Parliamentary record : Part I debates (27 February 1990)
Debates for 5th Assembly 1987 - 1990; ParliamentNT; Parliamentary Record; 5th Assembly 1987 - 1990
1990-02-27
Made available by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
English
Debates
Northern Territory Legislative Assembly
Darwin
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Attribution International 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)
Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
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https://hdl.handle.net/10070/220388
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/699398
DEBATES - Tuesday 27 February 1990 complete our discussions towards the achievement of his dream with Bill and his friends while Bill was still alive. Certainly, I will be continuing to work on what I believe is a very worthwhile project to collect and exhibit a very significant part of the Northern Territory's history. I trust that, when we complete that project, it will stand as a continuing memorial and testimony to this very fine man. Bill never did get around to building his pub at Southport but, hopefully, the eventual exhibition of his collection at the museum will achieve at least one of his cherished desires of sharing his collection with others. It will be a fitting memorial to one of Darwin ' s finest citizens. My condolences go to his wife and family. They can feel proud, as we all should feel proud, of having known such a fine man. Mr VALE (Tourism): Mr Speaker, I would like to pay tribute to a long-term Centra 1 i an res i dent who di ed in Queen s 1 and on Fri day 22 December last year. I refer to Ted Marron, a well-known central Australian who was 74 when he died. Mr Marron was born in Melbourne on 30 July 1916 and was educated at Xavier College. In 1936, he began his career as an office boy with a firm known as Brown & Dureau, an Australian import and export company. In 1940, Ted joined the Royal Australian Air Force and trained to be a pilot. He served in the Pacific region flying Beauforts. He was well known as a fine and daring pilot and, in fact, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery in action. In 1946, he returned to ci vll i an life and went to London to open an office for hi s old firm. In 1949, he was sent to Singapore to do the same thing. Early in the 1950s, he returned to Australia and, as a result of a lifetime friendship with Damien Miller, decided to visit central Australia. He fell in love with the country and its people and decided to settle there. He spent some time at Argadargada Station with Damien Miller, Milton W1l1ick and Sam Calder. In 1957, Milton took over his Milton Park lease and Ted purchased cows and calves from Mount Denison and agisted them on Milton Park, paying for the agistment by working with Milton. After a fall from a horse in the hills and a fractured neck, he decided to give up the bush and went to live in Alice Springs where he purchased Rice's Newsagency from Anne Long. This, of course, was the start of the famous Marron Newsagency. I understand that that was in the late 1950s. He used to talk about his experiences as a newsagent. However, that is another story which would make an interesting and humorous novel on its own. During his life in Alice Springs, he was heavily involved in town development and many charitable organisations. He was a foundation director of 8HA Commercial Broadcasters. He was a member for what was then the Reserves Board, now the Conservation Commission, a member of Rotary, and a keen supporter of the RSL. In fact, this year, he was patron of the RSL. He was a most generous person who helped many people over a wi de area of central Australia. For example, he generously supported Legacy and the Ghan Preservation Society for. Ted adopted the Ghan Preservation Society some 2 years ago. Together with Dan Conway, a former resident of central Austral ia who would come up from Perth, Ted would drive the locomotives around the yard. Ted said to me one night that he was unable to contribute physically because of his age. He would have liked nothing better than to help with the parks and gardens or re-s1eepering the line. He said: 'The cheque book can do my work I I thought that we wou1 d recei ve a sma 11 donation. One afternoon, 2 years ago, he wrote out a cheque to the Ghan Preservation Society for $15 000. At that stage, he wanted it to be treated anonymously. However, now that he has passed away, I think that I should 8863