Brian Harradine makes his final speech in the Senate.

Brian Harradine makes his final speech in the Senate. Photo: Andrew Taylor

Brian Harradine
Senator
9-1-1935 
 14-4-2014

Brian Harradine was Australia’s longest-serving independent senator, representing Tasmania for 30 years. He also held the Senate balance of power from late 1994 to March 1996, when his vote – combined with the Australian Democrats and Labor – was enough to help to pass Labor government legislation.

After the March 1996 election, his vote, combined with the vote of the former Labor Party member Mal Colston, was enough to help pass Howard government legislation. This included the Native Title Amendment Act 1998 and the partial privatisation of Telstra.

Despite the power Harradine held, he never took his job lightly. He brooded over policy decisions for days and weeks, consulting widely. His decisions often took people by surprise. He argued for what he believed in whether or not it polled well. He was a champion for Tasmania, negotiating hundreds of millions of dollars of government funding for a state with economic challenges and high unemployment.

He recognised the people in policy problems and advocated on behalf of refugees, negotiated a compromise on native title rights to avoid the divisiveness of a race-based election and, as a staunch Catholic as well, opposed abortion.

He voted against the GST, highlighted China’s brutal one-child policy and opposed the use of Australian aid money for abortions. They were all principled stances, because he felt that a consumption tax would be indiscriminate and hurt the poor, that Australia was giving priority to trade over China’s human rights record and that women in third world countries wanted clean drinking water and help with basic maternal health before abortion.

He believed passionately in the value of the Senate as a house of review and a check on the power of the executive. And he also passionately believed that decisions should be made by elected politicians, not by officials pursuing their own agenda without the risk of losing their seat.

Richard William Brian Harradine was born in South Australia where he worked on the railways before moving to Tasmania in his mid-20s as a union organiser with the Federated Clerks’ Union.

For his first weeks in Tasmania, he lived in the head office keeper’s quarters on the roof of the Government Offices building in central Hobart. He was head of the Trades and Labor Council in Tasmania for 12 years and a member of the ALP Federal Executive from 1968 to 1975.

Despite Harradine being repeatedly elected by the Tasmanian state conference of the ALP to the ALP Federal Executive, the socialist left voted to deny his right to sit on the Federal Executive for seven years. The then leader of the opposition, Gough Whitlam, resigned as parliamentary leader in protest against Harradine’s treatment but in 1975 Harradine was expelled from the party for claiming the ALP had links to the Communist movement.

However, this gave him the publicity to be elected to the Senate that year and he was successful in every election until he retired in 2005.

Harradine was a modest man, who wore the same suit to work each day. He drank silver tea – a concoction of hot water and milk. He was frugal with himself and generous with others.

He walked the five kilometres into Parliament House each morning.

He had that rare ability to fully engage with whoever he was speaking to and would greet cleaning staff the same way he would colleagues. He also took an active interest in the lives of his staff and their families.

At a time when there was no child care in Parliament House, he ensured that one staff member could breastfeed her new baby in the office, and took the baby for a walk at lunchtime.

But his dedication to public life came at a cost familiar to all politicians and their families. He spent a long time away from his family and missed so much of their lives. The years after his retirement were spent in sickness.

Brian Harradine’s first wife, Barbara, died in 1980. He is survived by his second wife, Marian, his six children, her seven children and many grandchildren.