Robert Lyall Hannaford (b.1944), John Neil Andrew (detail), 2002, Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection. View full image

Speaker, 10 November 1998 to 8 October 2001; 12 February 2002 to 31 August 2004
Liberal Party of Australia

Neil Andrew (b.1944), farmer and 24th Speaker of the House of Representatives, presided over the centenary sitting of the House in 2001 while holding the seat that had been held by the first Speaker, Sir Frederick Holder.¹

Andrew was born in Waikerie, SA, to a farming family. He studied at Waikerie High School and then at Urrbrae Agricultural High School in Adelaide. Returning to Waikerie, he grew mixed crops. In 1971 he married Carolyn Ayles, a mathematics and science teacher, with whom he had three children.

Andrew joined the Liberal Party in 1967 and chaired its Waikerie Branch from 1971 to 1974. In 1972 he joined the Liberal Party State Council. He also served as a member, and later chair, of the SA Advisory Board of Agriculture. In 1975 he was awarded a Nuffield Foundation scholarship to undertake a study tour of the British fruit industry. He was a councillor of the District Council of Waikerie from 1976 to 1983 and at the 1983 federal election he was elected to the safe Liberal seat of Wakefield, a rural electorate that included his native Riverland.

In Opposition Andrew served as Deputy Opposition Whip, Deputy Chair of Committees and a member of the Speaker’s panel. Following the election of the Howard Government in 1996 he was appointed Chief Whip in 1997, and after the 1998 election he won the party room ballot against his eventual successor, David Hawker, and was elected Speaker.

Andrew vowed to apply the standing orders equally. In 2000 he suspended the Minister for Employment Services, Tony Abbott, for an hour – the first suspension of a minister since Speaker John McLeay ‘named’ Minister Hugh Roberton in 1961. He insisted that answers during Question Time be kept relevant, once ruling the acting Prime Minister out of order on this basis. However, at different times he was accused of bias by the Opposition and survived a number of motions of dissent from his rulings.

Andrew supported initiatives to explain the work of the House to the public more effectively. He was Speaker at a time when security for Parliament House was becoming an increasingly significant issue, especially following the 11 September terrorist attacks in 2001.

The 2003 electoral redistribution made Wakefield nominally a Labor seat. Andrew had been considering a change of career and retired from Parliament at the 2004 election. He worked in roles that drew on his knowledge of government and his experience as a horticulturalist, including as Chair of the Murray–Darling Basin Authority. He was appointed an AO in 2008.

Robert Lyall Hannaford AM
South Australian-born painter, sculptor and conservationist Robert Hannaford (b.1944) grew up on his family farm before moving to Adelaide in his teens to complete his education. He worked as a political cartoonist for The Advertiser from 1964 to 1967. Though largely self-taught, Hannaford’s passion for painting was encouraged by Australian artists and mentors, Sir Hans Heysen and Ivor Hele. In 1967 and 1968, Hannaford attended the Ballarat Technical Art School, under the control of the School of Mines, and from 1969 to 1973 was the winner of the AME Bale Travelling Scholarship and Art Prize. Hannaford has been at the forefront of contemporary Australian portraiture, winning the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize in 1990, the Viewer Prize in 1991 and 1998, and was a frequent finalist in the Archibald Prize. He also painted the Prime Minister Paul Keating for the HMC. In 2001, he was commissioned to paint the centenary sitting of the Australian Parliament. Hannaford was made an AM in 2014 for his service to the arts.²

John Neil Andrew
by Robert Lyall Hannaford
2002
Oil on canvas
120.5 x 90 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection

References
1. Information in this biography has been taken from the following: C Parker, ‘Andrew, John Neil’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 2021, accessed 30 August 2021.
2. ‘Robert Hannaford’, High Court of Australia; ‘Robert Hannaford: artist statement’; ‘Robert Hannaford: b. 1904’, National Portrait Gallery, 2018; ‘Hannaford, Robert’, A McCulloch, S McCulloch and E McCulloch Childs, eds, The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Aus Art Editions in association with The Miegunyah Press, 2006, p. 496. Websites accessed 25 March 2021.