Former NSW Labor senator Steve Hutchins dies aged 61

The former NSW Labor senator who played a key role in unseating Kevin Rudd as PM has died, aged 61, after a long battle with cancer.

Former NSW Labor Senator Steve Hutchins has died aged 61. Picture: Kym Smith

Former NSW Labor senator Steve Hutchins has died, aged 61, after a long battle with cancer.

Hutchins, who led the Transport Workers Union as state secretary and federal president before entering the senate in 1998, died earlier today in a western Sydney hospital.

During almost 13 years as a Labor senator, he was an influential figure in the NSW ALP Right who played a key role in unseating Kevin Rudd as prime minister and promoting Julia Gillard to replace him.

Hutchins was also a fierce supporter of former federal Labor leader Kim Beazley, believing he would have made a good prime minister.

His party positions included president of the NSW ALP (1998-2002), ALP national vice-president (2000-2002) and member of the ALP national executive (1997-2002).

Hutchins was remembered today as very passionate in his pursuit of what he believed was right, and for his personal loyalty to colleagues and friends, including on occasions when he disagreed with them.

One long time associate said: “He was the best of the Catholic Right — it was his human decency.”

Hutchins grew up with fellow Labor luminaries and close friends Michael Lee, a minister in the Keating government, and John Della Bosca, a former NSW party secretary and government minister. The trio were students together at De La Salle College, Cronulla, in Sydney’s south.

Hutchins became a Labor Party member at 15, and joined the NSW branch of the TWU as an organiser after graduating from the University of Sydney.

As part of his credentials to become a union official, Hutchins worked briefly in the late 1970s on a garbage truck and as a forklift driver.

His early mentor was Leo McLeay, the former assistant NSW ALP secretary and later House of Representatives speaker, who recommended Hutchins to the TWU’s leadership as a recruit.

Hutchins succeeded John McLean as the TWU’s NSW branch secretary in 1993, serving in the position for five years until moving to the Senate.

He was also the TWU’s federal president over the same period, and an executive member of the ACTU when the peak union organisation was led by Bill Kelty.

At one point Hutchins led a walkout of his union as an ACTU affiliate because he did not believe a shift to decentralised bargaining was capable of giving the best wage outcomes for truck drivers in the fragmented industry he represented.

Although he was an avid supporter of Paul Keating as prime minister, Hutchins did not accept that the TWU should be included in big union merger plans backed by Mr Kelty and Mr Keating in the 1990s, and he succeeded in keeping the TWU out as a stand-alone union.

As a Senate committee chairman, Hutchins headed the joint parliamentary committee on the National Crime Authority and Australian Crime Commission, and was responsible for a significant report on law enforcement. He also sat on committees related to legal and constitutional matters, and foreign affairs and trade.

Hutchins was key part of a move to oust Mr Rudd as prime minister in 2010 because of alarm inside the Labor caucus about Mr Rudd’s alleged lack of consultation and serious dysfunction in the running of his office. Opinion polls also suggested that Labor might not win the imminent election with him in charge after a collapse in voter support.

Mr Rudd’s ousting had its genesis in the Senate before enough numbers were gathered in the lower house for a party room vote that installed Ms Gillard as his replacement. In that group Hutchins was close to South Australian senator Don Farrell and then Western Australian senator Mark Bishop, among others.

Hutchins did not take public credit for his role in helping to overthrow Mr Rudd and declined to appear on the ABC Four Corners program, The Killing Season, that explored the extraordinary overthrow of a first-term prime minister.

Along with Senator Farrell and Wayne Swan, Hutchins stated loyal to Ms Gillard throughout her prime ministership.

Although he had left the senate in mid-2011, he remained interested in ALP politics and did not support a move to dump Ms Gillard and reinstate Mr Rudd in the lead-up to the 2013 federal election that Labor lost.

Hutchins suffered his first bout of cancer shortly after entering the Senate. He recovered with treatment, but the disease later recurred.

He is survived by his wife, Natalie, a minister in the Victorian government, their son Xavier, and Hutchins’ five children with his first wife, former NSW government minister Diane Beamer: Lauren, Julia, Michael, Georgia and Madelaine.

Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten said: “Today the Labor Party has lost a faithful servant, the labour movement has lost a champion and the working people of Australia have lost one of their own.”

Mr Shorten said Hutchins, as the TWU’s NSW secretary and federal president, was a unifying leader who never forgot where he came from.

“He believed, fundamentally, in the dignity of work, the right to organise and the vital role unions played in improving conditions and lifting working standards,” he said.

Mr Shorten said Hutchins was particularly proud that he helped lead the Senate inquiry into “the Forgotten Australians” and child migrants.

“That process shone a light into a dark corner of Australia’s history, It unearthed thousands of harrowing tales of abuse and neglect, but most importantly it led to a National Apology from the Rudd government in 2009.”

The Labor leader recalled when Hutchins left the Senate in 2011 that he quoted from the Book of Timothy, saying he had “fought the good fight, finished the course, kept with the faith”.

“There are no truer words to reflect his contribution to our movement and our nation, Mr Shorten said.

He said the “entire Labor family” sent its love to Hutchins’ wife, Natalie, his children and grandchildren: “May he rest in peace.”