Wednesday, 18 June 2025

 Gary MAAS (Narre Warren South) (10:08): I too rise today with sadness to note the passing of Esmond Curnow. Esmond was a Victorian MP serving as a Labor member of the Legislative Assembly for the seat of Kara Kara in north-western Victoria from 1970 until the seat was abolished in 1976. At the time he was the youngest MP to sit in this place. Unfortunately for Esmond, he was in opposition the whole time that he was there, but after leaving politics he became a publican in Bendigo, was secretary of the Bendigo Trades Hall Council and then joined the mighty storemen and packers union, where he was an official, then later the National Union of Workers, becoming its assistant secretary, my immediate predecessor. It was there that I came to know him and to work alongside him. At the NUW he fought on the picket lines alongside many striking workers fighting for better pay and conditions. It was unfortunate that in the last 10 years of his life he also had to fight Parkinson’s, which is a terrible disease and just sucked the life out of him. Ezzy was a stalwart of the Labor Party. He believed in its solidarity and its entrenched motto as a party of the people, their needs and its wants. He was a great man. Love to his partner Beth. Vale, Esmond Curnow.