Tributes flow for ‘boy from Boree Creek’

There was something different about Tim Fischer. It came down to an innate, unassuming decency.

Tim Fischer on his property in Mudgegonga, Victoria. Picture David Geraghty.

Behind the big hat, an obsession with steam trains and the high ­offices he occupied over a prodigious political career, there ­really was something different about Tim Fischer. It came down to an innate, unassuming decency.

It was why a man who was easy to ridicule but dangerous to underrate carved out such a ­revered place in public life.

His death yesterday from blood cancer, at 73, was mourned on all sides of politics and by ­people in all walks of life, from one end of the country to the other.

The boy from Boree Creek, NSW, who married late and never fully outgrew a childhood speech impediment, served as a soldier, MP, National Party leader, deputy prime minister and ambassador to the Holy See in the Vatican.

Mr Fischer will be remembered, of course, for the idiosyncrasies that fused happily with a raw-boned political persona: his entwined passion for train travel and the Himalayan state of Bhutan; the sartorial trademark of a farmer’s Akubra; that quirky, rat-a-tat speaking style that earned him the moniker of “Two-Minute Tim” on the hustings.

Tim Fischer's memories ... in VIetnam, with the pop and after he was made Companion of the Order of Australia.

These should not mask his achievements and principled ­advocacy, built on an uncanny ability to connect with Australians in the bush and the ’burbs. When the Nationals’ rural constituency threatened to erupt over John Howard’s gun crackdown after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, Mr Fischer stood by the prime minister and stared down the ­rowdies. The law stuck.

Tim Fischer Tributes: Mobile users, click here to read the pdf.

He called for greater understanding for the plight of Palestinians and spoke out against Israel’s military incursions into Lebanon, incurring the ire of Australia’s influential Jewish lobby.

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Pauline Hanson was at the height of her popularity in the late 1990s when Mr Fischer took her on, alongside other leading ­Nationals and a rising Liberal star by the name of Tony Abbott. That first, ugly wave of Hansonism broke on those efforts.

“Tim Fischer was a big Australian in every sense of the word,” Scott Morrison said yesterday, leading the tributes. “Big in stature, big in his passion, big in his ­vision for what Australians could achieve and big in his view of Australia’s place in the world. As a ­result, Tim Fischer will forever cast a big shadow on our nation.”

Tim Fischer with John Howard in 1997.

Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader Michael McCormack lauded Mr Fischer as a champion of regional and rural communities, a giant of the party and of Australia. “He loved Australia as much as Australians loved him and that passion for country was evident through his life and career,” he said.

Describing him as the “quintessential” Nationals politician, former leader Barnaby Joyce said Mr Fischer had been key to the ­longevity of the Howard government, from 1996 to 2007.

Opponents underestimated him at their peril. “At the start, people thought of him as quirky and then they realised that he was one the most astute and able politicians that probably graced the parliament,” Mr Joyce said.

Former Labor leader Bill Shorten said Mr Fischer was a doting dad and parent-carer, a committed public servant and army ­veteran.

Tim Fischer and Premier Rob Borbidge at the state National Party conference in 1996.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott, who worked with Mr Fischer on a government advisory group exploring high-speed rail travel, another of his pet interests, said the nation had lost “one of its most iconic leaders and one of its most decent people”.

Yet as high as he climbed, Mr Fischer never forgot where he came from: the land. Raised on a property in the dusty Riverina district of NSW, he went to boarding school and then to war. A conscript, he passed officer training and volunteered for Vietnam, where he was a platoon commander and wounded in combat. He also contracted malaria.

Elected to NSW parliament at the age of 24, he switched to the big show in Canberra in 1984. The leadership fell into his lap after Charles Blunt lost his seat at the Nats’ disastrous 1990 election; within six years he was deputy PM to Mr Howard, a folksy foil to the hardnosed pursuit of waterfront reform and the GST that followed its early test on gun control.

As willing as it got in parliament, Mr Fischer did not make his differences with Labor personal. “I don’t ever recall him speaking ill of anybody on that level,” said another former Liberal leader, Brendan Nelson. “He was certainly a critic of Paul Keating and others in the ALP but it was as with everything with him — it was never personal.”

Tim Fischer holding a "Tim Fischer Bridge" sign at Bundaberg during his national farewell tour.

Dr Nelson vividly remembers Mr Fischer’s goodbye from parliament in 1999 after he announced he was leaving politics to spend more time with his wife, Judy, and their boys, Harrison and Dominic. The couple had married in 1992, ending his notoriety as Canberra’s most talked-about bachelor. “There was immense emotion,” Dr Nelson said. “I was looking across at the Labor frontbench and Martin Ferguson had tears streaming down his face, as did others, including on our side.”

Mr Fischer went on to chair Tourism Australia, where he worked with Mr Morrison prior to the Prime Minister’s entry to parliament; became national chairman of the Royal Flying Doctor Service; and was named by Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd as Australia’s first Rome-based ­ambassador to the Holy See.

Still, nothing he did in politics struck more of a chord with the public than his devotion to his family, especially to Harrison, now 26, as he struggled with ­autism. The proud dad spoke of his eldest son’s progress when he appeared on ABC TV’s Australian Story last December, looking thin and wan from his decade-long battle with cancer, which had progressed to acute myeloid leukaemia. Acknowledging that his prognosis was poor, Mr Fischer said at the time: “It’s as it is. At three score plus 12, you take the cards you’re dealt with and hope and pray.”

Queensland Nationals MP Keith Pitt telephoned him last week, not long before he went into hospital in Albury. “He was his usual pragmatic self,” an admiring Mr Pitt said. “He said he had been advised that the leukaemia was back with a vengeance, and he congratulated me about my election win here in Hinkler. He was amazing in the circumstances.”

Mr Fischer died at 2.30am yesterday. Mr Morrison said the family would be offered a state funeral to “celebrate his life and extraordinary contribution to Australia”.