CONDOLENCES
Mr LEESER (Berowra) (11:57): I wish to rise to make a short contribution to the condolence motion on the life of Reverend Father Michael Tate, a former Minister for Justice in the Keating government, a proud Tasmanian, a legal scholar and somebody who I had the great privilege of getting to meet on a couple of occasions during the course of the debate on whether Australia should have a bill of rights.
The Rudd government had appointed Father Frank Brennan to lead a committee in 2009 to determine whether Australia should have a bill of rights. I have always been a trenchant opponent of Australia having a bill of rights. One of the things that Father Frank Brennan, who's a great friend of mine, did was he held a large seminar here at Parliament House, Canberra, where he got both opponents and supporters of a charter of rights or bill of rights to have discussions about their views.
In that vein, he invited Michael Tate, who'd been on the public record for several years as a sceptical opponent of a charter of rights because he was concerned that, even in a more limited model, a bill of rights would move the power from the parliament to the courts. That is ultimately the main objection to bills of rights, because they are instruments that ultimately shift decision-making from parliamentarians—whether the public like us or not, they can always remove us—to courts.
There is no opportunity to remove judges except by section 72, and that is such a rare thing. Father Michael Tate brought his erudition, his scholarship, his humanity, his many years of thinking about the law and his serious study to the question of whether Australia needed a bill of rights. In various committees, he regularly made his opposition to such a bill of rights here.
Michael Tate is also the subject of one of my favourite stories in Australian politics, about how he came to be ambassador to the Holy See. The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition talked about his discussions with John Paul II about an early vocation delayed. How he came to be the ambassador is very interesting.
When Paul Keating decided to do a reshuffle and left him out of the frontbench, he told the story that he knew he only had a moment to ask Paul Keating for something because Paul Keating would have felt guilty about having left him out, as he'd been such an important contributor. He thought, 'This is my moment; I will ask Paul for a favour.' He said, 'I would really like to be the ambassador to the Holy See,' and Paul Keating granted him his wish.
In that role, he served Australia with great distinction. Often, people's major contribution to the country is made here, where they serve as parliamentarians, but, for Michael Tate, he had a career where he shaped the Tasmanian legal profession for a generation, he shaped the Labor Party in its approach to justice here for a generation, and then he went on to serve the Catholic community of Tasmania for a generation, to influence and shape views about the church and the faithful nation of young Catholics in that state.
It was a remarkable contribution, and he was a remarkable Australian. He was somebody I was pleased to meet and somebody whose advocacy against a bill of rights I was pleased to join in common cause. May his memory be a blessing.