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a major issue in the campaign and the ALP had subsequently adopted the stirring slogan: ‘For a House and TV,
Vote ALP’. They also appealed to people to ‘Say No to the Yes Men’, saying people had the first opportunity to
elect a truly effective opposition to control from Canberra, and they urged people to ‘swing to the party which
offers you policy not promises’. Dick Ward argued that only Labor and Independent members had been fighting
for reforms in the Council and now suddenly for the first time in 20 years of the Council’s existence the Country
and Liberal parties emerged. He said Ron Withnall was the one who had fought for much needed housing reform
and that Labor was supporting him by not standing anyone against him. He pleaded with people ‘Don’t turn the
Legislative Council into a Liberal Country Club’.
The election saw four Labor members returned, two Country Party members and five independents although
one of them, Tom Bell, joined the Labor party in mid-term. When the Labor Party won the Federal election in
1972, the move for constitutional reform took on new momentum and several key Territory Labor figures spoke
out strongly at the time on the need for greater political reform. Although a strong Labor member, Dick Ward did
not hesitate to criticise Labor federally when he felt it was warranted. He argued strongly that the Territory needed
a full-time Minister and rights and powers to make its own laws. Ward also joined the attack on the ‘slowness’ and
perceived ‘arrogance’ of the new Labor Minister for Territories, Kep Enderby, whom members of the Legislative
Council accused of strongly favouring the Australian Capital Territory over the Territory.
When the Federal Government introduced a stamp duty, the Territory ALP strongly opposed it and Ward
himself moved an amendment to a motion of condemnation by Goff Letts in the Legislative Council. Ward moved
that the Council request the Australian Constitutional conference to consider a means of providing citizens in
Australian Territories with voting rights equivalent to those of the Australian states. Ward later said in his speech
to the convention: ‘The form of government in the Northern Territory is a bastard form of government... Imagine
if you can a parliament without a government and government without a parliament. That is what we have’.
The Whitlam government subsequently granted the Territory a fully elected Legislative Assembly and Senate
representation, promising a Territory election by October 1974. The newly formed Country Liberal Party prepared
for the forthcoming election and set in place a well-organised and slick campaign. The Territory Labor Party had
been relying heavily on Dick Ward’s leadership around which to build their campaign and were thrown into disarray
when Ward was appointed a Territory Judge only a few weeks before the election. The gain to the Territory’s legal
system was very much Territory Labor’s political loss. In the election of October 1974 for the first fully elected
Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, there was a landslide win for the new Country Liberal Party, which won
17 of the 19 seats, with two seats being held by Independents.
Ward’s judicial appointment, however, was widely welcomed and praised by people of all political persuasions,
particularly as he was considered the first real Territory appointment. He had been the leader of the Bar for
some time and earlier that year had been made a Queen’s Counsel. Federal Attorney General Lionel Murphy,
in announcing Ward’s much lauded appointment, described him as ‘one of the Territory’s most distinguished
citizens’ and ‘a leading figure in legal and legislative fields for many years.’ Murphy said that Ward’s appointment
marked the first occasion that a bench of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory had been constituted by
three resident judges of the Territory and was the first occasion when a legal practitioner of the Northern Territory
Supreme Court had been appointed a judge of that court. Ward, by this time, had had a distinguished Territory
career in the legal profession extending over almost 35 years.
Crown Law Officer Clem O’Sullivan paid this tribute: ‘You have given years of magnificent service to the
Northern Territory as a legislator. It would be doubtful whether anyone would know the statute law of this Territory
better than you do. However, in your term of more than 19 years as a member of the legislature you contributed
in a very major respect towards the making of most of those statues... This judicial mantle of responsibility is
certainly one which at this time can be carried more fittingly by no one other than yourself’. Ward responded with
characteristic humility, praising his mother for the sacrifices she had made to ensure his education, and saying in
his concluding remarks, ‘may I ask whether life or the law for that matter requires of us anything more than to
do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with life as we find it... I have continually been torn between law and
politics, but I think it is also true that whenever a conflict has arisen requiring a choice in favour of one to the
exclusion of the other... inevitably it is the law that has prevailed. Now of course the law has finally prevailed’.
In 1975 Ward became the interim Aboriginal Lands Commissioner in which capacity he served until
July 1976.
In August 1976, Ward married his third wife Klara (Claire) Cornelia Van Balen, having been divorced from his
second wife for some time. According to close friends, Ward found happiness and peace of mind with Claire who
nursed him through his ailing years after he suffered a kidney collapse. Unbeknownst to many, Ward spent 30 hours
a week on a dialysis machine each week between Court sittings. Finally, he went to Sydney for special treatment.
When Dick Ward died in Sydney on 24 November 1977, his body was flown back to Darwin. Close friend,
Dawn Lawrie, then a Member of the Legislative Assembly, was in charge of funeral arrangements.
There were many tributes, including those made by colleagues in the legal fraternity who held a special
Supreme Court session to mark his contribution to the Territory. Ron Withnall said: ‘He was a brilliant lawyer
and advocate and on his day one of the best orators I have ever listened to. He was a man dedicated to principle
and with an insistence on the rights of the individual which amounted to almost a passion. In the formative days
in the development of political institutions in the Northern Territory he was a leader without who the task would
have been much more difficult. As a person he will be missed for his scholarly qualities, his understanding of
the problems of living in the Territory and for his insistence that every man was entitled to the fullest measure of
life under the law’. Paul Everingham, a former lawyer and soon to be the Territory’s first Chief Minister, said:
‘He will long be remembered for his outstanding contribution to the Territory community as a politician, a jurist