Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Condolences
Hon Brian James Dixon
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Condolences
Hon Brian James Dixon
That this house expresses its sincere sorrow at the death on 9 July 2025 of the Honourable Brian James Dixon 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 St Kilda from 1964 to 1982 and as Minister for Youth, Sport and Recreation from 1973 to 1982, Minister of Social Welfare from 1976 to 1979, Minister of Housing from 1979 to 1981 and Minister for Employment and Training from 1981 to 1982.
I would like to speak to the motion on behalf of the government. Brian Dixon lived a life of exceptional breadth, purpose and service. He was an athlete, a legislator, a minister and a change maker, a man whose legacy spans sport, health, community and culture. Mr Dixon’s early life was marked by loss and resilience. He grew up in modest circumstances, losing his father as a teenager and helping his mother make ends meet by carting wood and delivering newspapers. These early experiences shaped a lifelong work ethic and deep commitment to the wellbeing of others.
Brian’s first chapter of public life was on the football field. He played 252 games for the Melbourne Football Club, including five premierships. A fierce competitor and renowned ball winner, he was Melbourne’s best and fairest in 1960 and was later honoured in the AFL hall of fame and named in Melbourne’s team of the century. He also coached North Melbourne. Then, not even following this but while still playing top-level football, Mr Dixon entered Parliament. He was elected in 1964 as the member for St Kilda, and over the next 18 years he served in a number of ministerial roles, which I foreshadowed earlier.
He launched the groundbreaking Life Be In It campaign, encouraging Australians to embrace physical activity long before preventative health became a policy norm. The campaign, with its memorable slogan and iconic figure named Norm, inspired a generation to get off the couch and move more, a message that remains relevant today. Equally significant was his contribution to road safety. As the chair of the Road Safety Committee, Mr Dixon led the world’s first legislation mandating the wearing of seatbelts. It was bold reform at the time and it faced lots of resistance, but we know it saved lives then and continues to save lives now. It stands as one of the most impactful legislative reforms in Victoria’s history. Mr Dixon was also involved in reforms that addressed complex social issues. He advocated for the legal regulation of prostitution, the abolition of capital punishment and improved access to housing and education. He believed in practical, people-focused policy, and he was not afraid to lead change, even if it was at odds with his party.
Outside of Parliament Mr Dixon championed community sport, promoted international development in Australian Rules football and ran 10 marathons, founding the Melbourne Marathon Spartans to celebrate endurance and community sport. Those who knew Brian speak of his positivity, his charisma and his sheer drive. His daughter Judy spoke to me of this competitive streak, whether on the footy field, around a Monopoly board or in family races around the house. He was fun. Known for his singing, dancing and warmth, he did not sweat the small stuff. He brought people along with him and stood up for what was right, and in doing so he changed lives. I have gotten to know Judy through her work with Mansfield Autism Statewide Services, and she certainly carries on her father’s legacy for compassion and being a people-centred person that champions the voices of those less able, with the ability to turn advocacy into lasting change. He spent his later years in Jamieson with his wife Carmel, remaining active and connected to family, teammates and friends.
On behalf of the Victorian government and this Parliament I extend our deepest condolences to Mr Dixon’s family and loved ones and acknowledge his contribution to the Parliament of Victoria as well as the community of Victoria.
David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (12:08): I am pleased to rise and associate the opposition with this condolence motion. Brian Dixon was somebody who was well known to many of us within the Liberal Party in particular and a number of people across the broader community. He was obviously a very successful minister, having been Minister for Employment and Training from 1981 to 1982; Minister for Youth, Sport and Recreation from 1973 all the way through until 8 April 1982; Minister of Housing, as has been pointed out, from 1979 to 1981; Minister of Social Welfare from 1976 to 1979; and Assistant Minister of Education from 1973 to 1976.
But he was much more than that – a very successful person who was prepared to lead on so many issues. As member for St Kilda, there are still significant numbers of people who talk about Brian Dixon and his impact on the area. He was available to people, he was engaged at a community level, but at the same time he was a very significant footballer. Not only being elected while a footballer and playing successfully VFL football, he was also a person who was prepared to innovate in a number of areas – the Life Be In It campaign is the best known of those – and his innovations in those areas of public health campaigns I think have blazed a very significant trail for many in our community. He obviously had also, in more recent years, been up in the Mansfield region, and Ms Lovell no doubt will say more on how his contribution to that community was also significant.
I put on record our regrets at his passing and the significant impact on his family, and we certainly pass on our best to them. He was a person that, when you look back, was an all-rounder, a person who was able to not only be a very successful politician but also stand up for significant causes. He fell out famously – as people will know – with Henry Bolte, who had a very strong view on many matters, and he fell out on the issue of the death penalty. He was also a person who was able to work with his colleagues. Dick Hamer put him into cabinet, and he was a very successful cabinet minister.
I would say here: a footballer, a local identity, a person with a very significant reach in the community, an innovator and somebody of great principle. He will be missed, and I think that the community is poorer for his passing.
Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (12:11): I rise to associate myself with this motion as well and to celebrate the life of Brian Dixon. Brian Dixon was elected to this place in June 1964. He served here for 18 years until 2 April 1982. In fact in his first four years, he balanced his time as a member of Parliament in the Legislative Assembly with a career in football. He was a full-time footballer and a full-time politician. I cannot see those two things going hand in hand today, but he did manage to balance those responsibilities and was very successful as a footballer. In fact in his first year in Parliament in 1964, he not only entered Parliament by winning a seat in Parliament but also won a premiership with the Melbourne football team. He was a member of five premiership teams for Melbourne, and he played for Melbourne for four years while serving in the Victorian Parliament before retiring from his beloved Demons to concentrate more on his parliamentary career.
During his time in Parliament he held the positions of Minister for Employment and Training; Minister for Youth, Sport and Recreation; Minister of Housing; Minister of Social Welfare; and Assistant Minister of Education. He served as a member of the Road Safety Committee from 5 December 1967 until 16 April 1973 – a significant period. He also served as a member of the Legislative Assembly Standing Orders Committee from 1967 to 1970.
As I said, Brian was a footballer with the Melbourne football team. He actually held the record for playing the most games for Melbourne for a number of years. He played 252 games between 1954 and 1968 and, as I said, was a member of five premiership teams.
Brian was what I would describe as a true Liberal. He was caring, compassionate and progressive. He always put the best interests of not only his constituents but also the entire population of Victoria first. He was passionate about people and had a genuine interest in everyone he met. His passion for people extended to the health and welfare of all Victorians and would lead to some of his greatest achievements as a member of Parliament.
The foundations of Brian’s passion for good Liberal governance, progressive thinking and delivering for people were laid out in Brian’s maiden speech in July 1964. Most MPs today choose to use their maiden speech to introduce themselves to the Parliament, including their path to politics and their career history, as well as thanking their many volunteers in their local branches and in the state executive of their party. Brian chose to use his maiden speech not to talk about himself and his achievements but to talk about the things the Bolte government were doing to deliver services and infrastructure that benefited Victoria in education, in health, in housing and in welfare. He pointed out that in 1964 a third of Victoria’s population were under 15 years of age and more than half of the population were under 30, and he spoke proudly of the fact that to that point the Bolte government had built 19 more secondary schools than had been built in the entire history of Victoria. That is not just 19 schools, it is 19 more than had been built between 1856 and 1955, so the Bolte government had more than doubled the number of secondary schools in Victoria between 1955 and 1964. The Bolte government were also in that time spending more per annum on education than any other state, something that we do not do today.
He spoke of the basis for a third university in Victoria having already been laid by the Bolte government, he spoke of the importance of education to the future wealth and prosperity of Victoria and its people, he spoke about investing in people and he spoke about how those most likely to be unemployed were those who were unskilled. He put forward ideas about how we could invest in those people to provide them with the education, training and skills that would allow them to build better lives. He spoke about welfare and the need to support those who were less fortunate, elderly or unemployed, and he spoke about the Housing Commission of Victoria and the work of the Bolte government, which had invested in what was called the slum reclamation project. That was because in many areas of Melbourne, particularly around Carlton, Collingwood, Richmond and South Melbourne, people had been living in substandard and unhygienic conditions in what could only be described as slums. The Bolte government invested £18 million – which I just had the library do the calculations on, which would be $618,241,486 today – to reclaim those areas where the slums were and build modern apartments for families. Those towers have served our state well for the past 70 years and are now once again the subject of a redevelopment project.
Brian also spoke about democracy and the importance of an informed public. He said for democracy to survive there must be a well-informed public opinion, but people do not bother to inform themselves about subjects which are remote to them. Therefore we as the leaders of the people of this state must use the press, the radio, the television and all other forms of mass personal communication to inform people concerning politics and to ensure that it will not become a subject which is remote to them. That is something that worries me today, because I think that people have disengaged, particularly with state politics, and when people disengage with state politics they actually have things done to them and not for them. It is up to us to re-engage people so that they do have a better understanding of what is going on in our state in this place and what political parties have to offer them.
In his maiden speech Brian demonstrated that he was someone who would leave a lasting legacy that would improve the lives of all Victorians, and he did. Some of Brian’s greatest achievements include the introduction of compulsory seatbelts in Victoria, and this was an issue that he actually championed through his work with the Road Safety Committee. That initiative has saved many thousands of lives in Victoria.
He also introduced the Life Be In It campaign, which was an initiative of his as our minister for sport and rec. Sport and physical fitness was a lifetime passion for Brian and something he pursued post politics. The Life Be In It campaign, with Norm as its figurehead, inspired a generation of Victorians to become more physically active. Life Be In It was also a lifetime passion for Brian – both the campaign itself and also in the way that he lived his life.
Brian was also a passionate advocate for the decriminalisation of prostitution, and this was a position he took because he saw firsthand the problems that illegal prostitution was having in his electorate in St Kilda. The library actually came up with a position paper that Brian wrote on prostitution and massage parlours in May 1980. Brian had actually successfully managed to have a motion passed at the Liberal Party state council in March of 1979 that read:
that this State Council recommends that there should be legislation to the effect that premises for the purpose of prostitution be able to operate only in non-residential areas and subject to stringent controls, and that thereafter more powers be made available for the control of prostitutes soliciting from the streets and utilizing illegal premises for the purpose of prostitution.
As I said, Brian was progressive enough to recognise that prostitution was the oldest profession in the world. It was not going away, no matter how illegal you made it, and making it illegal actually only caused more problems. It meant that women who were not prostitutes but who were walking the streets in St Kilda were subject to guttercrawlers approaching them and making them feel unsafe. It meant that pimps were living off the earnings of vulnerable women. Most importantly, the change that he wanted to put in place was to make sure that the sex workers themselves were safe.
In March 1979, as I said, that motion was successfully moved at the Liberal Party state council, which meant that Brian then put together his paper making recommendations about how we could decriminalise prostitution in Victoria and make that profession safer for the women, the sex workers who worked in it, and make it also a highly regulated industry. His summary of that document said:
It is recommended that prostitution be permitted to function in massage parlours in prescribed areas in Victoria subject to controls and that existing sanctions against street prostitution should be retained.
So he was a very progressive man.
He was also someone who often had controversial views, and he was not afraid to put them forward. As Mr Davis said, he clashed with Sir Henry Bolte over the hanging of Ronald Ryan, and his position did not go down well with the Premier or with some of his colleagues in his party room because it was against the party position. Whilst I do not remember Brian actually making that stand, I do have some very fleeting memories of this time, because it was the first real political debate that I actually witnessed, and it happened in my own home. My mother and my Uncle Carl had very differing views on the hanging, and I can remember a very heated debate at our holiday home in Anglesea one night, and we were all scurried off to bed. Uncle Carl and Mum were going at it, hammer and tongs, arguing their cases, and I remember getting up in the morning and my Uncle Carl had used my mother’s magic orange lipstick – that was the colour she used; it was the 1960s. In magic orange lipstick, written on the mirror in our bathroom was ‘Hang Ryan. Australia out of Vietnam’. I can still remember that they were the words on that mirror, and I was only very, very young. They obviously had a difference of opinion about Australia being in Vietnam as well, but the reason I remember it was for the hanging of Ronald Ryan.
In 1969 Brian also had views on the date of Australia Day and whether it should be on 26 January. Now, I think his views for moving the date might be very different to the views of those who want to move the date today, because he believed it should actually be moved to 7 February. And he said 7 February is a much more appropriate day because that was the day the colony was officially inaugurated, and if we make it 7 February, the schoolchildren can be told about it properly. So he was a person who had many controversial views. Post politics Brian continued his passion for sport, for people and for communities. One of the things I forgot to say was that not only did he play football while he was in this place, but for two years he actually coached North Melbourne while he was the member for St Kilda, so he was a multitalented man and he continued his passion for sport and politics and community. Post politics he was involved in many, many organisations like the Trim and Fitness International Sport for All Association. He travelled the world trying to establish AFL football in other countries and was actually the president of AFL football in South Africa. He also went up to Sydney to establish the Sydney Swans as an administrator when the Sydney Swans were first established.
When he returned to Victoria he settled in Mansfield, in my electorate. Brian was a much-loved member of the Mansfield community. He was active in the community. He was heavily involved in the tennis club in particular, I remember. He also, right up until very recently, still swept the path outside the church every Sunday morning to ensure that it looked neat and tidy, because he wanted his community to be a place that people could be proud of.
Brian was also still active in the Liberal Party right up until the time of his death. His wife Carmel is a very active member of the branch in Mansfield and is someone who we all have a great love for. We will miss Brian dreadfully in the Liberal Party, and he will be missed as a member of our community as well. I extend my deepest condolences to his wife Carmel, to his five surviving children and also to his one child who predeceased him, Anthony. To Jenny, Judy, Jamie, Jono and Bae – his five surviving children – and his 11 grandchildren, I extend my deepest condolences.
Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:27): I rise to make a contribution to this condolence motion, and I also extend my sincere condolences to Brian’s family and his many friends. As we have heard from members, Brian made an enormous contribution to the community. The Honourable Brian James Dixon was born on 20 May 1936 and died on 9 July 2025, aged 89.
I knew Brian through the association with my father, when they both served in this place in the Hamer governments, and I do remember him as someone that my father and family would speak of often. But as members have said, he was very connected to the community that he was living in, whether it was as the member for St Kilda, as Mr Davis and Ms Lovell have highlighted, or as the Leader of the Government in his later years, as Ms Lovell and others have also said. He was very connected to those communities and was very involved in a range of community activities. I saw Brian not long ago in this place when he came in and he met with a number of us. He was always someone who was incredibly warm, was always pleased to be speaking to you, understood what was going on and was very much involved in the day-to-day politics but also you personally and your family involvement. From those elements, he was somebody who was quite extraordinary.
Unfortunately, I was not able to be at his service last Friday. But from what was said in reports that I have read, he had an extraordinary life that has led to an extraordinary legacy and one that has been spoken about, whether it was the Life Be In It campaign, which was a very simple and effective campaign that had a massive impact – it was a very powerful message and one that really contributed to the health and wellbeing of Victorians, and it resonated right across the country – or the many areas of responsibilities that he had, which others have highlighted, with the various ministries that he had. The lasting legacy, one that he took up, which has been mentioned by speakers, is mandatory seat belts. That not only was a first in Australia and Victoria but also the world. It led to a very lasting legacy and one that has been recognised internationally.
As members have said, Brian Dixon was an extraordinary man. He had extraordinary talents, whether that was on the football field or in this place. Coming into this Parliament he was still playing for Melbourne, an extraordinary feat, and contributing both through that professional sporting career as well as the professional political career that he had. He was an extraordinary man. He did leave an extraordinary legacy – one that Victorians can be very proud of. The Life Be In It campaign, and the seat belt initiative are very lasting. Also, I know members of the Melbourne football team, and the extraordinary contribution he made to the AFL and to that football team leaves a lasting legacy for that team and those members. I extend my condolences. I said it at the outset: he was a man of great capacity, and he will be greatly missed.
The PRESIDENT: I ask members to signify their assent to the motion by rising in their places for 1 minute’s silence.
Motion agreed to in silence, members showing unanimous agreement by standing in their places.
The PRESIDENT: Proceedings will now be suspended for 1 hour as a further mark of respect.
Sitting suspended 12:33 pm until 1:36 pm.