Senator McKIERNAN (10:17 PM) —I will not delay the Senate too long tonight, but I want to put on record a tribute to the memory of two great Western Australians who passed away earlier this year. Western Australia has lost by the passing of both these individuals, but they came from opposite ends of the political spectrum.

The first I want to refer to is a former member of the Western Australian parliament, Mr S.E.I. Johnson, better known as Ted Johnson. I did not know Ted during his political life, but I certainly knew him during my political life. Ted was a very prolific letter writer, and I found that, while I did not agree with everything that he put forward to me, I found it very stimulating responding to the matters that he raised with me as a member of parliament representing him. He was also a prolific letter writer to our local newspaper, the West Australian, and indeed he sparked some very interesting debates, again on economic matters in that great state of Western Australia. I have already missed his passing, because we have not been getting his letters of recent times, and obviously they came to a sudden and complete halt in January. I want to pass on my and my office's condolences to all of his family members on their very sad loss.

The other person I want to refer to is from the other side of the political spectrum, a man named Maurice John Brockwell, who I came to know reasonably well through the Irish community in Western Australia. Maurice was an active member of the Irish Australian Business Association, the Celtic Club, the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce of Victoria and of course he also had links with the Australian British Chamber of Commerce in Western Australia. He was a member and sponsor of the Australian-Irish Heritage Association and a foundation chairman of the Irish Heritage Scholarship Foundation. He was, for quite a period of time, treasurer of the Liberal Party in Western Australia and was also very senior in the Australian Hotels Association.

It would take me quite some time to go through the complete CV of Mr Maurice Brockwell. He was a man of substance; he had considerable wealth, which he generated for himself through his work in the hospitality industry, which he had been involved in for some 35 years. But it was not wealth that he just took for himself; it was wealth that he shared, and shared with enormous generosity, with the community and with those in need in Western Australia. He is sorely missed within the Irish-Australian community in Western Australia and again I want to put on the record my condolences and pass on the sympathy of myself, my wife and my office to Marianne and their three daughters. He left this earth at the age of 53 and it really was a very untimely passing and that man will be sorely missed, as indeed will Ted Johnson, whom I referred to earlier. The regret I have about Ted is that his passing and his funeral did not come to my notice until it was all over, and I sincerely regret not being present at his final interment.

I had, during the course of the Senate estimates committees, the opportunity to read a number of documents relating to the matters being addressed within the Senate estimates committees, and I came across an interesting article from the December 2001-January 2002 edition of arena magazine, entitled Authoritarianism in the name of freedom: how our detention camps breach the most basic human rights. It was written by Mr Julian Burnside. I think Mr Burnside is a Queens Counsel; he is certainly somebody of great eminence within the legal profession in Australia. I have enormous admiration for Mr Burnside and the work that he has done within the legal profession, and I will put that on the record before I tip a bucket over him for some of the matters that he raises within the article.

I do not take exception to his comments and critique of what goes on in our detention centres. He has a right to believe what he chooses to believe. Whether he has tested what he was told prior to writing what he wrote in this particular article is a matter for Mr Burnside to reflect upon. But I do recognise his great work within our judicial system in this country. He has defended many cases which many lawyers would think twice about defending. He has certainly been to the forefront in advocating human rights, and he is addressing a number of what he asserts are human rights breaches in this particular article.

In one area he gets it horribly wrong, and he insults me as a representative of constituents in Western Australia and, indeed, he insults the constituents of Western Australia. It is for that reason I am using this opportunity to tip that proverbial bucket on Mr Burnside. I quote a small part of the article:

He is obviously talking about asylum seekers who are held in detention here.

Madam Deputy President, if you head in that direction you are going well away from the Curtin detention centre, which is at the Curtin Air Base, which is in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, right up the top end beyond Broome and certainly well beyond Port Hedland. Mr Burnside needs to take a lesson in geography from whoever is informing him because Curtin is in almost the opposite direction—certainly going north rather than going east. He goes on to say in his article:

He is right about that, although these days you can do it in a little quicker than 18 hours. When I last drove that full distance it took 18 hours non-stop, other than for petrol and food and other necessities of life. But you can do it a lot quicker if you are using other drivers. Of course, if you use modern transport methods you will be there in two hours and 10 minutes, which is just double the time between Melbourne and Canberra. The part of the article that really upsets me is at the end of this particular paragraph:

I resent Port Hedland, Curtin and Derby being described as `God-forsaken places'. All of the constituents I seek to represent in those places just outside of Derby, and indeed Port Hedland, would resent being described as `God-forsaken'. Certainly they are tough. Port Hedland was a port town servicing the mining industry and Derby has had its own claims to fame over the years, but there is no way in the world that they could be described as `God-forsaken'. It is tough in these places. As I said just after a report was handed down last year from the Human Rights Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, the conditions at these detention centres at Curtin and Port Hedland are not what you would regard as Hilton or Sheraton standards, but if you go a few miles up the road to one of the Aboriginal town sites close to Port Hedland or close to Derby then you really see where it gets tough. There is no air conditioning in those town sites. Food and medicine are sometimes very hard to get. As for education, as we know in this place, that is very difficult.

I want to end by giving Mr Burnside an accolade. I am aware of, and do put on the public record, the work he and his partner do for homeless people in the great city of Melbourne. I know, and it has been reported, that the doors of their home are open on a regular basis to homeless people, who are given food, shelter and support. I commend Mr Burnside and his partner for that great effort they make for humanity in Melbourne. I hope that work continues, but I hope that when he next writes an article, certainly if he is writing anything about the state of Western Australia, he checks some of the facts on the geography of the place. I would hope that some of the other purported facts contained in the article have been better rehearsed than his geography has.