Condolence

Giles, Mr B.L.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:01): I move:

That the House of Assembly expresses its deep regret at the death of Mr Bryant Lionel Giles, former member of the House of Assembly, and places on record its appreciation of his meritorious service, and that as a mark of respect to his memory the sitting of the house be suspended until the ringing of the bells.

Bryant Giles was a member of this house for the term of the Liberal and Country League government of Steele Hall between 1968 and 1970. Although his parliamentary service was relatively brief, he was an active participant in the work of a reformist government. He was elected at the March 1968 election in the seat of Gumeracha. His election was notable because he succeeded in that seat the man who remains the longest serving leader in any commonwealth parliament, Sir Thomas Playford.

In his maiden speech, Mr Giles noted that, during the more than 26 years Sir Thomas had been premier, 1,992 acts of this parliament had been passed, something he called, and I quote:

…a staggering performance when one considers the time consumed in thought and research concerning each individual Act.

Indeed, it was. The election of Mr Giles was notable for another reason as well. He was only 39 when he first sat in this house, then considered a relatively young age to be entering parliament. As a book about South Australian politicians during this period noted, Mr Giles was 'a young local orchardist' at the time of his election. It also recorded that in winning the right to succeed Sir Thomas as the local member, Mr Giles had 'canvassed all LCL members in the district and in a "friendly campaign" ran out ahead of six competitors'.

No doubt, his victory in this big field of candidates was due in no small measure to his active community work. At the time, he was a member of the council of the adult education branch of the Onkaparinga district and the Onkaparinga Area School Committee and chairman of the Lenswood branch of the agricultural bureau. He was also well known locally for his work as an orchardist and his participation in local and state industry organisations, including the South Australian Fruitgrowers' and Market Gardeners Association and the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society.

In his maiden speech, he spoke proudly about the industry in which he was an active and successful producer. He referred to the fact that up to 1.5 million bushels of apples were grown each year in the seat that he had been elected to represent. He spoke at the same time about some serious problems that the industry faced, including low prices in export markets and the need to find ways to secure more domestic sales. Mr Giles was obviously well known, too, and supported by his local community. He won almost 70 per cent of the two-party preferred vote in securing the seat of Gumeracha.

In his two years in this house, he continued to speak up strongly to the interests of primary producers right across the state. His son, Phillip, has said that during his time in parliament his father regarded his most important contribution as working behind the scenes to help secure and ensure that G.H. Michell company retained its headquarters in South Australia, rather than moving interstate. Many subsequent employees of this great South Australian family company, including me, therefore have Mr Giles to thank for helping to ensure that the Michell company remained based in South Australia.

As well as primary production, Mr Giles took a deep interest in education, health and emergency services issues and the importance of water conservation. On water, he told this house in one speech that 'this is not only Gumeracha's problem; it is South Australia's problem, and it extends to the whole of Australia too'. It was this concern that made him a strong supporter of the campaign by the Hall government to have a dam built at Dartmouth to provide South Australia with a more assured long-term supply of water from the Murray. This was one of many important measures taken during this period of government in which Mr Giles was a diligent member and a hard worker on behalf of his community.

In the extensive redistribution of House of Assembly seats before the 1970 election, however, the seat of Gumeracha disappeared, with its voters reallocated to four other electorates. Mr Giles was not a candidate at that election. However, long after leaving parliament he retained an active interest in politics and in primary production. During the latter part of his life he lived in the South-East, farming sheep and cattle and being a proud exhibitor of cattle at shows right around Australia.

On behalf of all members of this government, I express appreciation to Mr Giles for his service to this parliament, his electors and our party, and I express our genuine condolences at his passing to his family and friends.

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:07): I rise to support the motion and welcome the family of the late Bryant Giles. The parliamentary service of Mr Giles coincided with one of the most dynamic periods of state politics and, of course, the end of the Playford era. It is also a key chapter in the history of the Liberal and Country League and its charter to represent the rural sector of South Australia.

Mr Giles, an orchardist and farmer, made it clear in his maiden speech that the House of Assembly should distinguish between country and city. City seats should have twice as many people as a country seat, he said, on the basis that the contribution of agriculture, along with its problems, deserved appropriate recognition. That proposition has defined the South Australian parliament for decades.

Premier Tom Playford had long recognised the state's reliance on regional agriculture. He supported the extra-weighted representation that country voters had but, as Premier, he was also minister for industrial development. His pursuit of car manufacturing changed the economy and therefore the parliament. The timing was not good for Bryant Giles.

As the Premier has mentioned, Mr Giles was elected in 1968 in the seat of Gumeracha, and that had been held for 30 years by Sir Thomas Playford. He knew the Playford family well and several other Adelaide Hills families that played significant roles in politics past and present. News reports from the time showed that there were seven candidates for preselection for Gumeracha in 1968. In sporting parlance, it was certainly a class field. A former mayor of East Torrens was in the running—Bill Bishop, the grandfather of a then 12-year-old Julie Bishop, who of course would go on to become Australian foreign affairs minister. Another contender in that ballot was G.W. Evans of Heathfield. The Evans family, of course, have made a very significant contribution to this house.

When Mr Giles entered parliament succeeding Playford, South Australia's economy had been rebuilt around tariff-protected industry that sat alongside traditional rural industries. He applied his agriculture knowledge in his service on the parliamentary committee for land settlement. However, his leader and premier was Steele Hall, who was set on introducing a new system of electoral boundaries, changing the weighting applied to country seats. The seat of Gumeracha was abolished in 1969, and it folded into Kavel and then later Morialta.

The election came earlier than expected when Independent MP Tom Stott and premier Steele Hall split over the dam water storage issue in 1970. Stott withdrew his balance of power support on the night of 30 April, and in 1970 the writs were issued for an election in May. Bryant Giles was stranded. He did not stand for re-election and returned to his passions of orchards and grazing. He later moved to the South-East, where he was a very active community contributor. He maintained his support for what has now become the Liberal Party after the merger. As I mentioned earlier, his parliamentary service came at a watershed time in South Australian history.

There is a small irony in his last day in parliament, dominated by the issue of River Murray dams and the then crippling drought. He questioned one of his own colleagues on why works had not been done to solve the flooding issues at the Oakbank Area School. It should also be remembered that he often championed the need for a solution to trucks losing control down what is now the South Eastern Freeway. Escape roads and run-offs were a welcome idea, he said, as well as moves for emergency braking systems to become compulsory.

There is a story from 1940 I would like to share with you that goes to the values, principles and work ethic that spanned Mr Bryant's life and that of his community. It is recorded in the 3 October 1940 edition of The News and is headlined 'Boy's Effort'. It reads:

Twelve-year-old Bryant Giles, of Norton's Summit, recently saved up his pocket money, bought a billy goat for five shillings and sixpence, broke it in, harnessed it to a cart, and started using this outfit to collect waste paper for the Fighting Forces Comforts Fund.

Bryant, who is being helped by his brother Howard and his friend Wallace, travels several miles every Saturday morning through hilly country to collect paper, which is needed for the Boy Scouts' waste paper campaign. The boys have collected nearly six hundred-weight of paper.

Six hundredweight of paper in today's measure is 304 kilograms. It would appear that ingenuity, commitment and a touch of political skill were evident in the early days of Bryant Giles' life because not only was the paper collection an honourable pursuit but the president of the local unit of the Fighting Forces Comforts Fund was, of course, Mr Tom Playford. I acknowledge Bryant Giles' service and express our condolences and extend them to the family.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (14:12): I, too, rise today to offer my condolences to the family and friends of Mr Bryant Giles and echo the words of the Leader of the Opposition and the Premier. Mr Giles was the member for Gumeracha, an area now covered by the state electorates of Morialta, Kavel and Heysen, from 2 March 1968 until 29 May 1970. He is remembered as a proud and dedicated local member of parliament who passionately believed in the importance of the value of hard work and service to the community.

The apple and cherry orchards that were a large part of the landscape in the 1960s still form a significant part of our local industries. Mr Giles was a passionate advocate for the needs of orchardists in terms of market share, fair market price and biological control of pests. The fruit that is produced in the Adelaide Hills was and continues to be the best quality you will find anywhere in Australia.

Mr Giles was a firm believer in the importance of volunteering and the value this adds to our communities. Summertime in the Adelaide Hills is, of course, bushfire season, and he was particularly grateful to, and recognised in the parliament, the volunteer firefighters who saved lives, homes and properties from deadly bushfires. Since that time, there have been some personnel changes, but there are still some people who were then and still are in some of those brigades. The volunteer firefighters are an absolutely critical part of our Hills communities and remain so.

Being an advocate for Hills primary producers in the parliament saw him also make important contributions in relation to the healthcare and educational needs of the local area and also express some significant words about tourism opportunities in the Adelaide Hills.

Reading his maiden speech in recent days, I was quite taken also with Mr Giles' reflections on the benefits of cycling, perhaps ahead of his time and still potentially causing some controversy in those Hills communities for whom cycling is not as popular, or at least cyclists are not always as popular as they are in some other areas of our city. He understood deeply the value of being out in nature, the peace and tranquillity that the Adelaide Hills offer.

He was proud of the natural beauty of the area he represented. He spoke in that maiden speech of the Liberal priorities, of progress and growth and worked hard during his time in this place to bring about lower costs to encourage industries to South Australia. His maiden speech concluded with a quote that I thought I would repeat, with the indulgence of the house, in the hope that we may all reflect on it:

I trust that we here will be able to work together for the advancement of South Australia. I do not believe that backbiting and personal attack will achieve much. Let us get on with the job of reinstating South Australia in its rightful place on the ladder of success.

They were good words then, and they remain valid 50 years later. Mr Giles was a proactive and diligent servant of his community, and we are grateful for that service.

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (14:16): I rise to address the condolence motion and to add to the record. Mr Bryant Giles came to this place on the retirement of Sir Thomas Playford. Playford was a colossus, as the Premier and the opposition leader have remarked. It is hard to imagine the task of filling Playford's seat, but that was the task that Mr Giles faced. Mr Giles was a popular and fair-minded orchardist. He had imbued in him from early days the volunteer spirit and ethic, which remains in the Hills and which we value to this day.

Neal Blewett and Dean Jaensch reflect in their text Playford to Dunstan that preselection contests in 1967 were all completed by June of that year. They write—and I add to the Premier's remarks:

In the four seats from which LCL members were retiring—Gumeracha, Rocky River, Burra and Eyre—there were keen contests. In Playford's old seat of Gumeracha...B Giles got off to an early start, canvassed all LCL members in the district and in a 'friendly campaign' ran out ahead of six competitors, although only after distribution of some preferences.

He did not face that risk at the subsequent election: he was popular and his success assured. The text continues:

A less friendly fight was waged in the sprawling electorate of Eyre...

Mr Giles was deeply respected in his community. He was sought out for his counsel and friendship. His name frequently came forward when committee work was required. I bring up some but far from all of his service. My intention is to record it.

Mr Giles served as vice chairman of the royal agricultural society horticultural and floricultural section. He served on the Onkaparinga adult education council and the Onkaparinga Area School Committee and was, for a time, chairman of the Lenswood Primary School committee. He was chairman of the Lenswood branch of the Agricultural Bureau and also a member of the apple and pear section of the South Australian fruitgrowers' and market gardeners' association.

He was an excellent orchardist, and he had learnt politics and also fruit growing from the best. Our party, then the Liberal and Country League, relied on Mr Giles heavily. He served as president of the Gumeracha district committee. He was a member of the state council organising committee. His branches sent Mr Giles as delegate to the LCL state council, to the southern Legislative Council committee and to the Angas divisional committee. He was also president of the Lenswood branch of the LCL for some time.

Our members had picked broad shoulders on which to cast substantial responsibilities, but fate can be a difficult thing, and changes in electoral boundaries, of course, played their role in Mr Giles' political future. Blewett and Jaensch, to whom I referred earlier, detail the close of Mr Giles' political career in this way:

It was, indeed, the absolute reduction of country seats, and the great transformation of many districts that occasioned difficulties for members and aspirants alike. It was not surprising that there were some 'tense ballots'...

Those ballots, of course, were for Liberal preselection. The text continues:

John Freebairn, MP for old Light, whose constituency was dramatically re-drawn, lost out in preselection to the Mayor of Gawler, largest town in the new district of Light. B.L. Giles, whose constituency of Gumeracha was mostly absorbed by the new seat of Kavel, was defeated in the preselection for that seat.

Some will know that the Hon. Roger Goldsworthy AO, ultimately deputy premier, succeeded in that preselection and became the member for Kavel following the 1970 state election. He always spoke very kindly of Mr Giles and I was eager to hear those remarks.

Political life and death can come quickly. Perhaps this is a lesson for all of us. Mr Giles' service was elegant and brief. He was a principled man. There are still many people in Kavel who remember him and remember his service. We feel his loss. We acknowledge his family.

Motion carried by members standing in their places in silence.

Sitting suspended from 14:22 to 14:31.