Commonwealth

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, I thought I had put my name down to speak, but I then discovered that I was not on the list. I was told I could speak in the gap because I was here in the first debate and for a number of other contributions that followed it. As an early Commonwealth person in this House—I have been here since 1981—I have felt as an Australian living here all this time that Britain and Australia are, and have been, so closely linked.

I will comment on the excitement when the Queen first visited Australia. People must never underestimate how important she and the Royal Family are to the Commonwealth. There is a genuine affection for them. Things got quite hysterically excited when the Queen came in, I think, 1954. There were several questions; one was that everyone knew she had glorious skin, but the Australian sun is so bad for producing skin cancers and all sort of nasties that people wondered how she would get around it. The tradition is that her face has to be visible to anyone looking at her. If she wears a hat with a big brim, you will not be able to see her face, and if she wears one without much of a brim, the skin on her face might be quite dangerously cooked. The discussion raged. By the time she appeared at the Government House garden party in Sydney, she had come up with the clever answer of a semi-transparent, broad-brimmed hat, which kept the sun off, and on which three feathers of different bright colours were spread around. She had come up with the answer to the problem in that you could still see her face and yet she was protected.

People were so excited. In Melbourne, when the Queen first arrived—I think it was Melbourne, but I may have the wrong sequence because it was a long time ago—everybody wanted to get a view of her. I had a brother-in-law of six foot three, and when she arrived, someone put a ladder up against his back and ran up the ladder to see her over the top of the crowd. This is how excited people were. When she came to Sydney, at the Government House garden party—I was fortunate enough to be asked to it, because my family had always been very political in New South Wales: Labor, I should admit—people were hanging out of the trees in the grounds of Government House to get a view. There was such a crowd of people who wanted to see her that many could not get a view of her.

I will comment one more thing. This is a long-standing relationship. Last November, I went to the celebration of 100 years since Australia House was built on the Strand. It took five years to build, but it is quite remarkable; I had no idea that it was such an old building. The celebration was very good, and well attended, and the Prince of Wales came to it. Everyone thought that was marvellous, because part of his education was in Victoria, so it was rather good to have him there.

I followed Baroness Trumpington as the UK representative on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, where I heard an interesting comment from an African woman delegate. She said, “The trouble is that they send us money. They shouldn’t send us money. If they sent me soap, I could wash my children, but if they send us money, I never see it; no one sees it”. This is a very important thing, and we have to work out whether it is sustainable.

I will not speak any longer, but I was going to say that the Prince of Wales made a speech and it was the best one I had ever heard him make. Clearly, the Commonwealth means a lot to him, and I am glad that I have had the privilege of being a Commonwealth Member here since 1981.