not want to overlook his endearing human qualities. He was a fine husband to Lady Rita Court, his first wife, and a great father to their five sons, Victor, Barry, Ken, Richard and Geoffrey. After Rita died he got married again, at the grand age of 85, to Judy, to whom he was likewise devoted. At the memorial service, his son Ken said:

There is something in seeing your old man married at 85 and still with a twinkle in his eye that gives great confidence for one’s own future.

In fact, I recall that he was still in good form at the celebrations for his 95th birthday, enthusiastically conducting the City of Perth Band. The Hon. John Howard MP, who was Prime Minister at the time, said in his tribute speech on that occasion:

If you think back over the last 50 years, no figure in public life has done more to promote resource development in this State (Western Australia)—and therefore Australia—than Sir Charles Court. The contribution, through that energy, that he has made to the contemporary wealth of Australia has been enormous.

Many people have a story to share about how Sir Charles Court touched their lives. For me, two in particular demonstrate his compassion and concern for his fellow citizens. The first concerns the Hon. Bob Kucera MLA, who is now the Labor member for Yokine in the WA parliament. When Mr Kucera was a ‘lowly detective constable’, as he puts it, Sir Charles summoned him to lunch. At the time, Mr Kucera was part of a team investigating the attempted bombing of the Department of Labour and National Service building in Perth during the Vietnam War, an incident which saw two people convicted. Mr Kucera’s family then became targets of a ‘terror campaign’ waged by supporters of the would-be bombers. Mr Kucera recalls:

Sir Charles didn’t want to know about the case—what he did want to know about was my wife and my children. He showed a deep and genuine concern. I was amazed that this man who was then at the pinnacle of his success would go to such lengths, firstly to support me as a young police officer and recognising the role of coppers in a community, but more importantly, the recognition he was giving to the family and children of a police officer.

The second story concerns former Western Australian Labor Premier John Tonkin, whose government was defeated in 1974 by the Liberal-Country Party Coalition, with Sir Charles Court at the helm. As premier Sir Charles had a healthy respect for Tonkin, and the feeling was mutual. Over time, their respect for each other turned into a close friendship. Towards the end of his life, John Tonkin was visited in his Como nursing home by Sir Charles Court every Thursday morning precisely at 9.50 am, just in time for morning tea at 10 am. The timing of his visits to John Tonkin reflected his lifelong maxim: ‘If you’re not ten minutes early, you’re late.’ This was something he reminded me of each time we met. He would tap his watch and then gesture with his hand to say, ‘Right, you’re okay; you’re here 10 minutes early.’

It is well known that Sir Charles thrived on an average of four hours sleep per night. It is said he wore out four press secretaries during his time as Premier, at least one of whom was reputed to have had a nervous breakdown. Despite the heavy workload, he made sure he was home for dinner every night with the family, even when state parliament was sitting.

In death, as in life, Sir Charles Court commanded great respect from both sides of politics. His memorial service at Winthrop Hall at the University of Western Australia was planned, from start to finish, by him. The congregation were asked to arrive 30 minutes early to enjoy the music he had specially chosen, which included Sussex by the Sea, a reference to his birthplace in England; love songs, like Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes and My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose, and other wonderful selections. High in the balcony, cornets and trumpets played, among other tunes, the prelude to Te Deum. Towards the end of the service, the Last Post was played, followed by a minute’s silence, then the Ode to the Fallen was recited, followed by Reveille on the bugle.

His memorial service was attended by a diverse range of people from across the whole of the political spectrum, including the Governor-General, Major General Michael Jeffery; former prime ministers Malcolm Fraser and John Howard; the current WA State Premier, the Hon. Alan Carpenter MLA; the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Stephen Smith MP; the leader of the federal opposition, Dr Brendan Nelson MP; numerous current and former federal and state Liberal members of parliament; captains of business and industry; and 1,000 ordinary Western Australians who just wanted to pay homage to this incredible leader and wonderful human being.

His granddaughter, Elizabeth Laurence, told the congregation that her grandfather prayed for each of his 18 grandchildren every night, told them that love made the world go around, and phoned them on their birthdays wherever they were in the world. ‘That made me feel pretty special,’ she said. Sir Charles was also the great-grandfather of 19 great-grandchildren. His five sons are all high achievers who continue to participate strongly in Western Australia’s community life.

Richard, himself a former Western Australian Premier, said, ‘We have been blessed to have a dad who had such a strong commitment of family and certainly a selfless sense of duty to whatever responsibility he undertook.’ Victor, his eldest son, said that not many people outside the family saw Sir Charles’s caring, understanding and compassionate side. Barry said that the family is only now learning how many people Sir Charles assisted, encouraged and supported during his life. The note I received from his son, Geoffrey Court, ends with, ‘He’s set us a great example of family life—the most important thing for him.’ There are plans to erect a permanent memorial in the form of a statue of Sir Charles Court, possibly on Florence Hummerston Reserve overlooking the resources precinct in St George’s Terrace, Perth. This location would be symbolically significant, given Sir Charles’s role in the development of the North West Shelf.

I believe it will be a very long time before we see another leader of Sir Charles Court’s stature, vision and humanity, if ever. He was indeed a national treasure and I am very proud to have known him.