Page 1719 - Week 06 - Thursday, 13 August 1992
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Some members in this chamber may not appreciate the work unions have done to improve conditions. Fighting for a 40-hour week was a tough campaign that took a strong resolve to stick with. Thanks to the initial efforts of workers such as Bill Spellman, in Australia we now have 35- or 38-hour weeks. As part of the campaign, the whole shearing team was sacked and scab labour was brought in from Victoria. Time has proven that his and the other shearers' position was correct. This is a lesson we should never forget.
In 1951 Bill married and in 1953 he ended shearing and worked as a fencer near Cooma. At the same time he joined the Australian Labor Party and became secretary of the Cooma branch. As a member of the Labor Party he was a delegate to the Eden-Monaro electorate council, the Monaro State electorate council and to the New South Wales branch conference for nearly 20 years. Bill Spellman maintained his involvement in the labour movement. He was active in the pastoral industry dispute in 1956 and, following that, saw the need for organised labour in the Cooma area. He set up and became secretary of the Cooma AWU pastoral committee. He was committed not only to the labour movement but also to the community where he lived. Bill Spellman was a member of the Cooma District Hospital board, an alderman on the Cooma Municipal Council, and later a member of the ACT Advisory Council.
Bill was always active in the AWU, and in 1959 he was appointed the organiser for the Canberra and southern areas. As an organiser, some of the job sites covered by the AWU were the Commonwealth Avenue bridge, Kings Avenue bridge, Bendora Dam, Corin Dam, Scrivener Dam, Lake Burley Griffin, Molonglo sewerage treatment works, Tuggeranong-Molonglo sewerage tunnel, and Googong Dam. His union's members contributed a great deal to the building of the nation's capital. As an AWU organiser, he also covered the cleaners until 1962, and the shearing sheds in Wagga, Junee, Cootamundra, Young, Cowra, Crookwell, Goulburn, Braidwood, Cooma and Bombala. Bill Spellman continued his involvement with the AWU and was going to retire in 1990. However, union organisers of that calibre are difficult to replace and he remained an organiser until this year. The union movement, in particular the AWU, and all Australians have benefited greatly from the spirit and courage of Bill Spellman, and will remember and feel his contribution for many years.
Retirement of Mr Bill Spellman
MR LAMONT (6.37): Madam Speaker, I wish to make a short statement in support of Mr Berry's comments. I too wish to pay tribute to the work of Bill Spellman as a fine Australian and as somebody with whom I was proud to be associated during the 15-odd years prior to entering the Assembly that I was an active trade union member and official in the ACT. Mr Spellman is well known throughout country New South Wales and the ACT for his unceasing efforts on behalf of working-class men and women, particularly in the rural sector. Although I will admit that at times I may have differed with Mr Spellman, I always knew that, in terms of the way he presented an issue, when it was dealt with he would get on and deal with the next issue. Although at times this phrase is overused, I believe that Mr Spellman epitomises what I regard as the greatest accolade you can pay a fellow Australian: He is a fine Australian, and was a fine Australian in the work he carried out.
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