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Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating has praised fellow party stalwart and former governor-general Bill Hayden for not kowtowing to the United States in a eulogy at his state funeral in Queensland.<\/p>\n
Keating was among a group including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Hayden\u2019s eldest surviving daughter, and the Sister of Mercy whose friendship led the avowed atheist to church later in life, who addressed the crowd who farewelled him on Friday.<\/p>\n
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Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating speaks at the state funeral for former governor-general and Labor leader Bill Hayden in Ipswich, west of Brisbane.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Dan Peled<\/cite><\/p>\n Touching the vast and lasting impact Hayden had on his family, community, party and country, Keating recounted the roles held by him in Australian governments under Bob Hawke and Gough Whitlam, from treasurer to social security and foreign minister.<\/p>\n In that latter role throughout the 1980s Cold War era, Keating said Hayden \u201csought to bury the erroneous notion\u201d that the country was totally dependent on the Australia, New Zealand and United States Security Treaty.<\/p>\n Keating quoted from a cabinet decision in which Hayden outlined reservations about blanket support for US strategic perceptions and activities, and the invocation of ANZUS treaty to justify such a position.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that diversity of opinion and attitude would not, in his view, effect the fundamental solidarity between underlying the treaty between the United States and Australia itself,\u201d Keating said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just a big position by Bill, but a very brave one.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBill suggesting that Australia presenting as a sycophant or supplicant would carry unacceptable risks where our interests would simply be subsumed by Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n Mourners were also walked through a brief history of the \u201chuman zoo\u201d that was the Labor Party after the Second World War, and Hayden\u2019s journey through and to the top of it as a formative leader in opposition.<\/p>\n \u201cBill\u2019s re-establishment of federal Labor as a real and genuine force is without doubt the crowning achievement of his long public life,\u201d Keating said. \u201cWe may see the likes of Bill Hayden again, but I doubt it.\u201d<\/p>\n Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Hayden on his return from overseas travel, including to China, in 1984.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Antony Matheus Linsen\/Fairfax Media<\/cite><\/p>\n Albanese said that while some giants cast a shadow, Hayden had lit the road ahead and lay its foundations \u2013 including universal healthcare and the country\u2019s first single mothers pension.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can be grateful that this child of the Depression, turned-police officer, joined the Australian Labor Party to advance his values,\u201d Albanese said.<\/p>\n \u201cOn behalf of the Labor family, I express my deepest sympathies to his family who so generously shared him.\u201d<\/p>\n Hayden\u2019s eldest surviving daughter, Georgina, told the crowd including Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and federal LNP MP Luke Howarth \u2013 representing Opposition Leader Peter Dutton \u2013 her siblings and mother, Dallas, had done so with \u201ceveryone, all our lives\u201d.<\/p>\n Hayden\u2019s wife of 63 years, Dallas (centre), and one of their four children, Georgina (left), at his funeral on Friday.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Dan Peled<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been told by many that sharing personal details, sharing our memories, is the expected thing. That people want to know what a wonderful father he was \u2013 he is,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cLike our father, we don\u2019t feel constrained to do the expected thing. Like our father, we question why. Like our father, we wish we could do better, be better \u2026 Like our father loved us \u2013 loves us \u2013 we love him.\u201d<\/p>\n Those gathered at St Mary\u2019s Catholic Church in Hayden\u2019s eventual hometown of Ipswich, about 30 kilometres south-west of Brisbane and near the area he served for 27 years as the federal member for Oxley, also heard from Sister of Mercy Angela Mary Doyle.<\/p>\n Where it all started … Bill Hayden\u2019s tin-roofed house in Mabel Street, Highgate Hill, from his working-class upbringing in Brisbane.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Fairfax Media<\/cite><\/p>\n While Hayden spent much of his life as an avowed atheist, he described his 2018 Catholic baptism in the same church at the age of 85 \u2013 with Doyle present \u2013 part of filling the \u201cgnawing pain\u201d in his heart and soul about the meaning of life.<\/p>\n Hayden had told of an earlier family visit to Doyle in hospital, whose lifelong friendship and Christian example he felt \u201cembraced and loved by\u201d, which marked a pivotal moment in his late embrace of the church.<\/p>\n Doyle told the mourners that had Hayden remained an atheist to his death in late October, \u201cI\u2019m certain that, to Bill\u2019s astonishment, Jesus would have welcomed him\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cBill Hayden never looked away from a fight for a cause in which he believed. We are all the better for his humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n Get the inside word on the news, sport, food, people and places Brisbane is talking about.<\/b> Sign up for our City Talk newsletter here.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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