Page 2040 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 28 May 1991
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MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition): The Labor members of the Assembly join in supporting this motion of condolence on the death of Professor Manning Clark. Professor Manning Clark will be remembered, of course, as a great historian. Indeed, it was he who put Australian history on the map. He did that in more than one way. He put it on the map as an academic study. He is largely responsible for the fact that the study of Australian history is pursued within Australian universities in a serious and considered way. He also put it on the map as far as ordinary Australians are concerned. If I can speak as a person who has not made a formal study of our history, I can say that I have read the work of Professor Manning Clark. I know of many other people in ordinary walks of life who have also read his work. What he provided to people like me is a very much deeper understanding of Australia's roots and of our history and, as well as that, of course, a very much deeper sense of the worth of Australian history and of all things Australian.
Professor Manning Clark was an unconventional man. Indeed, he railed against conservatism, against stagnation and against the status quo. I think it was his unconventional attitudes that brought him into controversy in much of his history. In fact his unconventional attitude towards history was always to favour the ordinary person. His approach to writing history was to write about ordinary people and about the scene that they experienced at the time; to deal equally with the less successful people and with the great leaders at the time. I think it is that which has endeared him so much to a great many Australians.
His unconventional attitudes also extended to his own personal appearance. I do not believe that anybody who ever laid eyes on him would ever forget his imposing figure, his hat, his beard and so on. He was very much a Canberra institution, though I am sure he would hate that term. Throughout his life and his work he remained true to his Australianness. His work reflects his own dedication to Australia and his very optimistic beliefs about history and about our country.
I will just read briefly from the epilogue that he wrote to volume 6 of A History of Australia. Manning Clark said:
This generation has a chance to be wiser than previous generations. They can make their own history. With the end of the domination by the straiteners, the enlargers of life now have their chance. They have the chance to lavish on each other the love the previous generations had given to God, and to bestow on the here and now the hopes and dreams they had once entertained for some future human harmony. It is the task of the
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