Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for the Arts and Leader of the House) (09:17): John Olsen was a colossus in a beret, a giant with a twinkle in his eye, a bon vivant, a raconteur, a man whose charisma was so perfectly partnered by his generosity, and, above all, he was an artist of towering talent—one who gave Australia the gift of a fresh lens through which to see our own landscapes. John summed it up himself in 2016 at the opening of a retrospective on what was by then a six-decade career, and I quote what he said that day: We've got the richness of emptiness, which for some reason was known as the dead heart … That's a lie. That's not true. It's teeming with life. And this kind of thing is an exciting thing. To be an Australian artist is to be an explorer. How he explored, making art during life's highs but also striving to muster the more elusive forces of creation during the lows, those moments when the sunshine must have felt so terribly far away, and he just kept going. This child of the Great Depression grew up burning with a desire to draw. It was a blaze that never dimmed and its bright glow came to be matched by our own slowly dawning realisation of just how good he was. There were paintings on walls, paintings on ceilings, paintings in galleries and in the Opera House alike—paintings that, like the man himself, burst with life and emotion, borne from the inner richness of a man who understood just how crucial it was for an artist to be engaged with the world, to read widely and to be immersed in poetry and music and philosophy. The breadth of his career took so many forms. He was around long enough to protest against the Archibald Prize, win the Archibald Prize and then speak out again. One year, when he ventilated his views on the winning painting, he was asked whether his comments could be construed as sour grapes. John replied, 'How can it be sour grapes when I am the richest grape?' Yet what shone more brightly with him was his mentorship of young artists, an education that placed a crucial emphasis on helping them build a cultural hinterland for themselves. John understood that true art needs rich soil to feed its roots. One artist who benefited was former champion athlete Sophie Cape, who won the John Olsen Prize for Figure Drawing in 2010. As Sophie recounted last only month: He used to do this beautiful thing where he'd just randomly call me and recite a poem to me that inspired him, and that he thought I'd really like and would suit my work or where I was at or just inspire me. A couple of days later, the book of that poet would arrive in the mail. Now John Olsen's great voyage of exploration is at an end, but the joy in his sense of discovery is all around us. Our hearts go out to his family and to all he loved. While we mourn John's death we celebrate his life in all its breadth and splendour and wrap ourselves in his colours.