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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-02-02 Daily Xml
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Condolence

Weatherill, Hon. G.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:02): By leave, I move:

That the House of Assembly expresses its deep regret at the death of the Hon. George Weatherill, former member of the Legislative Council, and places on record its appreciation of his long and 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.

George Weatherill served this parliament and the people of South Australia for 14½ years, until his retirement in 2000. In that time, he became known on all sides of the parliament for his gregarious personality, his genuinely friendly approach to all members, and also for the strength and steadfastness of his political beliefs and his support for working people.

I did not know the Hon. Mr Weatherill, but I am not surprised by the fond memories left of his service in this place because he hailed from County Durham in the north-east of England, a place where I thoroughly enjoyed completing my university education. It is a solid working-class area where the people are extremely down to earth and very hospitable.

George was born in Hartlepool in 1936, a North Sea port, which was the main shipping outlet for the mines of Durham coalfields and a centre for shipbuilding. Like many of that era looking for greater opportunity as some of those great British industries went into decline, George looked to Australia for a new life. Soon after migrating, he was stacking wool on the Port Adelaide wharves before spending 24 years in the trade union movement.

Immediately on entering parliament in 1986, his continuing commitment to working people was confirmed when in his very first question he embarrassed the then Bannon Labor government by criticising police for arresting racecourse employees participating in a picket at Victoria Park. During his membership of the upper house, George was for a long period his party's whip as well as serving on the Joint Parliamentary Service Committee, the Joint Committee on Subordinate Legislation and the Legislative Review Committee. After his own parliamentary service, he had the satisfaction of seeing the election of his son to this house.

In his maiden speech, my predecessor as Premier remarked that his mother, Joy, had taught him 'the Christian value of treating others as you would want them to treat you', while his father had a religion of a different sort: the trade union movement. 'Straight as a die', 'a true believer', 'somebody you know believes in something and stands by those beliefs absolutely solidly', 'a friend to all people regardless of faction, regardless of party', these are some of the bipartisan tributes paid to George on his last day in this parliament.

He was the loved husband of Joy, loving father and father-in-law of Jay and Melissa, Dana, Lea and Jemima, and proud grandfather of Aaron, James, Grace, Lucinda and Alice. In expressing our condolences to his family, we trust they will find comfort in the fond memories he has left with many people for his loyal service to this parliament, his party, the trade union movement and South Australia.

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:05): I rise to second the motion. Last week, we lost a fine parliamentarian, unionist, Labor man, passionate Port supporter and friend of many current and former members of this place with the passing of the Hon. George Weatherill. George passed away on 24 January at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. He was a man of compassion and decency until his very last hour. He was widely loved, admired and respected, as the Premier has mentioned, on all sides of politics.

George was born in Hartlepool in England in 1936, and it was not the easiest start to life for George. His father passed away when he was only 13 years old, leaving him with an extraordinary degree of responsibility for such a young man. He left home at the tender age of 15 to go and find work to help provide for his family, with his beloved mother being widowed and having 10 children to look after—extraordinary.

George emigrated to Australia on board the Fairsea in 1960 in the pursuit of opportunity. The high point of his trip to Australia was of course a chance meeting with Joy, who ultimately became his wife. Joy was returning to Australia from a great European adventure, as was so popular during those days. That voyage started their lives together, bringing into the world three children of whom they have been so proud and have loved so much.

George often joked that he was not a ten-pound Pom, having paid £12.10 for his journey to Australia. Upon arriving in Australia, George found work in Melbourne stacking railway sleepers, before he eventually made his way to Adelaide, where he worked three different jobs simultaneously: one with the engineering and water supply department (commonly known as the E&WS), one at the Port Adelaide woolsheds handling fleeces, all the while also serving as an employee with the Australian Government Workers Union.

George's involvement with the Australian trade union movement, particularly the AGWU, saw him rise through the ranks, earning the respect of his colleagues, which was well fought for and won. His consistent, longstanding passionate advocacy for the working man and woman led him to an opportunity to serve in the Legislative Council. George entered the Legislative Council on 11 February 1986 to fill the casual vacancy left by the Hon. Frank Blevins before he moved into the House of Assembly to represent the people of Whyalla. George was returned to office twice after that, in 1989 and 1997, before retiring from office in 2000.

From the beginning of his parliamentary career, George earned the respect of his peers and people on all sides of politics, both within the Labor Party on the left and the right, having been party to significant battles during his time in the trade union movement (which I heard some cracking stories about over the weekend, I have to say) and also in this place, within the political divide between our respective sides of the house.

George's maiden speech covered what would remain central to his work and his beliefs over the following 14 years in the parliament: the plight of working people. For someone who had come through the hard knocks of life, he never lost his passion for the lives of working people. He never forgot who contributed to his capacity to make a contribution in this place, and they could not have had a better friend, ally and advocate in the halls of the South Australian parliament than George Weatherill.

George came from trade union ranks, and his work in the parliament was a continuation of his significant contributions to the union movement. George always believed in and stood up for better—better for the battler. Those who spoke at George's funeral spoke highly of a man they respected. He left his mark on this place, the labour movement, the Australian Labor Party and the South Australian community.

Undoubtedly, George Weatherill touched many lives throughout his journey, and clearly he will be sadly missed by his family, friends, mates and colleagues. On behalf of the parliamentary Labor Party, I would like to formally place on the record our appreciation and thanks for his contribution to the South Australian parliament and the South Australian community in general.

I can only imagine the pride that George experienced having seen his son ultimately elected to the premiership of this state. My sincere condolences to George's family: his wife, Joy, and Jay and Melissa, Dana and Jenny, Lea and Jemima along with his grandchildren Aaron, James, Grace, Lucinda and Alice.

It was a beautiful service on Saturday afternoon at Queenstown for George Weatherill, and I cannot tell you how heartened I was to see representatives from all walks of life within the great labour movement of our state, as well as representatives from the conservative side of politics. It was a great tribute to George's contribution.

As I mentioned, some of the stories that were told on Saturday afternoon were truly fascinating, on occasion inspiring but also entertaining, and spoke to a different era, I think, when it comes to the industrial movement in our state. George takes with him a lot of goodwill from those of us on both sides of the parliament, but particularly this side of the house, and we pass on our condolences. May he rest in peace.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (14:11): I want to make a contribution about George Weatherill and the character he truly was. We have already heard how he was friends with people from across the political divide. I think that the main thing that George and I had in common was that we were both Port Adelaide supporters.

Early in my career, from 2006 onwards, I used to see George in the members' bar. I would be having a coffee and he would be having another light refreshment. It was always refreshing just to have a yarn with George. There is only one yarn I can remember particularly, and it was quite amusing. I might have some of the detail wrong, because it is a few years ago now, but you will get the idea.

I was having a chat to George, and I said, 'How are you going?' He said, 'Well, I had an interesting thing happen the other day.' I said, 'What's that?' He said that normally on weekends he would have a regular stint at the Henley Beach Hotel with some of his mates. He had been a bit crook, I think, and he had missed a couple of these stints. Anyway, he finally turned up one day at the next session at the Henley Beach Hotel.

His mates were sitting there, and they all went white as a sheet, white as a ghost. They thought they had seen a ghost because, as it happened, a certain George Weatherill had died and they had read it in the death notices. They said this to George and that he had come back to life, and all this sort of thing, and he said, 'Well, thanks a lot, mates, and none of you so-and-sos even went to my funeral!' It was a very funny story from a man who was obviously a true character.

I did not have the pleasure of being here when he was serving, but it was a real pleasure just to catch up with a true character of the parliament, to have some of those anecdotes. It is something that I think is missed at times. My condolences to the family. George was a true character and he will be missed.

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:13): George Weatherill, as others have canvassed, arrived in Australia in his 20s and within two years he had been elected a union official, a shop steward, for the E&WS, what is now SA Water.

He was elected in absentia while in hospital for an appendix operation, and it is said that he was elected because he was a Pom and would know what to do about being a good union representative. However true that is, he proceeded to live up to the expectations of his colleagues and was from that moment on an active person within the labour movement and then the Labor Party.

For 24 years, he was a delegate, a state councillor and an organiser. He became increasingly important in what was then called the Australian Government Workers Association, which at that time when he was first active was a right-wing union in the Labor Party but later merged with the Missos and became a left-wing union. We will return to that shortly. George exemplified all his life the firebrand nature and the cunning of the left of those days plus his own unique brand of charm. The view that if progress is to be made, it will not happen easily and it will not happen by handshakes behind closed doors kept George going.

Within the Labor Party and within the labour movement, things became pretty willing fairly early on in his tenure and in his involvement, including, as people may have read, a very violent brawl that broke out in Trades Hall in 1974. I had of course heard of this brawl but I had not realised that poor George was clocked with a glass ashtray hidden in a handbag of one of the female delegates at that meeting. Clearly, he survived and was only strengthened by the experience.

He emerged from these difficult times as the leading voice in the left of his union and, along with his friend George Young proceeded to take control and to steer that union towards the left. Between them, they strategised, they organised and they stared down the violence and the intimidation that they had experienced. They brought in fresh talent and they grew the union.

In due course, they merged with the national union, the Federated Miscellaneous Workers' Union, which became in its various guises and with various names (it will always be the Missos to me) the central voice for progressive change in the Labor Party and in many working people's lives in South Australia. This is a role that it has played to this day. There are many people who have been in parliament and indeed are in parliament now—I include myself—who are grateful to the various incarnations of the Missos for their backing to come into parliament and therefore, knowingly or not, owe a great debt of gratitude to George Weatherill.

George himself came into the Legislative Council in 1985 after a highly contested ballot in which all of his skills in charm and strategy were required. That is where I met him 10 years later, when I spent a year working in the Legislative Council in 1995, in the dark days of opposition. George was the whip for the opposition and I watched him play a significant role in two significant ways. One was that he was always the voice for the working people. He stared down various pieces of legislation that the then government put up and he worked hard to get the numbers to stop them. The other was his absolute dedication to bringing up the next generation of progressive people who would continue his voice and the shared voice of those who care about the workers.

One member of that next generation was of course his son Jay Weatherill, of whom George was justifiably proud. I remember hearing Jay's speech, sitting in the old Trades Hall. It must have been in 2001: it was the preselection ballot for the seat of Cheltenham. Jay quoted his father as part of his pitch for why he should be chosen. I recall that he said his father had always taught him, 'You are as good as anyone, but you are no better than anybody.' That is a fitting summation of a man who believed in the dignity of every person and their right to lead a dignified life, a man who truly understood the corrosive nature of privilege in our society.

George is survived by the three sons he adored, all of whom he was so proud. He is survived by his lifelong love and wife, Joy, and by his grandchildren, who clearly adored their pa and were represented delightfully by young Lucinda at the funeral on the weekend. He is also survived by the Labor Party, by the labour movement and by the progressive forces in South Australian politics, all of which are the stronger for his presence, his mix of uncompromising activism, his strategic organising and his use of wily charm when all else failed. Vale, George.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (14:19): I was fortunate enough to serve with 'gorgeous', which was George's nickname in this parliament. George had a number of traits. Yes, he enjoyed a light refreshment in the middle of the day and, yes, he smoked for Australia in Botany Bay and out the front. He had a unique English trait of smoking holding his cigarette inward to try to keep it from blowing out, thinking that somehow modern cigarettes would blow out in the wind and, of course, they would not. He was very good at bludging cigarettes from me when I used to smoke as well.

He also had the uncanny ability of winning elections that he should not have won. He should not have been preselected in 1986. He was not our candidate at the time, but he beat us. He should not have taken over that union, but he did and he took a right-wing union over to the left, and that was a great shame. He would also tease us constantly in this parliament about his son who was coming in, and he would tease me at great length about how he was going to be the next Premier. I would say, 'Come on, gorgeous, don't be silly. The left can't run this state.' Of course, they did—and they did exceptionally well.

One thing about George that struck me the most was his ability to embarrass us to do the right thing. George had a unique trait that is not unique to the left: it exists within all factions of the Labor Party, and that is that there are often people who are elected to this parliament who come from humble beginnings from the shop floor, and those people who come from the shop floor into the Labor Party often do not aspire to higher office; they aspire to be our rudder, our keel, to keep us on the right path.

Often in government, political parties lurch one way or another, sometimes forgetting those people they truly represent. George and his like came from a generation that wanted more than anything else a seat at the table for the people they grew up with. Instead of having our faces pressed up against the glass watching everyone else enjoy the benefits of life, he wanted his kids and our generation to have what his did not, and the way in which he did that was to keep the Labor Party firmly grounded in looking after the working people. That, I think, was George's greatest achievement in this place: embarrassing us to remind us why we are here, and I will always thank George for that.

The greatest thing I saw George do was when we had two people cross the floor to privatise ETSA. At the time, it was an electrically charged affair in this place. You cannot imagine what it was like, the idea that the government could promise not to privatise an asset and then privatise it, require legislation to privatise that asset. It passed this house in a record sitting, sitting all hours of the night, going to the upper house, then having two of our own—and one of our own from the very movement that should have known better—cross the floor.

I remember watching all of that debate, and George was spectacular. His contributions might not have been the most articulate, but they were the most sincere, and they were the ones that embarrassed those two men the most because George spoke from the heart. I thought it was an impressive speech. Often we think the moment makes the person, but that moment made George. Along with his wife, Joy, he was able to deliver the labour movement. He was a leader who gave us an election victory and made us all very proud, but the truth is that George made us proud too.

I am glad to have known George. I am sad that he took the Missos over to the left. It would be fantastic if they were in the right—imagine what we could do then—but, alas. But what he did do, again, was deliver stability to the Labor Party. The Labor Party is not wrought with factional divides. We are not wrought with the divisions that occur in other jurisdictions. We are a united team, and a lot of that goes to the foresight of people like George Weatherill. God rest him and God give comfort to his wife, Joy, his three sons and his beautiful grandchildren.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (14:24): It is indeed an honour to speak about George and to have listened to other people's reflections on his life. I was really sad when I heard about George's passing—very sad for his family that he loved so much, and many, many friends, and really sad for the incredible loss to our labour movement and to our South Australian community that George's passing represents. Amidst that sadness, I have, as so many of us have, contemplated George's life: what he unwaveringly stood for and believed in, what he was always prepared to fight for, his relentless positivity and support for others, his sense of fun, his pride in his family, his charm and his desire to live life always to the fullest, and contemplating his marvellous qualities has brought a smile to my face as I know it has to many others.

The recounting of his steadfast commitment to working people, to fairness, to working together through the union and the broader labour movement towards progressive change, and his doing that with such clarity about what was important and what he believed in, and with such humility and happiness, was rightly celebrated at his beautiful funeral service on Saturday. It was a funeral that, as has been said, was attended by so many whose lives he had touched: people from both sides of politics united in the respect they had for George, united in their care and regard for someone who never wavered from his views and values, who always acted with his enormous heart and who, while fighting fiercely for those who needed a hand, made deep and lasting friendships and was unfailingly kind and respectful.

A character larger than life who embodied service to others, George lived a full life. As his son, former Premier Jay Weatherill, said on Saturday, George approached every single day with positivity and purpose and an interest in the wellbeing of those around him. Jay spoke in such a moving way about those last poignant difficult days with his dad and in doing so shared just how positive his dad was, including in those last moments. Apparently, when things were looking pretty dire in those last days, and he was asked what else would make him comfortable, he was very keen to order a Scotch and Coke, and loved the fact that he could do that at the Royal Adelaide.

Immediately before George's funeral on Saturday, I attended the launch of Racing SA's 2021 season. I mentioned that I was going to George's funeral and would be leaving early, and I was literally flooded with well wishes for George's family from many people who had encountered George in many different settings, including at the track and at the TAB in quite a range of local pubs.

Every one of those people spoke about George in glowing terms: always friendly, able to get along with everyone, a man of principle, a man who stood for what he believed in, a man who was both gentle and fierce, interested in others, and a man who when he was not fishing loved a bet (quite a few of them, actually) and a beer (quite a few of those too), accompanied by quite a few darts and always a good chat. George knew how to be a good friend, a quality also spoken about beautifully at the funeral by his friend Lynn Arnold; and he was renowned for really being there for people, walking with them in the great times and in the most difficult moments too.

I feel really blessed to have spent time with George, to have had many chats with him, to have learnt from him, to have had him forge a path for progressive people, and to have the opportunity to keep learning from him as we continue to consider his legacy. As a young person joining the Labor Party, George took the time to talk to me, to explain things and to hear my views. George was a leader who understood that great tenet of leadership, and that is to always use your leadership to engender leadership in others.

I saw in him a burning passion for fairness, a dedication to working with and for workers and all people, to ensure everyone was enabled to live their life with dignity, safe at work, safe at home and with a decent wage and secure job. His approach to life and his steadfast living of his values further cemented my deep abiding knowledge that in this place we must always speak up for what we stand for, for what will make the path of others just a little bit easier.

I saw how and where George channelled his energy and that his burning passion for fairness, which spurred him to be active in his union, a shop steward throughout his work at the E&WS and at the Port Adelaide wool sheds, an organiser and a member of the other place, was never diminished, that it instinctively guided him in all he did and in his very approach to people and life.

George knew that enabling people to act collectively through their union amplified workers' voices and he sought every single day to ensure workers were heard. George always lived his values—at work, at home, in our community, wherever he was—and he always fought for them. He was highly strategic and fierce in that fight to make workplaces, industries and our state a fairer and better place and he never compromised those values for personal gain.

He was vocal in his support for the advancement of women, in politics and everywhere else. He listened to us, saw us and actively did what he could to enable and empower women. Thank you so much, George, for the difference you made, for being a guiding light for those who seek to achieve progressive change together and for being such a good, lovely and kind bloke.

I also offer my love and condolences to George's beautiful wife, Joy, his loving and loved partner of around 60 years, to his sons of whom he was so proud, Jay, Dana and Lea, to Mel and to his grandchildren whom he loved so dearly. I say to each of them that George will continue to inspire many of us to always live our values, to stand up for what we believe in and to always seek to enable friendship and kindness to flourish.

Motion carried by members standing in their places in silence.

Sitting suspended from 14:32 to 14:42.

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