Updated ,first published
Bruce Baird always loved a good show, and as funerals go, this was the kind of show-stopper he deserved to go out on.
The dappled rays coming through the stained-glass windows of St Andrews Cathedral on this Monday afternoo softly illuminated the centre of attention up front – Bruce’s coffin, draped in the Australian flag adorned with an elegant spray of white roses.
No less than the Archbishop of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel, presided over the service, with the assistance of the Rector of Manly’s St Matthews Church, the Reverend Bruce Clarke, who said that in the Manly community, the deceased was “B1, while I was B2″.
Baird, the former NSW and federal Liberal politician, highly regarded most particularly for his work in securing Sydney the Olympic Games, and for being a powerful voice for asylum seekers, collapsed in the Qantas Business Lounge in Singapore 10 days ago and passed away a short time later, aged 84.
The congregation was packed to the rafters – literally up to the Gods – with the extended Baird family there in full force, and including former prime ministers John Howard and Scott Morrison; myriad former Coalition cabinet ministers such as George Brandis, Philip Ruddock, Mitch Fifield and John Sharpe and eulogist Julie Bishop; former premiers Nick Greiner and Gladys Berejiklian; media identities Laura Tingle, Sarah McDonald and Mia Freedman; famous Sydneysider Rod McGeoch and his wife, Deeta Colvin, and prominent Australians from all walks of life.
One other large group was also there.
They were the one-time asylum seekers who two decades ago had been portrayed as such a danger to shipping by those seeking to make political hay out of their misfortune that they had been placed en masse into detention camps.
It was Bruce Baird who had been one of the loudest voices within Liberal ranks insisting that it wasn’t right, and if released, many could actually go on to be great assets to Australia.
And here they were – many of them now proud Australians in their own right – honouring the Liberal politician who had helped save them.
One of them, Josef Marigol, who spent a long time at Villawood Detention Centre after seeking asylum from persecution in Iran, and is now a leading executive in the health industry was quick to pay tribute: “Bruce listened to us. He helped save us. We owe him. And now I am an Australian citizen, I want to do everything I can to help save others.”
As noted by his daughter, well-known author Julia, there was some irony in where Bruce met his maker.
“Because if there was anyone to spend their final moments in an airport lounge, it was Dad. He loved it. And not just because of the champagne. Dad loved to be in motion – through water, through air, through life, through the endless throng of fascinating humans he had not yet met.”
Within the bounds of church-imposed decorum, the congregation laughed heartily at her account of the digital tracker she had finally convinced him to put on his phone, confidently notifying the family for days after his death that he was still in the Qantas Business Lounge in Singapore, Bruce’s temporal idea of heaven.
The service had many moments of such great humour, including when his eldest son, Mike Baird, recounted how when he was about to hold his own first press conference as premier, his staff had looked out to see 40 media gathered around one person.
“Who on earth is that?” the deflated Mike asked his staffer.
“It’s your dad,” the staffer replied.
As to why we were here in this grand cathedral, Mike publicly thanked Archbishop Raffel, who had enquired, that with so many people wanting to attend his funeral, perhaps the Baird family would like the much grander St Andrews instead of the more modest St Matthews at Manly.
“We thought Dad deserved one last upgrade,” the newly installed Baird Snr deadpanned to more merry laughter.
And indeed it was only later in his life that Bruce had realised what happened when you turned right on entering the plane, not left, as was his custom. That was indeed the Bruce we knew.
He was a family man to his bootstraps who had a wonderful relationship with the love of his life, the late Judy, who died five years ago. His youngest son, Stephen, spoke of visiting his mother’s grave a couple of months ago and seeing fresh flowers.
“They’d been put there by Dad,” Stephen said softly. “Mum was everything to him.”
The Bruce who emerged from the eulogies was very much the man we know writ large, but with more detail.
Baird was many things: a devoted family man, a committed follower of Jesus in a completely non-ideological way, a bon vivant like mother used to make, a politician, an incurable gossip, a swimmer, a worker, a show-goer and a man who lived life to the full for all his 84 years. Behind it all was a man who actually lived his Christian values and really did accomplish great things.
Mike Baird lauded his father for having personally gone to the detention camps and listening to the stories of the asylum seekers before returning to Canberra and insisting that action had to be taken to save them, whatever the cost might be politically.
“Some thought that his opposition to government policy on asylum seekers and human rights cost him a ministry because of it,” Julie Bishop said in her eloquent eulogy. “I say the ministry missed out on him.”
When the coffin left the church, borne by his children and grandchildren, it was placed in the hearse. His youngest son, Stephen, gathered the Baird band in for one last embrace, one more for the road, all their hands on the Baird patriarch’s coffin for one last prayer. The rear door was finally closed and the hearse slowly moved off into the hum of the city.
Vale, Bruce. Your family, communities, and city did you proud.
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