VIC:Holding a showman with a serious side

AAP General News (Australia)
08-16-2011
VIC:Holding a showman with a serious side

By Melissa Jenkins

MELBOURNE, Aug 16 AAP - Former Hawke government minister Clyde Holding has been remembered
as a champion of Aboriginal rights, the arts and a showman with a serious side.

Mr Holding, who was also Victorian state opposition leader between 1967 and 1977, died
aged 80 earlier this month at an aged-care home in central Victoria.

Former prime minister Paul Keating, who delivered the eulogy on Tuesday, recalled Mr
Holding's tears the night native title legislation passed the Senate.

"He was a blade, Clyde, he was a blade," Mr Keating told the hundreds gathered at the
state memorial service at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.

"He was funny, he was a raconteur, he was a showy man about town but he was also a
very serious person."

Mr Keating described Mr Holding as the quintessential Labor man, who guided the party
through some of its darkest days after the 1955 split.

"Clyde had to steer his way through this madhouse," he said.

"He had what all leaders must have, he had imagination and he had courage."

Former prime minister Bob Hawke was among dignitaries attending the service, as well
as Prime Minister Julia Gillard, former Labor premiers John Cain, Steve Bracks and John
Brumby, and Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu.

Ms Gillard described Mr Holding's funding of Eddie Mabo's native title case in the
High Court, despite the commonwealth being the defendant, as cheeky and courageous.

She noted Mr Holding's disappointment when his attempt to introduce uniform national
land rights was not supported by the Hawke government after furious lobbying from the
mining industry and West Australian premier Brian Burke.

"He didn't get to be the father of national land rights legislation that he ought to
have been," Ms Gillard said.

"Or the great premier of this state he might easily have been.

"In the end, it was enough for Clyde Holding to be a faithful servant of his party
and his nation."

Mr Holding appointed the first indigenous head of the then Department of Aboriginal
Affairs, Charles Perkins, and was responsible for handing over Ayers Rock, now Uluru,
to the local Mutitjulu people.

Fellow Hawke government minister Gareth Evans remembered seeing Mr Holding taken in
by police at a demonstration the night before Ronald Ryan was executed in Melbourne 1967.

"He was an outspoken, rough and tumble larrikin," Mr Evans said.

Mr Holding was a champion of the arts, supporting institutions such as the National
Film and Sound Archive and Australian Children's Television Foundation.

Mr Holding is survived by his wife Judy and children Peter, Dan, Jenny and Isabella.

Isabella said among her fondest memories of her father were occasions when he showed
his playful side.

She remembered him dressing up as a monster for her childhood birthday parties dressed
in a terry towelling robe, ugg boots and a pair of old underpants on his head.

After she won a part in Macbeth at school, Mr Holding presented Isabella with every
Shakespeare production he could find on videotape.

"I feel so lucky to have had a father who honestly believed that I could achieve anything,"

she said.

AAP mj/pmu/jhp

KEYWORD: HOLDING (PIX AVAILABLE)

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