Don Willesee, Politician, 1916-2003
People remember politicians for their triumphs and reforms, for their disasters and mistakes. Some will not be remembered at all, or, at least, not for long. Don Willesee will be remembered for a greater variety of reasons than most.
Kim Beazley snr, a fellow minister in Gough Whitlam's government, said after Willesee's death aged 87 on Tuesday that his greatest legacy lay in his family's "political wisdom". Kim Beazley jnr, on the other hand, will remember his "enormous but quiet contribution to the Labor movement".
The Willesee family said in a statement they would remember him for his integrity, the sense of social justice he imparted and for being a key figure in the reformation of the Labor Party.
Whitlam acknowledged Wille- see's work in helping reform the ALP. He noted his early advocacy in the Senate for equal pay for women, which led to equal pay in the public sector in 1969. Labor's Jenny Macklin said in her condolence motion in the House of Representatives: "So many Australian women are truly indebted to his commitment to that fight and it will certainly never be forgotten."
A few will remember him as the youngest senator since federation, which he was thought to be when elected at 33 in 1949.
Many more will recall his solid contribution as foreign minister - he opened relations with African nations, developed better communications with the Pacific, helped broker closer ties with China and worked to develop the international Law of the Sea to share wealth with developing nations. Yet some still question his part in Australian policy towards Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975.
Willesee seems to have cared less than most about how he would be remembered. He told the Herald in 1987 that he was inclined to agree with Henry Ford when he said "history is bunk".
Willesee died in hospital after two heart attacks. The former West Australian senator had spent his last days in the company of his wife, Gwen, and their six children, Colleen, Mike, Terry, Geraldine, Don junior and Peter.
Born in the Kimberley town of Derby, Willesee's first election campaign was as a boy of eight. His father, a stock inspector, stood as a candidate in Carnarvon. He was defeated but not before young Don rang the bell to get people to the election meetings. He read Hansard while still at school.
He left school at 14 when his father and older brother Bill, who later sat in the Western Australian Parliament, lost their jobs during the Depression. Don said later that the post office where he worked, and which compelled him to sit a succession of examinations, and the union, provided his education.
His time growing up in Carnarvon and visiting towns such as Wyndham and Broome also began his interest in foreign affairs. He saw boats arriving from South-East Asia. The family had cane furniture from Singapore and ate tropical fruits. His father lived in the Philippines for a time.
As a member of the Postal Workers Union at 14, Willesee was technically affiliated to the Labor Party, which he formally joined in Perth at 21. He rose through the ranks to gain preselection for a Senate seat in 1949, when the chamber looked and often sounded like an old men's club. An attendant barred his entry on his first day: "Sorry son, senators only in here."
It was suggested in 1951 that he stand for the House of Representatives seat of Swan but he said: "I would have had to oppose a lot of my mates in the party. Well, there are things you just don't do. I'd had one break, in getting to the Senate, and I know the way the party works. It's just not on. You do it, and you've got to bump a lot of your mates."
During the 1960s, Willesee worked to destroy the influence of Joe Chamberlain, his fellow Western Australian, over Labor's federal executive. Chamberlain opposed many of the moves made by Whitlam, as the parliamentary party's deputy leader, to reform the ALP's structure and policies.
Whitlam wrote in Abiding Interests that, after Mick Young replaced Chamberlain in 1967: "For the first time in my parliamentary career the ALP had a federal secretary with the ability and determination to unite members of the party, to attract the support of electors and migrants for the party and to enable the media to understand and interpret the party."
Willesee beat Lionel Murphy to succeed Nick McKenna as Opposition Senate leader in 1966, the year in which he moved an amendment to the Public Service Act seeking equal pay for women.
Murphy had taken over as Senate leader by the time that Labor gained power in 1972 after 23 years of opposition. But Whitlam made Willesee special minister of state and minister assisting the prime minister. After Whitlam relinquished foreign affairs in 1973, Willesee took over.
He said Australia's primary concern was with Asia but that earlier Australian attitudes to foreign policy had been narrow. He was the first Australian minister to visit Africa in 10 years. He visited South America several times and most parts of the Pacific.
He addressed the United Nations General Assembly and the Department of Foreign Affairs encouraged him to seek the presidency of the General Assembly in 1975. Australia, however, had to make way for Luxembourg.
Willesee spoke out strongly against the Soviet Union's arrest of the dissident author Alexander Solzhenitsyn and complained to the Indonesian government about political prisoners.
He also became embroiled in the case of Georgi Ermolenko, a Russian violinist who came to Australia in 1974 with a Soviet youth orchestra. Ermolenko, then 18, liked Perth and decided to defect. Then he changed his mind. The problem seemed to be that, although he had his beloved violin with him, he did not have his beloved violinist mother and father.
Unions in Western Australia, influenced by the strongly anti-communist Democratic Labor Party, went on strike, alleging that Ermolenko was being deported against his will. Whitlam claimed that the CIA had encouraged unions to stop Ermolenko leaving. Politicians on the other side said the KGB had tried to get him back to Russia.
Willesee broke the deadlock by having the RAAF fly the violinist to Singapore, from where he picked up a flight to Moscow. The Ermolenko family were granted exit visas to Israel in 1975 and arrived in Australia soon after. Everyone was happy. Ermolenko went on to become a concert master at the Sydney Opera House.
Willesee differed with Whitlam over East Timor, just as Richard Woolcott, the ambassador in Jakarta, differed with Alan Renouf, Willesee's head of foreign affairs. Whitlam and Woolcott believed that it would be best for East Timor to be incorporated into Indonesia but that this should be achieved through self-determination.
Documents released in 2000 show that Willesee told Whitlam in December 1974 that Australia should try to persuade Jakarta to accept an independent East Timor. In July 1975, Willesee told Woolcott: "... the Indonesians appear unable to accept the thought of an independent Portuguese Timor. But ... we should continue our efforts to persuade the Indonesians that an independent Timor need not to be detrimental to their interests."
However, the Cold War still raged, the embers of the Vietnam War still burned, the United States was not interested, no country wanted to go to war in the interests of a relatively unknown leftist state and pragmatism won the day.
John Faulkner said in a condolence motion in the Senate this week: "His first speech, read today, seems remarkably prescient. His concerns were first, Australia's place in the world - whether we should look to Britain, to America, or find our own feet in the region as a member state of the United Nations.
"His second concern, and the one which occupied most of his speech, was the need for the government to grapple with the requirements of competition and social justice in a modernising economy.
"His passionate wish for Australia to chart an independent - and ethical - course in foreign affairs is sharply relevant today. So too is his belief that economic policy ought to be judged by its benefit to ordinary Australians, not by its ideological purity."
Senator Faulkner also said: "Don was father to six very talented children, who between them, amongst other things, revolutionised television current affairs. He was very proud of his children and their achievements - despite his politician's lingering suspicion of the press."
Willesee led a relatively quiet life after retiring from Canberra when Sir John Kerr dismissed the Whitlam government in 1975, just before the Indonesians took over East Timor. He swam most days, ran on the beach, worked out in a gym he had set up in his home at Quinns Rocks, northern Perth, and had a bet on the horses.
A state funeral will be held in Perth.
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