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Wednesday, 21 March 2012
Page: 3751

Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney) (13:54): I inform the House that, at the age of 56, Lincoln Hall passed away this morning from mesothelioma. Lincoln Hall was one of Australia's foremost mountaineers and he was a friend. He was left to die at that top of Mount Everest in 2006 after having summitted, something he had sought all his life to achieve. As I joked to him, no human being in the history of the Earth has ever slept at a higher point and survived than did Lincoln.

Lincoln was a formidable man and he has a magnificent wife and family. Michael Dillon, who came up Mount Kilimanjaro with us as a film man, was the one who, back in 2006, rang Barbara to tell her that her husband had died at the top of Mount Everest. No wife should have to be informed on two separate occasions that her husband has died.

The big C wins again. Even someone with his fortitude and courage was unable to beat cancer. It is for all of us to give our condolences to Dylan, Dorje and Barbara and to remember that the hand of God cannot be defied again and again.