I first heard of Ron Boswell while driving around western Queensland with Barnaby Joyce.
I asked Barnaby why was it that the worst climate policy, the renewable energy target, had bipartisan support. Barnaby replied, “You need to talk to Ron Boswell.”
So I did.
Ron and I came from different worlds. I was an economist who had just switched to a career in politics. Ron left school at 14 and eventually established his own small business selling hardware (primarily paintbrushes).
So it surprised me when I spoke to Ron that he seemed to understand the basics of energy production and markets more so than the so-called experts. Those experts were at the time obsessed with renewable energy, an approach that has ultimately destroyed Australia’s energy competitiveness.
Over Ron’s 30 years and 117 days as a senator for Queensland, this was a story that would be repeated time and time again. Ron’s commonsense approach, gained from a life of experiencing what business was actually like, trumped all of those who learned about life from a book.
There is a role for experts with university degrees. We should just never let them rule unhindered without first checking with those who have been through the school of hard knocks.
Ron had been through his fair share of scrapes. Queensland and Australia has lost a true political fighter this week with Ron Boswell’s passing.
While Ron had retired from the Senate over a decade ago, he never stopped fighting. He was constantly on the phone trying to help this or that person. Just a few weeks ago he penned his final article for The Australian newspaper.
Ron made a career fighting for the small against the big.
He fought for small pharmacies against the big supermarkets that wanted to monopolise another business. He fought for small businesses to have stronger protections against competition laws. He fought for small fishing operations who faced the loss of their livelihoods thanks to political campaigns from big environmental activist groups.
He fought for the family, which is the smallest and most important unit of society.
Ron fought for the small but he always took on the big battles, no matter how much the odds seemed stacked against him. He would take up a political fight not because it was a way to win an election but because it was the right thing to do.
As Ron wrote in his autobiography, “Today, focus groups lead us into the tyranny of small ideas.” It was a typically perceptive insight from the paintbrush salesman turned senator.
At the heart of the political malaise we find ourselves in is the tendency for politicians to listen too much to the very smart people who conduct polls, focus groups and spin a message.
Perhaps we would be better to learn from Ron and simply listen to the people we are there to represent, whether it is fashionable or not.
Ron was not the most fashionable senator going around.
There are stories of Ron’s pants falling down when he had to remove his belt at airport security.
Someone even retells the story of Ron’s dishevelled tie getting tucked into his trousers and then popping back out through his fly!
No one accused Ron of being pretty.
He earned the moniker that he might not be pretty, but he was pretty effective.
It was the tagline he used to defeat Pauline Hanson’s party at the 2001 election.
Pauline Hanson is experiencing another surge in popularity as people become more dismayed at the focus group style of politics that leaves them wondering whether their political representatives are really there for them.
Ron’s approach is the template for the major political parties to recover the lost trust.
As Ron wrote in his last published article, “(The Nationals) are a grassroots movement.
“We hear the complaints, too, loud and clear, but we don’t wallow in them or become frozen by them. We act.
“We are the ones who take the issue, roll up our sleeves and get to work.”
It is time for us to roll up our sleeves again – this time without Ron.
We are there to act. We are there to help people and solve their problems. There are no shortage of problems that face the Australian people, a lack of housing, high energy prices, a straining healthcare system and out of control migration.
The way back for the Liberal and National parties is to take a leaf out of the book Ron Boswell wrote, focus on people and take action to make Australia a better place.
