Sukkar, Michael MP

Mr SUKKAR (Deakin) (09:45): I join with the minister in honouring the life of Robert John Thomas Maguire, more colloquially known as Father Bob, as the minister outlined. Father Bob was born 88 years ago into a family living in poverty. It was a very difficult upbringing that led to Father Bob becoming an orphan. He had every right to be bitter, resentful and angry, but he didn't let the chains of this upbringing hold him back. He was able to break those chains when he joined the Catholic Church and was ordained a priest at age 25. As a boy, Bob knew destitution and disadvantage all too well, and he transformed himself into a man who would devote himself to those who were down and out. Through faith in God, the power of forgiveness and his abiding sense of fairness, Bob became, as he put it, the patron of the unloved and unlovely. He said, 'I wanted to work towards making the world a fairer place, to help people who were up against it to get ahead.' A testimony to his altruism and compassion, Father Bob joined the Australian Army Reserves in 1965. During the Vietnam War, he was a lieutenant who prepared young officers for combat through character training. Bob was also a chaplain for those who had been conscripted. I know there will be many veterans who are, to this day, still grateful for Bob's mentorship and guidance during those difficult days. During the Vietnam War, Bob supported them unconditionally, at a time when many of our servicemen felt the sting of contempt from left-wing protesters and intellectuals. Just as Bob cared deeply for the poor and those on the downside of advantage, he cherished those in his parish. For 39 years, as the minister said, he built a tightknit community at Sts Peter & Paul's Catholic Church in South Melbourne. The Catholic Church does a remarkable job in the social services space, an issue close to many of our hearts. This spans across Australia and beyond. It works to provide advocacy for those who need it most, and, importantly, is a community, a family and a place of peace, faith and love. The tradition that Bob embodied, the Catholic tradition, teaches that every person has a fundamental right to life and a right to what is required for human decency. Corresponding to these rights are duties and responsibilities—responsibilities to one another, to our families and to the larger society. Father Bob embodied this. Catholic charities span the globe and, indeed, are spread throughout our great country, providing support to vulnerable individuals and communities. This is seen at its largest through the important work of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. In fighting for the people he loved, Father Bob always put their interests ahead of the institutions of the church. A man of conviction and candour, Bob was never one to bite his tongue. And while Father Bob's views increasingly grated against others in the ecclesiastical order, he never fell out with his God. Bob held true to his principles and would admit often with self-assurance that all the saints were rebels. Father Bob will be remembered for his many deeds in assisting so many who were disadvantaged. His legacy lives on in Open Family Australia, the homeless support service that he helped establish, and, of course, his foundation, supported by its army of volunteers who are affectionately named 'the Bob Squad'. He was rightly made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1989 for his service to homeless youth and he was named Victorian of the Year in 2011. Father Bob will also be remembered for his larger-than-life personality, his irreverent sense of humour and his ability to bring a smile to any difficult situation—the larrikin priest of the poor, the battlers, the outsiders and the outcasts who touched the lives of so many. In the many lives he touched Father Bob's work will carry on. Speaking in 2013 on what he considered his greatest achievement Father Bob said: If I've reassured people that God wants to join them, I'll be grateful. Wherever good is, God is. On behalf of the coalition I offer my heartfelt condolences to everybody who loved Father Bob: to his friends, to those in his beloved Collingwood Football Club—and that was hard for me to say—and to his community, both in his parish and far beyond, who knew him so well. May he rest in peace.