Dr EMERSON (5:28 PM) —Peter Cook and I met on 10 January 1984 in Old Parliament House. On that day, I had started working for the then Minister for Resources and Energy, Senator Peter Walsh. I was walking along the corridor with its creaky floorboards and a dank smell about the place. I suppose that is an apt description of the Senate at times. It certainly was then, but it is vastly improved now. As I walked past a fairly young bloke—I was quite a bit younger—someone said, ‘This is Cookie.’ I thought it was good to meet a new staff member. There I was just finding my feet and I had already met another staff member, Cookie. So fondly was he regarded around the place that he was not called Senator Cook or Peter, but Cookie. Everyone from the Labor people to Senator Messner and Senator Chaney knew him as Cookie. Such people held Cookie in very high regard from those very early days onward—and he had been elected only a year earlier.

The next big memory that I have of Peter was in the uranium debate within the ALP at the 1984 conference. It was a debate which, understandably, was full of emotion. Peter himself had to make a big decision on that. He was in the Centre Left grouping, and the Centre Left would ultimately determine the position of the party on the uranium issue. There were a lot of arguments coming from the Right and from the Left. Peter was being hammered from both sides really. I remember how he agonised about that. He ultimately supported the position of the Right, but only after going through a lot of soul searching, checking his conscience and seeing whether it was the right thing to do by the people of Australia. He made that judgment. Whether the judgment was right or wrong is not a matter for debate here today. I was very taken by how committed Peter was to getting what he believed to be a good decision.

That took us to the end of 1984. Not long after—early in 1985—we began the great tax debate. We seem to have them every 20 years or so. We certainly had a big one back then. In the 1984 election campaign, Bob Hawke had decided to say that we would have a tax summit. A lot of people who were into heavy-handed control thought that that was a particularly stupid idea, but nevertheless Bob thought that it was a way of dealing with the tax issues without having to have every detail of every possible tax change in front of the Australian people at that time.

We had the great tax debate of 1985. The GST was around then, and Treasury were very firm advocates of it. They thought it was beaut. In particular, it would have the value of being able to cut the top marginal rate of tax, a rate which many Treasury officials confronted. Along with many other ‘productive’ people in the community, they thought that that was a pretty good thing. They saw the broad based consumption tax as a way of doing that. I was a fresh economist on staff. From my training, I would ordinarily have been obliged to think that it was a good idea too, but I did not. And Peter Cook was a bit of a sceptic. I can reveal now that Cookie and I ‘cooked up’ more than one or two papers on what a dreadful thing this broad based consumption tax was. Peter bore a few scars by releasing those papers, arguing against the broad based consumption tax, on his own behalf and on behalf of others in the Centre Left.

Nevertheless, the white paper was produced. The broad based consumption tax was option (c). There was an option (a), which was ultimately adopted. No-one ever really talks about option (b), which was our option. That shows what an inspired idea option (b) turned out to be. Peter believed that a GST would be very unfair—that low-income earners could not be compensated adequately for it, that it would rise over time and that it would not bring the great benefits claimed in terms of export competitiveness and improved incentives. I think that Peter was right then and that his view is right now. Nevertheless, we have the GST. It is a $38 billion tax and no-one is seriously arguing that we should get rid of it.

Peter applied the same standards to the debate on the GST: what would this particular policy proposal do for the Australian people and, most particularly, what impact would it have on the most vulnerable in our community? On the basis of believing that a broad based consumption tax would have an adverse impact on the most vulnerable in our community, Peter opposed it.

Our next engagement was in relation to Tasmanian forests. Peter had a really hard brief here. Graham Richardson was advocating—as was I, I must say—a very expansive policy in protecting the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests of Tasmania. We held the Helsham inquiry and ended up adopting the minority position against the majority position. The minority position was to put on the World Heritage List a very large tract of land—I think 282,000 hectares give or take an inch. Peter’s job was to run the contrary case within the cabinet. He had developed a much smaller set of proposals. We were despatched by Bob Hawke to go to Tasmania and see if we could get some support for this much more modest proposal.

Someone who did have a view on forest policy in Tasmania was Lloyd Rees, a rather well-known painter. Through his son we visited Lloyd. Peter eloquently, I must say, put the strongest possible case as to why this was a responsible forest policy. It took about three hours of having cups of tea and then, at the end of it, after Lloyd had taken in all of the arguments, Peter said, ‘What do you think, Lloyd?’ Lloyd said, ‘Yes, but why do you want to cut down the trees?’ I thought that said it all. So we reported back to Bob Hawke that Lloyd had a fairly clear view that the trees should not be cut down, and probably the proposal that ultimately got up would have been unsatisfactory to Lloyd too because it did involve cutting down some trees. But it was certainly a memorable experience for all of us.

Peter was promoted to cabinet by Paul Keating when Paul became Prime Minister. The fundamental reason why Peter was promoted to cabinet was that he always ran the arguments, he ran the case. What Paul used to say about Cookie was that he would run the brief of his department. They did not necessarily have to agree with every aspect, but Paul fundamentally believed that the various portfolio ministers should come together and represent the views of their departments. They could depart from them but they should put that view into the policy debate in the cabinet room. Peter was fantastic at that. He worked tirelessly to get across those briefs and always put the best possible argument in the cabinet process. That is why Peter was promoted permanently to cabinet by Paul Keating.

I then dropped out of the scene for a fair while but, on coming back in 1998, there we were again: fighting the GST. I was again delighted to work with Peter as he chaired the Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and Education Legislation Committee inquiry into the GST and a new tax system. I am sure that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition would agree that Peter worked tirelessly on that, day in, day out and all around the country, again bringing forward all the arguments but with that fundamental criterion in mind: what does this proposal do to the most vulnerable people in our country? On that basis Peter was again able to say that he did not support the GST.

We then moved on to a Economics References Committee inquiry into the Fair Prices and Better Access for All (Petroleum) Bill 1999—petrol prices are in the news again—and Peter again applied that rigour. We produced what I think was a very responsible report. It was not just opportunistic, saying, ‘Oh, petrol prices are high; they ought to do something about it.’ Specific proposals came out of that report. Those proposals are still relevant today, and again there was the rigour and energy that Peter applied to it. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition referred to a trip to China, which I think was a real highlight of all our careers, not only for the great work and the level at which we were engaged but the camaraderie that we enjoyed as we got to know each other. It was just a fantastic time. Peter was the great helmsman. He got us around China and into all of these meetings, and he did it with great distinction, the sort of distinction that he had gained in the negotiations in which he was so deeply involved towards the end of the Uruguay Round. It was, as others have said, a highlight of his career to be able to sign off on that Uruguay Round.

I will speak a bit more about trade in a moment, but the other great achievement of Peter Cook, Cookie, was the introduction of enterprise bargaining. It seems to me that that is the fundamental reform that has led to so much productivity growth, together with the other economic reforms. In the labour market that is the reform that created genuine productivity growth, not what the government is going on with now. That is not reform; that is just brutality. Enterprise bargaining was not an easy transition. In convincing the union movement and employers that this was a good thing, but particularly the union movement, Peter had to apply all his skills, good graces and goodwill. He did that with distinction. It made me think that if you had a career and you wanted to say, ‘I did two great things. I had two great achievements in my career, which spanned the 1980s and 1990s,’ it would be hard to go past signing off on the Uruguay Round and introducing enterprise bargaining. Although it is not immediately obvious, both of those reforms did fundamentally help the poorest people in our community by creating jobs, both through enterprise bargaining and through trade liberalisation. Peter had that conviction about him and he knew that was what both of those major policy reforms could do, and they have done.

Peter Cook was a compassionate human being. He taught us all compassion. He had enormous integrity. He knew that there were many causes that he was championing that were unpopular. He was coming up against people whom he respected and liked who could not understand why Cookie was doing these things. But he did not flinch. He did not say, ‘I’d better rethink this; I am making myself unpopular.’ He was always pleasant but always determined to achieve the outcome.

In politics, honesty is a precious commodity, and Peter Cook had a very large amount of that. He was just such an honest man. If he disagreed with you, you knew absolutely. There is a lesson for all of us in that. Peter was a man of principle. I think he paid a high price for being so principled—but, in the end, he probably would not have minded. If when you are dying and you look back on your years and can say yes to the questions ‘Was I honest? Did I have compassion? Was I a person of principle? Did I have integrity?’ you have led a pretty good life. Peter Cook led a very good life.

When Peter was diagnosed with cancer and he was leaving this place, I went around to see him and I gave him a hug because I knew that things were very bad. Cookie always said, ‘I’ll keep fighting, I can beat this,’ but I knew the prognosis was bad. Even as things worsened and through all the operations that he had in Sydney, he just kept fighting—always thinking, ‘Maybe there’s some hope; even if things are gloomy I’ll do the very best I can.’ He never flinched under pressure on the policy front and he never flinched under pressure when he was dying. Peter Cook was a great man and a great friend and I miss him very much.

The strength and love that Barbara displayed for her husband right through their lives but most particularly in that last terrible 12 months is almost indescribable. Barbara, we are thinking of you today. You have done a fantastic job.