Wednesday, 8 February 2023

Tom McClelland

Nick STAIKOS (Bentleigh) (09:58): I rise to pay tribute to Tom McClelland, who passed away on 29 December last year at the age of 90. I was privileged to have been invited to attend Tom’s birthday celebration last year. When Tom got up to give his speech last year, he said he would speak for 1 minute for every decade of his life, and by the end of his speech he was around 500 years old – that is because he led a very, very interesting life.

I met Tom around 10 years ago. Tom and I were in the same art group at Godfrey Street Community House, and one day Tom declared to the group, ‘I was there when we bought Blue Poles’. What Tom was referring to was that controversial decision of the Whitlam government to purchase that famous Jackson Pollock painting in 1973 for $1.3 million, now worth apparently around $500 million. I then found out that Tom was for many years a senior public servant at the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, serving under Whitlam, Fraser and Hawke. He was central to a number of key policy decisions, including establishing the Kakadu National Park as well as Indigenous land rights. But what I loved best about Tom was that when you spoke to him, he would be genuinely interested in you, in what you thought about things, in your experiences, in your motivations. I am led to believe he was a Liberal voter, but I am glad he made an exception for me. I was forever grateful.