Mr HOWARD (Prime Minister) (2:01 PM) —I move:

Charles Keith Jones was born on 12 September 1917 at Newcastle, New South Wales. He was educated at Cooks Hill High School and Newcastle Technical College. He married Doreen Wright in 1939. After serving his boilermaker's apprenticeship at the BHP steelworks, Charles Jones worked at Stewarts and Lloyds, then at the State Dockyard. Charles, or Charlie, as most people knew him, was a member of the boilermakers union and was involved with the Metal Trades Federation of Unions and the Trades Hall Council.

Mr Jones was elected to the Newcastle City Council in 1946. At the age of only 39 he became Lord Mayor of Newcastle, a position he held between 1956 and 1957. He was an inaugural councillor of the Shortland County Council from 1957 until his election to federal parliament in the election of 1958. In 1958 he was elected to the House of Representatives seat of Newcastle, holding the seat until his retirement just before the general election of 1983. He was Minister for Transport from 1972 to 1975 and Minister for Civil Aviation from 1972 to 1973. He held several party positions whilst in opposition. As minister, he is said to have merged shipping, aviation and land transport into a single department.

He served on several parliamentary committees including printing, road safety, aircraft noise and tourism. He was the Deputy Chairman of Committees from 1964 to 1967 and from 1980 to 1983. He also attended several overseas parliamentary delegations and conferences, and he frequently travelled overseas on official duties. He was awarded an Officer in the Order of Australia for service to politics and government in the 1984 Australia Day honours list. He was presented with the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977. More recently, he was presented with the Centenary Medal for service to the Australian community.

For those of us in this place who were there and who served with him—and I was privileged to have been one of those—Charlie Jones epitomised the person who might be described as having had an impeccable traditional Labor Party background. He was a very strong trade unionist and a committed supporter of the interests of working people. He rose through the ranks, so to speak, of the trade union movement. To serve on Newcastle City Council and become Lord Mayor of Newcastle is, indeed, by that very description, to claim fairly impeccable Labor Party credentials. They do not get much better. Occasionally, those who do not belong to that faith have crept into that position, but by and large it is the preserve of people with impeccable Labor backgrounds.

Charlie Jones had a great sense of humour. I think we had one thing in common, despite our political differences: we shared a common love of Hawks Nest beach. I think Charlie used to fish there and I holidayed there with my family for a period of some 20 years. Let me say, on behalf of the government, to someone who was an old warrior for the Labor Party, that we appreciate and respect the contribution he made to public life in Australia, to his own party, to the trade union movement, to the Hunter Valley and particularly to the City of Newcastle. I particularly extend to his wife, Doreen, his children and other family members and friends our very sincere sympathy on their sad loss.