Tuesday, 17 June 2025
Condolences
Hon Charles Race Thorson Mathews
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Condolences
Hon Charles Race Thorson Mathews
That this house expresses its sincere sorrow at the death, on 5 May 2025, of the Honourable Charles Race Thorson Mathews, and places on record its acknowledgement of the valuable services rendered by him to the Parliament and the people of Victoria as a member of the Legislative Assembly for the electoral district of Oakleigh from 1979 to 1992 and as Minister for the Arts and Minister for Police and Emergency Services from 1982 to 1987, and Minister for Community Services from 1987 to 1988.
It is an honour on behalf of the government to lead off the motion. We will hear from a few others in the chamber, particularly those that knew Dr Mathews personally. We acknowledge Race Mathews as a tireless advocate for fairness, democracy and the public good through his service over many years in all three levels of government.
Dr Mathews began his career as a teacher and speech therapist working in schools across Gippsland and Melbourne, but his public journey began in earnest when he joined the Australian Labor Party in the late 1950s. From those days through to his final years he was driven by a singular belief in the power of government to change lives and a determination to ensure it did. He rose to prominence as principal private secretary to Gough Whitlam, where he helped shape transformative policy on education and health, including in the foundations of what would become Medicare. In that role and in every role that followed he was a builder of policy, of institutions, of ideas.
Elected to the federal Parliament as the member for Casey in 1972, Dr Mathews brought the same intellect and compassion to the national office. Later, as the state member for Oakleigh from 1979 to 1992, he left an unforgettable mark on Victoria through his ministerial work in the Cain government. As Minister for Police and Emergency Services Dr Mathews introduced major gun law reforms, modernised Victoria Police and led the overhaul of the state’s emergency response systems in the wake of the devastating Ash Wednesday bushfires.
As Minister for the Arts he championed cultural participation, oversaw the opening of the Arts Centre in Southbank and helped establish signature events such as the Melbourne International Arts Festival and the Melbourne Writers Festival. He led reforms to child protection and the deinstitutionalisation of care for people with intellectual disabilities as the Minister for Community Services.
Dr Mathews’s intellectual contributions were matched by his work to further the Labor cause. As leader of the Australian Fabian Society for decades, he mentored generations of Labor thinkers and helped chart the policy directions of the Whitlam, Hawke and Keating governments. He campaigned for internal Labor reform, democratic accountability and a more engaged civic life.
Beyond politics Dr Mathews had a rich personal life and was a friend and mentor to many in this Parliament and beyond. Race Mathews was many things – a politician, academic, reformer, author – but above all he was a servant of the public. His life’s work was animated by a belief that our shared future is something we must all help shape. Victoria is a fairer, more thoughtful and more compassionate place because of the contribution of Race Mathews. On behalf of the government, I extend my deepest condolences to his wife Iola and children and extended family.
David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (12:08): I am pleased to associate the Liberals and Nationals with this condolence motion for Race Mathews. He was a very significant figure in postwar politics in Victoria in particular, and Australia more generally.
I did know Race Mathews quite well. I grew up in Croydon, and I actually remember the 1972 and 1975 elections well enough to remember that he had been elected as our local member in that area. It was not something I was delighted with even in those days. But having said that, I also had quite a bit to do with him in the 1980s, when he was active as the member for Oakleigh in a number of campaigns within the Labor Party around WorkCover and other matters, and I had a good deal to do with him on those issues. I would meet him in his Oakleigh electorate office and provide him with significant research, which he would use to significant effect.
In particular, I want to associate our side of politics with our respect for him and his wife and family and note that he did make a significant contribution. We did not always agree with his views, but that is a different matter. I wish his family and others well.
Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (12:10): Dr Race Mathews showed us just what we can accomplish when we aspire. He was an idealist and a visionary, and Race dedicated his life to proving that, yes, it can be done. I think we can say without a shadow of a doubt that Victoria and Australia are a better state and nation because of the extraordinary life of Race Mathews, and it is safe to say also that Labor is a better party of politics and ideas as well. As the Leader of the Government said, Race served as Gough Whitlam’s principal private secretary in opposition, doing the hard yards on policy and, among other things, developing the case for and design of what has become Medicare. Quality healthcare provision for Australians became a fundamental right, not a privilege for those who could afford it – an idea that impacts on our society and on our politics to this day. He was an early champion of state aid to the poor and non-government schools and championed education during his time in the federal Parliament. As Minister for the Arts in the state Parliament, Race, among other things, established what was known as the Spoleto festival, which was twinned with an arts festival in Spoleto, Italy, drawing on the richness of Melbourne’s multicultural heart to set the arts community of our city and our state on an open and engaging trajectory. Spoleto grew into the Melbourne International Arts Festival and has Rising as its successor and a legacy of art for the people.
Race was indefatigable in his pursuit of equality for all, and it was a pursuit that took him from those humble beginnings as a schoolteacher through policy roles with Whitlam, as an MP at both a state and a federal level and as an academic – even to Spain, where Race took inspiration from the Mondragon Corporation, which operated as a federation of workers’ cooperatives. He said on ABC radio in 2017:
All my life I’ve been on the hunt for good ways of making a better world – making life more rewarding for ordinary people … [I was delighted to hear in the 1980s that] something extraordinary was going on in an obscure valley in the Basque region of Spain.
He did take inspiration from those ideas. Others have written that Race could recognise and embrace ideas even if they were not his own. Cooperatives and the mutual movement, which he championed, had thought links to distributism – an economic theory asserting that the world’s productive assets should be widely owned rather than concentrated – arose from the teachings of the Catholic social justice movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly under former Pope Leo. In his recently released biography his wife, the biographer Iola Mathews, wrote that at first he was dismissive of the cooperative movement because of these links and Race’s own attitudes towards BA Santamaria. As ever, Race was a product of Victorian Labor in the 1950s and 1960s, but he recognised the value of the core ideas of wide ownership of assets and went on to champion them for decades.
Born in Hawthorn in 1935, Race became an active member of the Labor movement from the 1950s, organising from his home in Croydon. He was a champion of the democratisation of our party, of opening it up to new ideas. A supporter of federal intervention in the 1970s, Race recognised that winning meant more for the people Labor sought to serve than the ideological comfort of the solace of opposition, and these efforts have had an important and indelible impact on Labor in Victoria. Federal intervention in the Victorian ALP in the 1970s arguably was the foundation for the success of modern Labor in Victoria, from Cain to Bracks and beyond. I hope we as a party keep remembering these lessons even if we can be hopeful that others do not.
He unsuccessfully contested the state seat of Box Hill in 1964 before being elected as the federal Labor member for Casey from 1972 to 1975 and then the state member for Oakleigh from 1979 to 1992. He was a minister during the Cain government and served in a range of portfolios. After 1992, though, there was no such thing as post-politics for Race. Ceasing to hold office did not deny Race furthering the progressive cause; nothing deterred his desire for our society to be better. As a long-term secretary of the Fabian Society and their pursuit of social justice until 2006 and over many, many years he continued to give generously with his time and his wisdom – a champion for democracy in the Labor Party and always – always – a supporter of the next generation of aspiring thinkers. In recent years his home in South Yarra always proudly displayed the corflute of the local Labor candidate, and I know that many local branch members have valued his engagement with them over many, many years.
On behalf of all Labor Party members in this part of the world, our thoughts are with his wife Iola and their children, who I am sure are very proud of his life’s work. We should all aspire to the ambition that Race strived for and to look for what we can achieve. To anyone in this place or elsewhere who wants to leave the world in a better place than how they found it, Race taught us how to be ambitious and that with belief and perseverance you can achieve great things. Vale.
The PRESIDENT: I ask members to signify their assent to the motion by rising in their places for 1 minute.
Motion agreed to in silence, members showing unanimous agreement by standing in their places.
The PRESIDENT: Proceedings will now be suspended as a further mark of respect. The chair will be resumed in 1 hour.
Sitting suspended 12:17 pm until 1:22 pm.