Chapter 15

PART FOUR – All Our Own

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Friends of Queensland ‘Life invariably has a way of directing one along paths not always chosen and sometimes not even imagined, and presenting many opportunities and challenges along the way.’1 Things have changed a lot in Queensland’s vice-regal circles in recent years.

Until 1992, there had never been a female governor, but three of the four governors appointed since then have been women. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, from 1992 there was a distinct shift in the way that the governors have done their work. The great achievement of the governors through those years has been to create a new style of accessibility and informality while enriching the dignity and status of the office of governor.

If there were ever any fears that the new style would diminish the respect and affection Queenslanders have for their governors, they were unfounded.

Today’s warmth of feeling for the governors personally, and the community regard for the office they hold, indicates that the state’s highest and oldest office has made a very successful transition to the twenty first century.

Leneen Forde made history in 1992 when she became the first woman to become Governor of Queensland and, after Dame Roma Mitchell in South Australia from 1991, only the second female governor of any Australian state.

She was also the first Queensland governor to be appointed after the passage of the Australia Acts, which provided that governors would be appointed by the monarch on the advice of the Queensland government, not the British government. Thus, although the Queensland government might have had an informal role in the selection and appointment of earlier governors, Leneen Forde’s appointment was the first instance of a governor being selected within Queensland and appointed on the advice of the Queensland government.

Leneen’s path to Queensland’s Government House was certainly not imagined in 1948 when, as a teenager in Ottawa, Canada, she first met the young Australian boy, Gerry Forde. Gerry was a son of Frank Forde, who had been a very prominent state and federal Labor parliamentarian ever since 1917 and was briefly Prime Minister in 1945. In 1947, Forde had been appointed Australia’s High Commissioner to Canada.

‘Gerry and I were both 13 when we met on a ski-slope. We were a bit young for romance but we were friendly until Gerry finished his schooling in Canada and came home to Australia in 1953. In November 1954 I flew out to Australia to see him and we were married in May 1955. He was my Prince Charming. We settled in Brisbane where Gerry was at law school at the University of Queensland. I had been a medical laboratory technician in Canada and I got a similar job in Brisbane to help pay the bills. Our first child, Michael, was born when I was just 21 years old. Through the next eight years, I did a little bit of part time work in between having four more children.

‘Gerry graduated and then in 1961 he started his own law firm. It was a tough time, there was a credit squeeze and business was depressed. We had no money but we were happy and we loved the children. Gerry’s practice soon started to become very successful. Then, right out of the blue, in January 1966 he was Left: Leneen Forde – Queensland’s first female governor.

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diagnosed with cancer and given two weeks to live. He did better than that, but he died on Christmas Eve 1966,’ Leneen recalled.

The story of Leneen’s life through the next 25 years is truly inspirational. At first it seemed she might be adequately provided for financially, but very soon she found she had very little money at all, due to poor decisions by advisers.

She decided to study for a qualification that would give her a secure and continuing basis to provide for the family. Leneen remembers, ‘I wanted to do medicine but the timetable was too full to allow me to look after the children.

So I chose law, where there was a lighter load of lectures and more flexibility. I could go to Uni in the mornings, look after the children in the afternoons, then study at night. One of the hardest parts was the prevailing attitude in those days that mothers shouldn’t work; if you had children you should stay home and look after them. It opened my eyes and I started to see there were problems for women I hadn’t thought about before. However, one good thing in those days was that you could get a tertiary education without it costing a lot of money, and I was lucky that I lived near the University.

‘I learned how to concentrate. I remember once all the students were complaining about noise from a construction site that was stopping them studying in the law library. The Dean of Law, Professor Ryan, came into the library to investigate.

There I was, by myself with jackhammers going all round and Professor Ryan was amazed that I was still working. I said, “I’ve got five young children. I don’t notice noise.”

‘I did try to get involved in student activities but it was a bit hard. I was in one of the really big protest marches in the late 1960s but when the march was about half way along Coronation Drive I suddenly remembered that my daughter had a dental appointment and so I had to drop out. I was on the edge of the demonstrations about the Springbok footballers and also about Aboriginal matters. I have been actively involved in civil liberties issues ever since.

‘I graduated in 1970 and then joined the long established law firm Cannan and Peterson. I started to specialise in doing estate work and I later became a partner in the firm. I thought there needed to be an organisation for female lawyers. I helped start the Queensland Women Lawyers Association and was its foundation

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president. Then I was asked to join Zonta, an organisation for professional women. I was later International President of Zonta, in 1990-1992.

‘I was getting more experience all the time within groups and organisations.

I learned how to handle meetings where very difficult and divisive issues like abortion were discussed, I learned how to make sure that everyone had the chance to put their point of view, how to listen, how to get consensus. I guess I was becoming a soft-gloved feminist, I wanted to change things for women, but I wanted to do it calmly and effectively.

‘I started to get involved with all sorts of things, boards and committees of all kinds. However, by 1991 I was really thinking that it would be nice to retire with Angus to our beach house on the Gold Coast.’

Gerry Forde had been Leneen’s Prince Charming, now Angus McDonald was her Rock of Gibraltar. They had met in extraordinary circumstances in 1975, when Angus was a detective in the New South Wales police force. He was investigating the murder of a girl who had been Leneen’s niece. He interviewed family members, met Leneen and the couple were married in 1983. ‘He was God’s bonus,’ says Leneen. ‘He was fiercely proud of his Scottish heritage. But it was a commuting marriage at first because he lived and worked in Sydney and I was in Brisbane.’

From left: Governor Leneen Forde and Angus McDonald with Prince Charles at Government House with the Prince’s staff and local staff.

Angus McDonald and Governor Leneen Forde with George, their German Shepherd in the Government House gardens.

Brisbane Girls Grammar School speech day, 1993.

Principal Mrs Judith Hancock at left, Governor Forde in centre, chairman of the school board of the trustees, Dr McCrae Grassie, at right.

Governor Forde and Angus McDonald at Government House.

In 1991, Leneen was named Queenslander of the Year, in recognition of her leading role in advancing the social and economic welfare of Queensland and for her special contributions to enhancing the status and interests of women. Then, in January 1992, Leneen had a call from Queensland Premier Wayne Goss. ‘He asked me to come and see him and I thought it would be about my work with the Queensland Women’s Consultative Council. I went to his office with an armful of files but he didn’t seem interested in any of that.

‘After a bit of small talk the premier said, “Would you be interested in becoming Queensland’s next governor?” I was overwhelmed and I just said, “I will have to ask Angus.” He said, “That’s all right, I have got to ask the Queen.”

‘Of course I could see that it was a wonderful opportunity for me, it was a chance to contribute to Queensland in a very special way and also to nourish some of the things I was particularly interested in.

‘Angus and I moved in to Government House, it was the first time that we had actually lived together for more than two or three weeks at a time. I was strongly committed to getting out and about and I also felt keenly that Government House should be opened to the public and that people should be invited to come and meet us. We tried to have a reception or a dinner every week and we always had new people, not just the same people who had been going to Government House for years. Of course, some people didn’t like the change but that didn’t deter me. I invited groups that hadn’t been invited before, homeless people and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups. We stopped having garden parties and sometimes the activity might be a picnic in the grounds. We had Christmas candlelight parties and McDonald’s Scottish games became a fixture, we used to have haggis and tossing the caber and anybody could come.

‘I tried to take some of the formality out of it all, but I always maintained the protocol. I felt that it was necessary to recognise and emphasise the significance

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of the office. And I found that people were glad of the protocol, they respect it and they welcome it as a guide to how they should behave. It makes things much easier and more comfortable.

‘We travelled a lot and I got to some very remote places. I couldn’t help noticing that women living in isolation, at places like homesteads on outback cattle stations and Aboriginal communities, often had very real problems. I tried to get something done about that, I tried to encourage people whenever and wherever I could.

‘Another initiative that I think has borne fruit was to have regular gatherings of state governors. I noticed at Sir Paul Hasluck’s funeral in Perth in 1993 that all the state governors were present, perhaps for the first time ever. I got the idea of inviting them all to come to Government House in Brisbane so that we could get together and talk about matters of common interest. I sent out invitations and at first there was a cautious response and some declined but eventually the idea was picked up and we started sharing ideas and experiences and we all got a lot out of that. The governors continue to meet annually, so far as I am aware.

‘I had a wonderful relationship with Government House staff, they were very efficient. The aides were worth their weight in gold, they made sure everything ran like clockwork. Thanks to them, we were always on time and things always went smoothly.’

Leneen retired from the job as governor in July 1997, but she didn’t stop working. She was immediately invited to head a major inquiry into abuse, mistreatment and neglect of children in Queensland institutions since 1911. She continued her association with many organisations and enlarged her commitment to Queensland when she became Chancellor of Griffith University in 2000. Her immense contribution to the whole community had been recognised in 1993 when she was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia.

In 1999, Leneen had to again face deep personal loss when Angus died. She was devastated, but she knew that there were many, many people who had to bear similar and even worse loss and grief, with fewer resources. She has always worked for those people and she still does.2 Leneen Forde’s successor as Governor of Queensland was Major-General Peter Arnison. When he was sworn in on 29 July 1997, Peter was well able to reflect that life had taken him along unforeseen and unimagined paths.

It certainly didn’t seem likely when he was born in Lismore in October 1940 that his path through life would take him to very senior army command and then into Government House. ‘I had a modest upbringing. My father’s family had come from the north of England and they set up a tailoring business in Lismore in the 1930s. The business continued until the 1980s when my father died. Happily, my mother survived to see me sworn in as Governor.’

‘When I was young my father said that tailoring was on the way out and I should look beyond the family business and beyond my home town for my future. I went to school in Lismore, joined the army and in 1959 I went to the Royal Military College, Duntroon. I went into the infantry and did two tours of duty in Vietnam, in 1965-66 and again in 1971. Later, I had a variety of command postings, at

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Canungra, Brisbane, Townsville and Sydney. When I retired from the army in 1996 I was Land Commander for Australia,’ General Arnison recalls.

In 1963, Peter and Barbara (nee Smith) met in Sydney soon after Peter’s graduation from Duntroon and Barbara’s graduation from Sydney University.

They were married in 1964 in the Presbyterian Church in Drummoyne and the couple had two children, Tracy born in Hawaii in 1967 where Peter was serving with the US Army on an exchange posting, and Andrew born in Sydney in 1970.

Peter says, ‘We were used to moving around to live in all sorts of different places but Queensland was where we wanted to settle down and we went to live in Brisbane when I retired from the army. Not long after that I had a call from the premier, Rob Borbidge, who asked me if I would be interested in being the state’s governor.

‘I thought that I had at least one good qualification for the job. As an army officer, I was imbued with the notion that you served the Crown and the government, whatever political complexion that government might be. I had been at the

Left: Barbara and Peter Arnison meet the Queen.

Centre: Peter Arnison, at left and wearing his ceremonial blues uniform, takes some invaluable advice from former governor Sir Walter Campbell.

Right: Peter Arnison embraces his mother after his swearing in, with some of Barbara Arnison’s family looking on.

Enoggera army base when Leneen Forde was governor and I greatly admired the dignity, style and sense of humour she brought to the job. She helped change attitudes and I thought that was very worthwhile. I was inspired by her example and so I took the job on. I must say it was as challenging and rewarding as almost anything else I had ever done.’

Just how challenging became clear less than a year after Arnison was sworn in as governor. State elections held on 13 June 1998 resulted in a hung parliament, with no party or grouping having a clear majority. The previous governing coalition parties won only 32 seats in the 89 member Legislative Assembly, the ALP won 44 seats, the new One Nation party won 11 seats and two Independents were elected.

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‘The question for me to decide was who to invite to form a government’ Peter Arnison recalled. ‘The constitution allowed me to seek advice from a range of sources and I did talk to a retired Supreme Court judge. We analysed some possible scenarios and when the time came I was equipped with a pretty good framework for decision making.

‘My own instinct was to allow the political process to work itself out. It became a matter of what the two Independents would do and eventually they decided they would support the Labor Party. The premier, Rob Borbidge, called on Friday 26 June 1998 to formally advise me that he could not form a government, that he wished to resign that afternoon and suggesting I should summon the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Beattie, to invite him to form government. I did that, and during our discussions Beattie indicated that he could form a Government with the support of the two Independent members. He requested that the swearing in be delayed until Monday as the labour Caucus had not finalised its ministerial selections. I told him I could not agree to his request for a delay, given Borbidge’s resignation. Delay would have left the state without a government.

‘I subsequently swore in Peter Beattie and his Deputy, Jim Elder, as Ministers for the eighteen portfolio positions (they shared nine each) that afternoon, in much the same way that Whitlam and Barnard were sworn in to all the Commonwealth portfolio positions for a short period in December 1972. Thus, Beattie formed an interim ministry to get through the weekend and on the following Monday I was able to swear in the full ministry. An interesting aside was that prior to swearing in the full ministry Beattie and I agreed that it would be preferable for him and Elder to resign to enable them to be formally and publicly sworn in with the full ministry. So the issue was resolved to the satisfaction of all concerned, but of course because the numbers were so finely balanced in the Parliament I had to be ready for the possibility that the government could lose its majority at any time. I must say that throughout this period both Borbidge and Beattie treated me with the utmost courtesy and respect.’

Not every governor has to deal with such a close election result, but presiding over the Executive Council is part of every governor’s core business. In the processes of modern government, ministers who come together in Cabinet make decisions about the management of affairs of the state. However, Cabinet has no formal constitutional status. By contrast, the Executive Council does have formal status and it is the role of that body to advise the Governorin-Council to sign off on whatever documentation is necessary to give effect to many Cabinet decisions. The Executive Council is comprised of the Governor, who presides over Executive Council meetings, and all ministers. However, by convention usually only two or three ministers attend, generally including the ministers responsible for any particularly important item of business.

‘The Executive Council gives legal effect to the significant decisions of Cabinet,’ Peter Arnison explains. ‘Cabinet normally met on a Monday and then the Executive Council would normally meet on the following Thursday. Papers for the meeting would come to me a day or so beforehand and I would read them thoroughly and take the whole process very seriously. Since 1922 Queensland has not had an upper house in its parliamentary system so there is no house of review, nor, until recent times, has there been a well developed committee system.

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‘Therefore, I was not hesitant in asking for clarification of matters we were dealing with which were unclear to me, or for suggesting that further consideration might be given to the occasional submission. I did this whenever I thought it necessary and I think Queensland got better government as a result.

‘People sometimes say that the governor’s job is all trivia, but it isn’t. There is much substantial and important work, and even the trivia isn’t trivial to the people who are at the centre of the particular activity.

‘When I took the job on I had pledged that I would be governor for all Queensland, not just Brisbane, and that meant getting around the state. I think that my early years in Lismore had given me a sympathy for regional and remote areas. I found that the office of governor was highly respected everywhere and generally the further we were from Brisbane the warmer was the welcome. People in remoter places didn’t take us for granted; they realised we had made a special effort to come to see them.

‘There was a keen desire by people everywhere to show the governor their part of the world, to tell him their concerns and to lobby about their needs. I used to say “Look, I don’t have a cheque book,” but sometimes when I saw something which was an obvious problem I would send the premier an informal note and generally matters would be fixed. But I didn’t overdo it.

‘During our many travels and visits we were never made to feel uncomfortable.

However, one occasion did start out a bit awkwardly. We arrived at a community and the Mayor was difficult to locate. He had heard me called General Arnison and he got me confused with the Auditor-General, whom he definitely did not want to see at that time! Nonetheless the Deputy Mayor and the community were very welcoming and hospitable. The Mayor and I caught up subsequently when he apologised profusely and explained his difficulty.

‘We were in Camooweal once, not long after the Goods and Services Tax was introduced. To make conversation, I enquired of a business person in the town “How are you getting on with the GST out here?” He said emphatically “There’s no GST in Camooweal mate, never has been and never will be.” Very Queensland.

‘Perhaps our most amusing welcome was at Birdsville. Our plane landed and stopped outside the pub. It was raining fairly steadily and when we got our cases over to the pub, mine host said, “Well, I suppose we better do the flood drill.

Come with me.” So he took us out to the beer garden and said “When the water starts to rise, come out here, bring your ports, and stand up on top of one of these tables. Just wait there until we come and tell you what to do next.” I am sure he was pulling our legs!

Top left: Peter and Barbara Arnison during a trade mission to Japan.

Centre left: The Arnisons are welcomed to Coconut Island, Torres Strait, in July 1999.

Bottom left: Peter and Barbara Arnison with members of the McKinlay QCWA branch.

‘Barbara and I decided to try to visit every Queensland Local Government Authority during my term. I think by and large we achieved this, with a few exceptions. Local shows and conferences were also good opportunities to meet people. We would usually leave Brisbane on a Sunday and get back on Wednesday, in time for Executive Council meetings. Sometimes if I needed to be away longer I would ask the Chief Justice to deputise for me at Executive Council.

‘It was obvious to me that vice-regal visits were very important to many communities. We would often be told about previous governors who had been in the area. At Murray Island, in the Torres Strait, about as remote as you can get

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and still be in Queensland, they had a vice-regal visitor’s book. It was amazing that the signature of just about every governor was in the book. At another centre there was a picture of Sir Henry Abel Smith in pride of place, with a picture of the Queen along side Sir Henry.

‘I also had an interest in the development of Queensland’s overseas trade, and we travelled to China, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam in support of Queensland’s Sister State trade and cultural relationships.’

The Arnisons accepted the large number of patronage requests from across Queensland. This involvement gave Barbara particular satisfaction. ‘Some of the organisations had been under vice-regal patronage for a long time, all the way back to Countess Diamantina Roma, wife of the first governor, in some cases,’ Barbara says. ‘Being patron of an organisation created the requirement for me to research and understand its purpose. Of course, I already knew a fair bit about groups like the CWA and Red Cross, as I had been brought up in country New South Wales. I was always very pleased to go to meetings, big or small.

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Below: The Arnisons and their Government House staff – ‘their culture was if Government House can’t get it right, who can. We always knew we could count on them.’

Right, above: An Executive council meeting, 1997 – from left, front, Denver Beanland, Governor Peter Arnison, and Bob Quinn. Standing, from left, Howard Hobbs, Mick Veivers, Santo Santoro and David Watson.

Right, below: Barbara Arnison tried to maintain the continuity of support for organisations that had been under the patronage of earlier governor’s wives like Lady Lamington (picture behind).

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‘I enjoyed the travelling and there was always a very positive response; people felt flattered that there was vice-regal interest in them and the welcomes were very spontaneous and enthusiastic.’

Army life had accustomed the Arnisons to moving from house to house every few years and therefore the move to Government House may have been less difficult for them than for other vice-regal couples who had been used to living in one house for a long time. Barbara says that she and Peter brought their own furniture and a few favourite works of art to the private apartment in which they lived, on the top floor of Government House. ‘That helped to make everything a bit more personal and it made us feel more at home,’ she says.

‘It was a bit like living above the shop, really. The apartment was small and a bit claustrophobic,’ said Peter. ‘Government House had been a bit run down and a lot of things needed to be done. Leneen Forde had seen to it that the place was upgraded to modern fire standards and she set in place other necessary improvements. One of my contributions was to build a pavilion, in the grounds.

The gardeners didn’t have any change rooms and there wasn’t enough storage space for their tools. When a facility for them was being planned, I suggested that we put the gardeners’ facilities on the bottom and a pavilion above. It is now a really well used building. Another large project involved redoing all the water and sewage reticulation systems, parts of which were first installed in the nineteenth century.’

‘I have to acknowledge the fantastic contribution made by the staff – the Official Secretary, supported by a small and dedicated team comprising the executive and office staff, the house staff, the security staff and drivers, and the maintenance and gardening staff. Their culture was “if Government House can’t get it right, who can?” We always knew we could count on them to get it right.

‘Government House also benefited from the work of two special groups of volunteers; the wonderful flower ladies who weekly transformed and brought life to the formal rooms with the sight and scent of flowers, and the Government House guides who supported the open days and conducted the many informative tours around the house. Their research was very good and we were pleased to tag along occasionally. When we did that we learned a lot.

Peter and Barbara retired to their own home in Ascot, Brisbane, in July 2003.

‘In the old days they said that a good reason to have British governors was that they went home at the end of their term. But Queensland is big enough now to be able to soak up a few former governors without them falling over the present governor and each other. And there is always the opportunity for the former governors to go on making a contribution to the state in one way or another.’

Peter and Barbara certainly do that. Among many other roles, Peter is Chancellor of Queensland University of Technology. Barbara continues to take an interest in many of the organisations with which she was involved at Government House. Barbara added, ‘Two organisations that I continue to be involved with are the Scribbler’s Club for women writers, which had been encouraged by Lady MacGregor, and the Lady Musgrave Trust which provides housing for young women and children in need.’3 They do it because they are friends of Queensland and have become Queenslanders.

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