The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (14:30): I rise to support the motion. My first vague recollections of Mr Allan Rodda was as a younger person in Mount Gambier. Having been raised in Mount Gambier it was always strange—and it must have been the late 1960s, early 1970s—that we had a member for Victoria in South Australia. As someone who did not understand much about politics, I could not quite work it out.
I then met Allan during a period in the 1970s when I was working with the Liberal Party and Allan was in state parliament, and for a brief period of three years our parliamentary careers crossed over as he was concluding his career and I and other newer members such as Di Laidlaw and Peter Dunn were starting our careers in the Legislative Council.
Allan Rodda to everyone who knew him—and both leaders referred indirectly to this—in current parlance was not an adversarial politician. He was not someone who enjoyed the cut and thrust of politics. In all my time knowing him, it was hard to find anyone who did not like Allan Rodda as a person, even during the controversial years to which previous speakers have referred, in particular when it was getting intense in relation to the prisons policy and the correctional services policy and there were major issues in relation to the escape of prisoners and various other controversial aspects in his administration of that portfolio.
I know that members of the then Labor opposition who, while they went about their task as an opposition is required to do, never enjoyed the task of having to attack Allan Rodda. I should say there were more favourite targets of oppositions. In recent years both Liberal and Labor oppositions have relished getting their teeth into various ministers (if I can put it that way) but, in relation to Allan Rodda, I know from discussions with Labor members at the time that they did not enjoy the task of having to attack Allan Rodda in either the parliament or the public arena because he was a thoroughly decent, thoroughly likeable, hardworking politician and person, as the leaders have attested to in their earlier contributions.
As other Liberal members have highlighted, over the years I have had a bit to do with Bruce, his son, who was actively engaged in the Liberal Party organisation. I pass on my condolences to him and other members of the Rodda family. I am pleased in the public arena to acknowledge the work he undertook not only for the Liberal Party but also for the people of South Australia over many years.
