Wednesday, 11 May 2022

Condolences

Hon. Ronald William ‘Bunna’ Walsh

Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (09:34): I move:

That this house expresses its sincere sorrow at the death of the Honourable Ronald (Bunna) Walsh and places on record its acknowledgement of the valuable services rendered by him to the Parliament and the people of Victoria as member of the Legislative Council for the province of Melbourne West in 1970, member of the Legislative Assembly for the district of Albert Park from 1979 to 1992, Minister for Public Works from 1985 to 1987, Minister for Housing and Construction from 1987 to 1988, Minister for Property and Services from 1988 to 1990 and Minister for Water Resources from 1988 to 1990.

‘Bunna’ Walsh was a legend, and he lived a life completely devoted to the service of the people and workers of our great state. The son of a labourer, born in the working-class suburb of Port Melbourne and raised through the Great Depression, he understood how harsh life could be. He knew the value of work and the impact that government can have on the lives of working people, particularly outcomes for people who are in need. He left school early to find work and to support his family. He eventually ended up on the waterfront working as a wharf labourer. Bunna spent nearly a decade on the docks as a delegate and, eventually, an official for the Waterside Workers Federation. He was a staunch unionist, a proud unionist. Every fibre of his being was about collectivism and solidarity and standing up against oppression and making sure that people were safe at work and properly treated at work. He was the unionist’s unionist, something he, his comrades and his family and all who gathered to farewell him at his state funeral—and I was honoured to be there—knew only too well. It was a source of great pride that he was consistent, he was sure, he was certain about the place of unions and organised labour in our economy, in our community, in our state.

As I said, he spent nearly a decade on the wharves then went on to be an official of the Waterside Workers Federation. He was staunch. In his inaugural speech in this house he made it clear why he stood for Parliament and the problems that he would set about solving, the things that would be priorities for him—he would fight for tenants, for the elderly, for the unemployed and the exploited, and he would ensure that all working people received a better deal than the one they had. As a government minister his actions stayed true to those words. He built new schools, he steered large social housing developments and he created much-needed community health services. He gave working families a secure roof over their heads, a quality school to educate their kids and low-cost health care close to home. We often take these things for granted today, but so many working people in working class suburbs like Port Melbourne could not take those things for granted. They were not there in his childhood, they were not there for a very large part of his life, and it was only through Labor governments that these basics became available to everybody. That is a positive story. I am not making a partisan point, it is a positive story. But that sort of change only happens because of people like Bunna Walsh who live their values and are pretty effective when it comes to campaigning and delivering for the people. They were very clear about it: they were put there by working people to work for working people, and that is exactly what Bunna and so many of his colleagues did.

His legacy is, however, found in his local community. If you were down on your luck, then you always knew that you could turn to Bunna Walsh for help and support, and he would do anything he could—anything he could—to make your prospects a little better, to provide you with advice and support. He was a great community leader and a great community politician in that sense. He did stand up for the things he believed in. He understood his local community because he was at the centre of his local community. Port and that whole community—you cannot imagine it without Bunna and Lyn. You cannot imagine it without his profound sense of connection to the place he lived and the place he was honoured to represent in this Parliament.

He retired in 1992, but of course he did not go quietly. He was very, very involved in many different things. He continued to serve the Port Phillip and Albert Park communities alongside his late wife, Lyn, and remained very active in a whole range of different charities and other groups. He was a mentor to many in his local community and, indeed, beyond it: countless officials—mayors, councillors, community leaders and members of Parliament from all parliaments of all levels, both state and federal. He was a wise person, but his wisdom came with a practicality and a common sense that is sometimes unique. He always remembered where he came from. He never, ever forgot where he came from. He will long be regarded as a legend of the trade union movement. There were many, many of his comrades from the now Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), formerly the Waterside Workers Federation. They were there at his state funeral—men and women; people that he had worked alongside; people that he had advocated with and for; people who had a genuine affection, a love, for him and all of his contribution.

To stay true to yourself and make a big contribution is the measure of someone who is honoured to be elected to this place. There are very few people that I have met in our great party and our great movement who live their values more purely than Bunna Walsh did. He was a legend of the trade union movement, absolutely connected to his community, absolutely faithful to his values and his heritage and where he came from. We are all of us—or at least those who are concerned about the prospects and the plight of working people in our economy and community—richer for his absolutely important contribution and poorer for his passing.

To his family, on behalf of the government and the people of Victoria I extend our heartfelt condolences. To his son, Neville Walsh, to his MUA comrades and others from across the union movement, to all who loved him, we wish you well in what is a sad and difficult time. It was a life well lived, an impactful life, a true life, living his values each and every day. Vale, Bunna Walsh.

Mr GUY (Bulleen—Leader of the Opposition) (09:41): Ron ‘Bunna’ Walsh was clearly a Labor man through and through. No doubt many people from the government side will know this and know him and know his name. From my side of politics and my generation, he was one of those political characters with a recognisable and well-admired nickname that we all grew up with in the political scene of the 1980s. I am looking forward to some of the Labor contributions explaining where that may have been from.

Bunna was born in Port Melbourne. A dock labourer in the 1950s and 60s, his career path seemed set with the labour movement at some level, and indeed it did progress to the political level for a short stint in 1970 and then a term and a bit later to standing in the lower house seat of Albert Park, the area where he was born and raised, first worked and spent almost his whole life, so it was quite fitting he stood for and was elected to be its local champion—and all politics aside, that he certainly was. Thirty years after his first election as the member for Albert Park he was awarded the Centenary Medal for services to the community he lived in and loved, as a special tribute and a special community way to say thank you for decades of service.

During those decades of service his career had a number of key achievements. Bunna was a Government Whip for the first term of the Cain government. No doubt a wharfie of the 1950s and 60s would have been useful at getting people into line. We all know how fearsome and scolding some of the whips—particularly government whips—can be for being late or missing a call in the chamber, and I am sure Bunna would have been up there. He was Minister for Public Works in the second term. The Minister for Public Works is one of those past portfolios where the workload is now split into a number of ministries due to its intensity. At a time of growth in Victoria I can imagine these issues around water, housing, planning, land use and so forth that he would have had to mastermind to manage such an intense portfolio. As I said, when the workload of that portfolio did become too large, Premier Cain did split the job into a number of different areas, with Minister Walsh becoming the Minister for Housing and Construction, then Minister for Property and Services, and later Minister Walsh became the Minister for Water Resources—the first water minister, Minister Walsh.

Bunna Walsh left politics at the 1992 election, but he did not leave his community. He served on the South Melbourne Tech School’s council. He was a trustee and the MC for almost 10 years in length. From 2000 he was chair of the Port Phillip Sporting Association and a liaison officer for the Port Melbourne Public Housing Association. He had admirable post-political community service. All of that is something that all of us here should admire and learn from—that public service does not stop when we leave this place.

Bunna Walsh had a long fight with Parkinson’s disease. On his passing he had been married to his wife, Lynette, for almost 60 years. He had two children, Karen and Neville, a loving family and grandchildren who adored him. On a final note can I say it is sad to lose giants of the political scene from the 1970s, 80s and 90s. People like Bunna no doubt shaped the lives and political thought of so many in here—political thoughts and ideas in this chamber today. While he was not of my political leanings, I can see a life in Ron ‘Bunna’ Walsh filled with dignity and loyalty to his Labor movement causes and to those of his community, and for that he deserves our admiration and respect. To his family we send our love and sympathy at what is obviously a difficult time. Rest in peace, Ron ‘Bunna’ Walsh.

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (09:45): I rise to reflect on the life of Ronald ‘Bunna’ Walsh. To ease the Leader of the Opposition’s interest, ‘Bunna’ was a nickname that his family gave him because his little sister could not pronounce Ronald. He was stuck with that for his entire life and was only ever known as Bunna.

Bunna reflected the best of Port Melbourne and South Melbourne. He grew up in a traditional working-class community. He left school at 14 and, as we have heard, amongst a rich variety of other life experiences, was a wharfie, an official of the Waterside Workers Federation, a passionate, crazy South Melbourne supporter and a dad who prized his family above all else. He was devoted to Lyn, his wife, in a very, very special relationship. Lyn was looking after him as his Parkinson’s progressed, but sadly she predeceased him, passing away suddenly a few years ago. You could see Bunna was really devastated by that, as indeed was all of the Port Melbourne community. Together they were a formidable couple, both politically and throughout the community.

Bunna was a champion of so much, as both the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition have pointed to, of what we would call the traditional, working-class values of his community. He focused, then in the seat of Albert Park when he finally got to this place in the late 1970s, on not just this community but those similar communities right across the state. But he did, as was pointed out, have a very brief sojourn in the Legislative Council in a set of circumstances that makes him unique in the entire history of this Parliament, both pre and post Federation. He is the only member of this place and indeed the other place to have been elected and declared elected and yet denied the ability to take up his seat. That happened as a result of the fact that when he showed up to be sworn in in the Legislative Council in 1970 the Leader of the Government at the time in the Legislative Council moved a resolution that Bunna’s candidacy and his place there be referred to the Court of Disputed Returns on the basis that as a 15-year-old in the fairly knockabout place that Port Melbourne was in the 1950s he had had some very minor charges that now would not be reflected in a charge sheet at all but at that time were held against him, and in due course the Court of Disputed Returns denied Bunna that position in the Legislative Council. The laws were changed, as they should have been, and in 1979 Bunna was elected to the Legislative Assembly for the seat of Albert Park. In that context, when he was elected to this place, as the honourable Leader of the Opposition and the Premier pointed out, he had a number of significant roles over the course of his time here of some 13 years. He was indeed the whip for the government, Minister for Public Works, Minister for Housing and Construction, Minister for Property and Services and Minister for Water Resources.

It was not just in the community that I now have the pleasure of representing that Bunna worked so much, particularly around public and social housing, but right across both inner Melbourne and the regions throughout the 1980s. There are those distinctive—and a heck of a lot better than from the 1970s, 60s and 50s—public housing units that continue to be a testament to Bunna’s work to provide support for many, many thousands of people. His efforts across these portfolios are really in many ways his enduring legacy to his community.

We have heard the honourable Premier refer to Bunna living his values—his traditional Labor values of solidarity, of collective action, of mateship and of community. As he put it in his inaugural speech in this place, he was here to:

… fight to ensure that tenants, the elderly, the unemployed, the exploited and the working people receive a better deal and that the economy of this State and country is used for the benefit of all people, not only a select few.

He then spent the next 13 years and indeed his time after his retirement from this place pursuing the living of that commitment. Bunna’s community changed of course throughout the term of his life and the term of his public service. Ultimately it changed for the better as a result of his efforts. He made sure that those who were, in his words, ‘left behind’ or marginalised through the process of that change had a local champion to resolve their issues, no matter how large or how small. To this day I still have presented to me material from local constituents who have, back all the way through to the 1980s, undertakings from Bunna on behalf of the government as to why various arrangements need to continue to be honoured, and we do our best to honour them.

After his retirement Bunna stayed active in his beloved Port Melbourne and inner south. He and his wife, Lyn, were a powerhouse. They were a team, and they were a formidable team, whether it be at the Port Melbourne bowls club or whether it was in his engagement in resurrecting the Anzac Day service in Port Melbourne. It ceased upon the closing of the Port Melbourne RSL, but Bunna and his lifelong partner in all things politics, Perce White, resurrected the service as a community event to the point where on Anzac Day just past some 5000 people gathered on the Port Melbourne foreshore to mark Anzac Day in a particularly Port Melbourne kind of way.

He was also central to establishing the biggest event run each year by the Maritime Union of Australia—the retired members lunch. There are a whole lot more retired members than there are members these days of the MUA given how strong the workforce was over the course of many, many generations on the Port Melbourne wharves and the wharves right across inner Melbourne. That event held at the Moonee Valley racecourse is a fundraiser and it looks after not just the interests of retired wharfies but has particularly adopted the work of the Father Bob Maguire Foundation, which receives significant support each year from the MUA and that retired veterans fund.

There are many, many other examples, including those touched on by both the Premier and the honourable Leader of the Opposition, regarding Bunna’s contribution after his departure from this place. But he was, above all, a dedicated and loving husband. He and Lyn were an outstanding couple. Their love for each other was palpable to the whole world, and it was a fantastic family unit. Whether it be as a husband, a father or a grandfather, Bunna loved his family, and he was loved by them.

His sense of solidarity was, from my some 30 years of knowing Bunna in our local community, his enduring strength. He will be missed as not just a lion for Port Melbourne, South Melbourne and the inner south but through his efforts. Whilst they might recede from memory, they will continue on so long in so much of the built infrastructure and services that he was pivotal in delivering. We will always have that as the foundation for his work and his contribution to our community. To his son, Neville, to his family, to his many friends and comrades and to his community, we send our best wishes at this very sad time. Vale, Bunna Walsh.

Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (09:54): I rise to join the condolence motion of the Premier on Ronald William Walsh, or ‘Bunna’ Walsh, as has been his nickname throughout his life. Like the member for Albert Park, in researching this I found out where that nickname came from—I had always wondered—and it was just the fact that his younger sister could not pronounce his Christian name properly, and it stuck with him for the rest of his life.

Ronald had a false start to politics, as has already been pointed out. He was actually elected as a member for Melbourne West Province with quite a substantial majority, given where that particular electorate is in the city of Melbourne. When he arrived to be sworn in here, as the member for Albert Park said, a motion was moved by Mr Hamer in the upper house to have his eligibility tested by the Court of Appeal. If you read the background information, there was quite a lot of conjecture at the time as to whether those in the Labor Party were told there would be an issue and whether they listened about whether there would be an issue with his eligibility when he got here. But it did happen, and it led to a review of the act and a change to the law and the constitution to enable him to come back to politics later on. It would have been a very, very traumatic time for him and his wife and for their family to go through, from looking at the press articles from that particular time. He went, effectively, from sitting in the upper house to going back to his original gang, gang 212, on the wharves for another nine years before he came back and stood for Parliament again as the member for Albert Park.

Bunna Walsh, his parliamentary career—one of the things I wanted to focus on was his time as the Minister for Water Resources and on the Water Act 1989, which is still the Water Act that we work under today. That was a huge change to the water sector at that particular time, and in his time as the water minister one of the things that was proposed was what was called the ‘Bunna Walsh canal’. A lot of people now will understand where that name comes from for that particular project that never, ever happened. It was to actually, effectively, build a canal from Yarrawonga Weir across to the lower Goulburn to transfer Murray water to the Goulburn system. There is still talk about that sort of project at the moment, with all the discussions under the Murray-Darling Basin plan about bypassing the choke and whether there should be a channel that bypasses the choke, which effectively goes back to what was the Bunna Walsh canal proposal at that particular time.

When Bunna came into Parliament—as I think I have said in other condolence motions, you always go back and read people’s inaugural speech; it is probably the one time that someone’s inaugural speech is read again, when we have a condolence motion—I noticed with interest that he was very critical of the West Gate Bridge at that particular time and the fact that he viewed the West Gate Bridge as a white elephant that was draining money out of the coffers of the state and draining money out of the people that actually paid tolls. Like a lot of projects, the West Gate Bridge has served Melbourne very, very well.

I am reminded of a story. One of the workers on the West Gate Bridge actually retired to Korong Vale, and when that was in my electorate I met with him once about the bridge. He was very, very concerned that the West Gate Bridge was going to fall down and explained to me all the reasons because he was working there, tragically, when it did collapse and kill the workers that were there. But he said, ‘This bridge is going to fall down one day’, and every time I drive over that bridge now, which is not all that often, I keep thinking, ‘I hope it’s not today’. He was absolutely convinced that the nuts that were holding it together were not going to hold it together forever, so full marks to the engineers and the people that maintain the bridge that it has not fallen down as yet.

To go back to the Water Act 1989, there was quite substantial change, and for the people in the water industry at the time it created some major concerns about what was happening at that particular time. It effectively reduced the number of water authorities. Every town in Victoria had its own water trust, I think it was called, at that time. So it reduced the number of public bodies from 400 back to 170—there are comments in his second-reading speech about the fact that in the future he was hoping there would be more voluntary amalgamations under those particular changes—and it reduced about 1000 pages of what he called outdated statute law to about 200 pages of plain, clear language. For those people that read legislation that are not members of this place I do not think they could ever say that any legislation was in plain language, but it did simplify the Water Act substantially.

One of the things it did at that time was actually start to legitimise water trade—temporary trade at that particular time. Again, for people that criticise the Murray-Darling Basin plan for being all things evil and for everything that has ever happened in the water sector and the fact that water trade was something that came out of that plan, water trade was introduced in the 1989 Water Act back at that particular time and allowed temporary trade and temporary trade over a set number of years, with the view that over time they would review that and liberalise it more. So those changes to the water sector about the trade of water actually started in 1989; they certainly did not start in 2012 with the Murray-Darling Basin plan. So if you think about Bunna’s time as the water minister, he did make substantial change for Victoria, and the fact that that act is still the act that we work under today in 2022 says that it was well constructed and well put together.

As others have said, Bunna was a person of his community—born there, educated there, worked there. He absolutely believed in his community and worked for his community before he came into Parliament, while he was in Parliament and after he left Parliament, and I think they are the right reasons for people to come to this place. We all come here to represent our community initially and then obviously consider the wider state issues once we are in this particular place. To Bunna: congratulations on a life really well lived. He made a real contribution to his community. Vale, Bunna Walsh.

Ms HUTCHINS (Sydenham—Minister for Crime Prevention, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Youth Justice, Minister for Victim Support) (10:01): I rise to acknowledge the passing of the former member for Albert Park, the Honourable Ronald ‘Bunna’ Walsh. Bunna died at the age of 88 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease, and my condolences go to his loved ones. Bunna was born in Port Melbourne, as we have heard, and his legacy lives right through the community as well as of course across the rest of Victoria from his time in here.

Like many from that generation, he left school early to help support his family, working in various jobs before landing a job on Melbourne’s waterfront. Here he worked alongside many of my family members, but in particular my great-great-grandfather Hughie Sykes, my great-grandfather George and my grandfather George, who was a big part of raising me and a big part of my life. He was friends with all of them throughout the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s and beyond. This was a time before containerisation on the Melbourne ports, where men actually rolled up their sleeves and did a lot of physical work. I remember—and I still do have a great photo of my great-great-grandfather Hughie Sykes on the wall of my office downstairs—him with muscles at the age of 86, still working on the waterfront, with muscles that were just huge from shovelling gypsum into the hulls of vessels.

That is a time that I think many of us do not necessarily remember or value. It certainly was a foundation for Bunna’s passion for workers rights. Certainly I remember as a kid the fight for superannuation on the waterfront that both my great-grandfather and grandfather went on strike for. I remember those days really well because every Sunday at my grandparents’ house was roast day—we would all go there for a roast, the entire extended family. But when there was a strike there was no roast; it was always just soup during those times. I know that Bunna played a really important role during that time in leading those workers through that battle to obtain superannuation—not just for the waterside federation; that then laid the foundations for all workers across Victoria and across the country. So Bunna’s legacy needs to be celebrated today. I know he worked absolutely tirelessly to make sure workers of Port Melbourne were able to get out of poverty and have a future with their retirement. He also championed change and reform for working-class families across Port Melbourne and across the state.

My great-grandmother Elsie Sykes is 102 and still with us. I spoke to her on the phone, and she said that she remembers many Sunday mornings. At the Sunday morning club my great-grandfather would have a drink with Bunna, and the women set up their own club down the road where they would have a little drinking session of their own after mass. I am pretty sure Lyn was a member of that little club as well. She spoke so lovingly of Bunna and Lyn and what it meant to be their friend but also how they were always available to the community—able to visit our sick old wharfies, to look out for their families. That is something that is stuck in her memory of them, as it is, I am sure, for many, many families across Port Melbourne, South Melbourne and beyond in Victoria.

Bunna was a hardworking person who lived by his Labor values, stood up for trade unions in the workplace and in Parliament and dedicated his life to improving the lives of working people. He was an absolute legend in the trade union movement, and 26 years ago when I ran for the position of assistant secretary at Trades Hall as the first woman for that position—and I was challenged because I was a woman; my opposition made a big issue of that—Bunna actually made sure that the Maritime Union of Australia voted for me in that ballot. Even though I was not necessarily aligned with the MUA at the time politically, he came down to Trades Hall and made sure that it happened, and I will be forever grateful for that.

Through his work as a parliamentarian Bunna upheld really strong community values. I will not go through the list of his portfolios because others have, but his work particularly in housing is really valued, and in public works. He stayed true to strive for better benefits for the most vulnerable in our community, and he did not stop working for the community after he left this place, as we have heard. Bunna was a person who believed that everyone belonged to our community. He fought for an inclusive society, and he never forgot anyone.

On the topic of inclusive society, can I reflect on his life from the perspective of being the Minister for Youth Justice. In addition to his role as a unionist and obviously later as a minister of the Crown, as previous speakers have reflected, his election to the upper house was declared void because of a minor prosecution that he faced—his sentence at the time was actually suspended, and he undertook a good behaviour bond—at 15 years old. Yet it was deemed to be a violation of the constitution and he was unable to take his seat. Had this occurred after 1975, when the act was changed, he would have been able to take a seat at the time. But of course nothing held him back and he got here anyway.

The change to decide that young people should be able to learn from their mistakes and move on with life is something that I think is still relevant today and something that we are working hard for here in the Andrews Labor government. This is an issue that is fundamental to the success of the operation of our youth justice system, to young people who face consequences for their actions but need to be tempered by the ability to learn from them and get on with their lives.

When you look at the contribution Bunna made to Victoria you can see clearly that it is really an important one, where people who were from a very, very vulnerable and poor background were able to thrive and future generations were able to succeed. As a dad to Neville and a grandfather and a devoted community member, Bunna will always be remembered for his Labor values, for his hard work and for his community-mindedness. I send my love and deepest condolences to the Walsh family and friends. Bunna, may you now be in heaven with the love of your life, Lyn.

Mr WYNNE (Richmond—Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing) (10:08):

… I will fight to achieve justice and equality for the people who have shown their faith in me …

I will fight to ensure that this—

coalition—

Government does not grind those people into the dust. I will fight to ensure that tenants, the elderly, the unemployed, the exploited and the working people receive a better deal and that the economy of this State and country is used for the benefit of all people, not only for a select few.

These words are not mine. They belong to Ron ‘Bunna’ Walsh. Bunna said them on 7 June 1979, when he delivered his maiden speech in this place. It was a classic Labor speech. It was all about protecting the rights of people who had nothing to sell but their time. It was all about protecting the communities those working people lived in. It was all about fighting for social and economic justice.

But it was also an unusual speech—a very unusual speech. It was unusual because Bunna’s maiden speech was delivered almost nine years after he was elected to state Parliament. As we have heard, 52 years ago this month Bunna was elected to the other place as a member for the upper house seat of Melbourne West. It was an election Bunna won fair and square that had been taken away from him. That chamber was controlled by people who were no friends of a man like Bunna, who had spent his life working on the waterfront. So what did they do? As we have already heard from the Premier and the member for Albert Park, they referred Bunna’s election to the Supreme Court as a disputed electoral return.

And why did they dispute it? As we have now heard, I think Bunna was actually 16, member for Albert Park, when he was involved in an altercation and received a suspended sentence in the Children’s Court. Legally of course he was in fact a minor. Bunna lost the seat and he was sent back to work on gang 212 at 17 Victoria Dock, the same workplace as my father. The docks were a really harsh environment to work in. I well recall as a child they were my playground on the weekends when I would go with my father on a Saturday morning to work. As my colleagues have indicated, this was physically tough work. Before containerisation everything was loaded by hand—sacks of wheat and all the produce that was exported overseas were literally physically handled.

If anyone is interested in the history of the wharves, I thoroughly recommend to them an extraordinary book called Under the Hook by a wonderful journalist called Wendy Lowenstein, a labour historian who speaks so vividly of just what a very difficult environment it was, particularly in relation to the casualisation of the wharves. I remember very well from the book there was this notion of what was called the bullring. You never had the opportunity to have steady and ongoing work, so you would have to go down every day to the docks and see whether you were chosen to work on that day. The bullring was a terrible environment for so many people, who of course had no choice but to be engaged in that environment to raise their children and their families. But all that changed through the extraordinary work of the then Waterside Workers Federation of Australia and subsequently the Maritime Union of Australia, because they moved towards permanency in terms of work and superannuation and other terms and conditions. But those early days were unbelievably harsh. It was Bunna’s environment, and it was the environment of my family as well. My father raised and supported all of us—nine children—on a single salary as a wharf labourer. I am immensely proud of the work that he did, and Bunna as well, and Bunna particularly through his work with the union itself.

As we know, he spent only half a day in the other place over there. Five years later the constitution was amended and a conviction in the Children’s Court was no longer a life sentence keeping you from representing your community, all of which is how it came to pass that in 1979, nine years after he was first elected to state Parliament, Bunna Walsh stood in this chamber and delivered his maiden speech as the member for Albert Park. I would simply put to you: the other place’s loss was without doubt our gain. Bunna became the whip for the Cain government, then went on to serve in a number of portfolio areas.

As the current member for Albert Park has indicated, one of Bunna’s most enduring legacies was his deep commitment to what we now call social housing, which was public housing, particularly the Garden City estate, which he was deeply committed to. But more importantly, he absolutely understood as a member of the Cain Labor government at the time just how much more investment needed to be made in the public housing system. When I started working in the high-rise towers in Flemington, it is hard to believe but at that time there was no such thing as a laundry. You did not have a laundry on any of those floors; you had a boiler. Do people remember what a boiler was? A boiler was where you stuck all your clothes in the hot water, and that is how you lived. Bunna Walsh made sure that no longer happened—he got rid of all those and put in place contemporary laundries for the good folk who lived in public housing towers, merely one of the many legacies of his time.

In those positions in that reforming Labor government Bunna made good on his promise to fight to achieve justice and equality for all people. Bunna Walsh fought for those people because he was one of those people. That much was clear back in 1970 when Bunna landed back at Victoria Dock after spending half a day, as I indicated earlier, on Spring Street.

A journalist from the Age—just making sure they are not up there, Premier. No-one will be listening to this, will they? This bit is pretty good.

Mr Andrews: He’s called it. Righto. Come on.

Mr WYNNE: I have called it early. A journalist from the Age tracked Bunna down and asked him what it was like to be back on the twilight shift. For those who do not know, there are three shifts on the waterfront. There is the morning shift; the afternoon shift is called the twilight—that is 3 till 11; and then the midnight shift is 11 through till 7. He was working that day on the twilight shift, and this is what Bunna said:

I don’t mind being back … with the blokes. They’re good blokes, working a decent day’s work to provide for their family—like me.

And Bunna did not bite when a journo gave him a chance to blame the other bloke for the fight in the 1940s that derailed his political career in 1970.

‘I don’t want to say anything,’ Bunna said. ‘It might stir up new trouble for the fellow, when he thinks it’s behind him, as I did.’

In other words, he was not a dobber.

Democracy is only as strong as the values and diversity of the people who serve as its representatives. We need to keep our doors open to people like Bunna Walsh. Vale, Bunna Walsh.

Ms GREEN (Yan Yean) (10:16): What a privilege it is to speak on the life of Ron ‘Bunna’ Walsh and especially to come after the Minister for Housing, who carries on Bunna’s great tradition; the Minister for Youth Justice, with her family connection; and then of course the member for Albert Park. What a great legacy to have been one of Bunna’s successors along with former Deputy Premier, John Thwaites. And I think the Premier really set the scene about the life of Bunna Walsh.

The 1960s and 70s, as we have heard from other speakers, were not a time of inclusiveness, collaboration or looking after people who needed looking after. People like Bunna Walsh and those in the Labor Party stood up for those people. I heard what the Minister for Housing said about the bullring. I grew up in Warrnambool; I was a kid from the bush. And on 3YB several times a day the port of Portland would broadcast the numbers—not even the names, the numbers—of the lucky people who would get to work on the docks the next day. So it was not just the port of Melbourne, it was the port of Geelong, and those families were just hanging on whether they had a shift the next day. As we heard from the Minister for Youth Justice, it was difficult and tough work. What tenacity Bunna had—to have had that half a day in the Parliament and then to have gone back to that workplace and then to have come back, still in opposition, and fought for what he believed in.

The first time I ever voted was when the Cain government got in. It was a time of enormous change, and particularly with people like Bunna and housing policy in particular. We then shortly after had a federal Labor government; we had a state and federal commonwealth housing agreement. Like the Minister for Housing said, we got rid of those shocking boilers and laundries came in. But for the first time public housing advocates were funded to have voices—and I know the Minister for Housing is nodding because he was one of those—and there were rental housing co-ops established. There was the local government and community housing program. There were partnerships between local governments, social housing and the youth housing program, which I had the privilege of working in. I look at Bunna’s son, Neville, and I really see the resemblance.

You would think, ‘What would the connection of the kid from Warrnambool be to Bunna, aside from looking on from afar?’. The Farrell sisters were a very large Labor family. The Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change is smiling because we both went through Young Labor with them—they were a family of 12—along with another large Labor family, the O’Connors. Helen and Maureen Farrell had the privilege of working for Ron ‘Bunna’ Walsh. I remember many times visiting Helen’s place in Port Melbourne and just listening to stories of Bunna and his passion. I was a young public servant. I was a single mum, I had been shunned by my dad, the nuns had said I would never amount to anything and I thought, ‘If someone like Bunna can get into Parliament’—I never thought I would get into Parliament—‘you can get into the Labor Party and make a difference and be yourself’. So Bunna really provided that example to me—and especially someone called Bunna. There was no way in the 1960s or 70s there would have been anyone in politics called Bunna.

Others referred to his time as the Minister for Public Works. During the Cain government, for those of you who remember, all throughout the 1980s Premier Cain talked about the cranes across the skyline. It was an enormous period of growth and economic development in this time, and it was people like Bunna around the cabinet table that made sure workers worked safely on those worksites. That government was a very successful government but only had two pieces of legislation that it was able to get through the upper house, due to only controlling the upper house for a very short period of time, and they were the occupational health and safety act and the work care act. It was people like Bunna that pushed those things.

That government built so many things, was passionate about housing and was passionate about jobs for local people and safe jobs. As a young public servant working in the office of housing and construction, as it then was, I had struggled as a public servant with whether I should join the Labor Party. I was very active in the union and felt that with the influence and example of trade unionists like Bunna and the government you could speak up for working people, but when I was working in that department and saw what was happening in public policy I thought, ‘I want to get involved’. I got involved and was able to get onto the policy committee, and I really owe a debt of gratitude to people like Bunna. Vale, Ron ‘Bunna’ Walsh.

Motion agreed to in silence, members showing unanimous agreement by standing in their places.