Barney Cooney, formerly Senator for Victoria
Thank you, Alan. Israel was telling me about Robert Menzies and you mentioned that Maurice Ashkanasy read with Menzies. The fact is that he probably did not teach him what was right about politics. I think Maurice Ashkanasy could well and truly have gone into the conservative side of politics given his war record and given his place at the Bar. But he did choose to join the ALP and to pursue a career, that is not exactly the right word, to pursue a cause in a great way.
It is interesting that Sir Robert Menzies was the Chairman of the Bar Council from '31 to '32 and John Latham who was also conservative had been Chairman of the Bar Council from '24 to '25 and again from '35 to '36. Maurice Ashkanasy was the first member of the Labor Party to be a Chairman of the Bar Council, which he was from '53 to '56 and I think that's a great tribute. You need a man of rare quality to do that and he was able to do it. The next person who was a Labor member was Xavier Connor in '67 to '69.
Another comment I wanted to pick up on was that of Sir Ninian's when he was talking about Jewish affairs being in the hands of an Irish Catholic lady. Now I think Maurice's political career was to a large extent - and I see some people here who would straight away understand what I mean by this - his political career was to a large extent in the hands of Irish Catholics in the Labor Party and with the split. When I was preparing this I was going to introduce a number of different stories. But what I found in the end is that I had almost brought out a thesis as to what happened in the '50s. It's said that Maurice Ashkanasy was never a member of parliament, I think that has a lot to do with the '50s and with what happened in the ALP during that period where there was very, very intense feelings, very intense positions taken, and where somebody who politically was in the middle - was a moderate - would not do well in a political sense in that circumstance.
But I have written this, and I'd like to read it, that Maurice Ashkanasy was a person of rare ability and that appears from this evening's proceedings. He supported the ALP because of a commitment to the betterment of people no matter what position they occupied in society. With the background, and I've said this, he had in the army and at the Bar, he could have readily have pursued a conservative career in politics and his personal advancement may have been better served by that. Yet his purpose was not one of self-interest but of the pursuit of that objective which is encapsulated in the phrase 'the light on the hill'. There are people here tonight that will resonate with, as it resonates with people in the Labor Party, and has done for decades.
As David Day has written in his book on Chifley that he used that phrase, I think on a few occasions, but I am talking of the June 1949 one, about six months before the election of that year. As David Day wrote, in that same speech, he stressed the importance of individual members of the movement in ensuring its success. Such people were not hoping for any personal gain but simply supported the movement because it had been built up to bring better conditions to the people. I think that sums up what Maurice Ashkanasy was about in joining the ALP and remaining a member of it. Because in the end, and again there's people here tonight who will understand this, after the split, when the camps were drawn up and when there was tremendous passion in Australian politics, the party became rigid and it was in danger of becoming moribund because it protected itself as it saw it from what had happened in the 1950s when there had been the awful split. The people who remained, the party that remained, saw the discipline that was necessary - not only discipline but conformity. Now political parties need discipline, parties don't work without discipline, but conformity can become stultifying.
And it was in that situation that Maurice Ashkanasy did not conform and I think it cost him dearly, but had he conformed and had he with others not lead the way there would not have been the freeing up and the contest of ideas which was so necessary for the Labor Party to have during the '60s so that it could come to govern in the '70s and the '80s. I'd like people who are here to comment on that if they would later on. I think that is the great contribution that Maurice Ashkanasy made to the party, made to the community as a result of that, and made to society and made to Australia. Because had the ALP not gone through that great era of reform, not gone through the dreaming time where it came up with the magic as I see, had it not done that, then Australia would have been much the poorer than it is today.
A lot of the problems started early in the '50s. I just want to use this as an illustration of how this man had courage, he had wisdom and he had strength. And I will talk about the approach he took to the Communist Party Dissolution Act, which again many people here will remember. And that was an Act that was put through with the support of both the major parties in the 1950s and it was a very oppressive piece of legislation: oppressive in its objective because it wanted to crush a political party, objectionable in the way it was going to go about that, it was a very oppressive piece of legislation, and I think that the part that the Hight Court played in that is one of its great moments. It didn't come out declaring for civil liberties, as those who are lawyers here know, but it did come out, and it did in an atmosphere that was poisonous may I say, came to a decision and that was one of the finest tributes this country has seen to judicial integrity and to judicial wisdom. That the High Court finally declared that Act invalid on the 9th March of 1951, but it was well before then on the 27th April 1950 that the Bill was presented to the House.
But there were very few people who came out against it at the time. Now it is conventional wisdom to say about the Bill what I have already said. Those times you had to be courageous to speak out against it and Maurice Ashkanasy was the only silk, that I could see in any event, that did declare against it and he did that through publication called The Unnecessary Police State Bill which was put out by the Australian Council for Civil Liberties. There were a number of professors that contributed to that, a number of politicians, a number of authors but there's only one silk, and that was Maurice Ashkanasy, and I thought that showed great courage at that time and great foresight and great integrity. He was the head, in fact, of the legal team that got that work together.
That sort of approach I think typified his life right through. The other one, going to the 3rd February 1967, when Ronald Ryan was hung. Maurice Ashkanasy was of course foremost in protesting against that and Barry Jones got a committee together, and I see some people here who could also be mentioned, Sir Zelman, if I may, and I think Dick McGarvie, I saw him down there somewhere. Certainly you all played, if I may say, a most splendid part at that time in getting rid of capital punishment. Didn't save Ronald Ryan, but there has never even been a suggestion of capital punishment since. So while acknowledging the work of Maurice Ashkanasy, I also acknowledge the work of people like yourself, Sir Zelman, at that time.
I am very conscious of time, but can I just say this to explain what I have already said. On the 11th of February 1955 the Victorian Central Executive split, again there are people here who know what that's all about, and then on the 19th of April the Cain government fell apart when people crossed the floor and then the split took place. Maurice Ashkanasy stayed with the party and in fact he stood as a Senate candidate on the 22nd September 1958. He was in a position impossible to win from but he did stand and again, I think, on the basis that this was a contribution that he could make. It was not his own interests that he was concerned in but the interest of the party.
May I say that when you think of what a senator should look like Maurice Ashkanasy always seems to me to be the sort of person that typifies a senator. I have seen plenty of senators in my time but he was one that looked like one who should have been. He had stood, before, in 1946 for the seat of Balaclava. That was the first general election after the war, he came back and stood for Balaclava, a seat that is now called Goldstein in effect, never been won by Labor, wasn't going to be won then, but he did get a swing towards him even though he was standing against Tom White, who was the United Australian Party or Liberal Party candidate for that seat, not a candidate, had been the member since 1929. So he had a big ask there but he fronted up and campaigned and campaigned well.
As a matter of fact, I was talking with Gough Whitlam the other day and he reminisced about campaigning with Maurice and we talked about that. So he is remembered as a campaigner. But I think the problem was that the split having occurred and the DLP having formed, the ALP, as I said, was in a position for a long while where it was very rigid, very disciplined in its approach, very conformist in its approach, so that a person like Maurice was not going to be chosen as a candidate in a winnable seat. But what he did do I think was to make this contribution by standing up, by showing courage, by showing imagination and by putting forward ideas and contesting the debates where others were not.
In conclusion, Maurice Ashkanasy lived a long and active and honourable political life. Through it he served the Labor Party, the system under which he lived. The Labour Party is the alternative government for the government at any one time. And you've got to have that contest, you've got to have a party governing well and another party that is ready to govern at the next election. Both have got to be vibrant bodies, got to be contesting ideas, got to think about things. Maurice Ashkanasy was I think one of the early ones to rescue the party when it was in danger of not being in a fit state to govern. As Howard Nathan would agree, he led the turnabout and so I think his part in Australian political life is a great one, one that ought to be given tremendous tribute. The fact that he wasn't elected to parliament doesn't take away from the undeniable fact that he played a seminal role in getting the system into a situation where it ought to have been and hopefully these days it is much better because of people like Maurice Ashkanasy and the way they acted in the '50s and '60s.