Tribute to Sir Ronald Wilson

At his funeral in Perth on Friday (July 22), Sir Ronald Wilson - former High Court judge, human rights campaigner and Uniting Church leader - was honoured for his humility, simplicity and his love for all people.

Uniting Church President, Rev. Dr Dean Drayton gave one of the eulogies at the service.

I want to focus on Ron’s involvement in the Uniting Church. Now this was not some esoteric interest of his, he sought to live out his life as a servant of Jesus Christ as the foundation for all that he did. There are others here who will acknowledge the result of the way that faith kept pushing him into the many arenas in which he lived his life. He made such a rich contribution to the life of his family, his state, and his nation, in both public and private life.

He grew up a Presbyterian and was Moderator in Western Australia in 1965 at the age of 43. That was the time when the studies and preparation for union were underway. When union came in 1977 at 55 he was called to be the first Moderator of the Western Australian Synod for two years. During this time he was knighted for services to the community. At 63 he was elected National President Elect, and when 66 installed as the fifth President of the Uniting Church, for the term 1988-1991, the first layperson to hold that office and so far the only Western Australian to do so. He was actively involved and patron of numerous serving organizations, and received more awards than “you can shake a stick at”

I remember seeing him for the first time in a lunch time queue at an Assembly, a long meandering line of people. Toward the back was a short man, dressed in a loud Hawaiian shirt and shorts. He stood out. “Who is that man?” I asked. “Oh”, someone said, “He is the next President of the Uniting Church.” I was sharing that moment with James Haire our ninth president this week and he said, “Funny you should say that. When he was President a visiting American dignitary was talking with him as they lined up together in another long lunch queue. ‘Why are you as President lining up in a queue to get lunch’, he asked. ‘To get a feed’ said Ron without a second thought. He was quintessentially Australian. Ron had no airs about himself. He was relaxed and at home in the queue, as he was in his ten year old second hand government car. One to one he was so easy to talk with. One had to remind oneself that this man was a knight of the realm, a High Court Judge and the President of the Uniting Church.

He served the Church with distinction. We thank God for this man. We are especially proud of his contribution as President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Did he know that at 74 he would make his greatest mark on this nation as a fearless advocate for the underprivileged and indigenous Australia? Certainly earlier as President he had spent a lot of time visiting Aboriginal people especially those involved in the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Congress of the Uniting Church. He stayed with the issue of Aboriginal justice as Deputy Chairperson of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation 1991-1994. But it was later in 1997 that his many gifts and public service were fused together in the joint task he shared with Mick Dodson in chairing the inquiry into aboriginal child removal that resulted in the “Bringing Them Home Report”. Robert Manne wrote four years ago.

“No inquiry in recent Australian History appeared to have, at least for the short term, a more overwhelming reception and a more culturally transforming impact than the one conducted by Sir Ronald Wilson and Mick Dodson into Aboriginal child removal. The question of Aboriginal child removal moved rapidly from the margin to the centre of Australian self-understanding and contemporary political debate. The quest for what we have come to call reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians would be determined by the nature of our response to the issue of the stolen generation.”

Sadly Ron quickly discovered what all Aboriginal people know, when the government of the day turned its back on the report. He copped tremendous and unjust criticism for his role in telling the truth many do not want to hear. There is a deafness, an averting of the eye, a distancing analysis, a trivializing as political correctness, that wants to deny and forget the results of the terrible suffering that many Aboriginal families endured. Yet at the time the report was released he included himself in the critique of an Australian society whose attitudes had blindly allowed these acts to occur.

Once more the faith that impelled him to take on this task provided him with the way to live through what had then happened. He staunchly defended the report in his inimitable way, but who knows what he felt in the face of the accusations leveled against him and the Report. He followed his Lord through dark days, before the sun began to shine again for him. He continued an active supporter and participant in the wider Church and his Applecross UCA till the very last. Leila shared with me that lately, he loved to read the paper sitting outside on the verandah in the morning sun.

In a similar way I believe his dream is that the sun will begin to shine again for our nation when we take seriously what he and Mick Dodson attempted to tell us, and we put reconciliation back into the centre of our nations concern. Of one thing you can be sure: when the history of the nation is written Ron will have to be there. He will not be forgotten because God made him a witness of the deep injustice that is still actively suppressed in the heart of our national life. Until we let the light shine there we will not do justice to Aboriginal people or ourselves and the future of this great nation which he loved.

Now Ron you continue to walk on with the reconciling one who has the keys to life and death. You are in Good Company.”

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