By Dr Robyn Smith

Ian McNeill, the fourth Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory, has died in Darwin, aged 76.

Lured to the Northern Territory from the Senate in 1985 by his former Senate boss Guy Smith (1937-2002), who was the third Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, McNeill succeeded Smith in 1993 and served as Clerk for 20 years before retiring in June 2013.

In the Senate, Smith had been, among other things, Usher of the Black Rod, which is the equivalent of the Serjeant-at-Arms in an upper House, with McNeill working under him.

This was not Smith’s first attempt at recruiting McNeill to the Northern Territory: the first occasion resulted in his wife Kit, with three children under the age of seven on a hobby farm with a menagerie, demanding to know: “Are you mad?”

Both Smith and McNeill had been in the Senate when Harold Holt (1908-1967) disappeared on 17 December 1967, and when Governor-General Sir John Kerr (1914-1991) dismissed the Whitlam Government on 11 November 1975.

As Usher of the Black Rod, Smith stood on the steps of Parliament House with the Clerks of the Senate, James Roland Odgers (1914-1985) and Roy Edward Bullock (1916-2006), to hear Kerr’s dismissal proclamation read by Government House Official Secretary, David—later Sir David—Smith (1933-2022).

The immediate past Prime Minister (1916-2014) towered over them all.

Asked whether there was parliamentary chaos in the aftermath of the dismissal, McNeill looked bemused.

“We went fishing,” he said.

As one does when the fate of the government falls to the electorate.

Ian McNeill was born on 28 February 1947 in Melbourne and was educated at Essendon Grammar School, which may explain his rusted-on Bombers fandom.

In fact, he was an alumni of the Essendon Football Club where his nickname ‘Lumpy’ was bestowed.

When making a commiserationary call over a broken sternum to House of Representatives Clerk Bernard Wright, McNeill informed the learned Clerk that it was a common football injury.

Asked whether he had ever suffered the injury, McNeill told Wright that he had not, “but I might have caused one or two.”

Following a Bachelor of Arts at the Australian National University, McNeill spent from 1966—which was shortly after Lake Burley Griffin had been filled—until 1985 as an officer of the Senate, serving in the Senate Records Office, the Table Office, the Procedure Office, and the Office of the Usher of the Black Rod.

He also served in Committees, which included duty as Secretary of the Joint Publications Committee and the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs in Defence, Middle East and Africa.

On 19 July 1975, he married Rockhampton nurse Kathryn (Kit) Kerrisk in Canberra.

Their union was the result of a blind date.

So began a lifelong commitment to the Tamworth Country Music Festival, or “the Queensland opera” as McNeill preferred to call it.

Guy Smith’s second recruitment attempt resulted in success, Mrs McNeill being more receptive than on the first occasion.

The McNeills and their three children, Scott, Beau and Jessica, ventured north so Ian could commence as Deputy Clerk of the Legislative Assembly.

Their arrival in Darwin was in the aftermath of Cyclone Tracy when the Legislative Assembly was a series of ramshackle demountables and a smattering of leaky Tracy survivors, one of which was the Chan Building where a makeshift parliamentary Chamber was located.

Guy Smith served as Clerk from 1983 until his retirement on 24 May 1993 when McNeill became Clerk, just as Smith’s succession plan had intended.

The then Administrator, the Honourable Austin Asche AC QC appointed McNeill Clerk of the Legislative Assembly pursuant to the Public Service Act on the recommendation of the then Speaker, the Honourable Nick Dondas, MLA.

He served with distinction from that time until his retirement in 2013 and was an encyclopaedia of all things parliamentary, including the mysterious world of parliamentary procedure and precedent, and matters arising from ceremonial necessity.

It was a rare parliamentary occasion when McNeill presided over the swearing in of his newly elected daughter-in-law, Nicole Manison MLA, on 19 February 2013.

McNeill served—or suffered, depending on one’s perspective—under nine Speakers.

During his service, there were nine Chief Ministers and 12 Leaders of the Opposition, eight general elections and 16 by-elections.

His service included being Secretary of and chief advisor to the Standing Orders Committee, the Committee of Privileges, and the Committee of Members’ Interests of which he was also Registrar.

In Smith’s stead, he also guided the Sessional Committee on the New Parliament House, which oversaw the design, construction and official opening of the Territory’s grandest building in 1994.

The ABC’s Colin Bisset described Parliament House as “like a Parthenon overlooking the turquoise sea; a perfect foil to the lush tropical planting around it,” and “a beacon for a region that straddles the influences of both north and south, with a strong and proud Aboriginal presence.”

In 2005, McNeill was awarded the Public Service Medal for his services to the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly.

But his parliamentary contributions went well beyond the Territory’s borders.

Highly regarded by his colleagues from interstate and overseas, McNeill was closely involved in the formation of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Clerks-at-the-Table (ANZACATT) as a training forum for officers of what is an incredibly specialised area of public administration.

He served on that association’s Case Law Committee for several years and regularly presented papers at the annual professional development seminar.

ANZACATT took on training commitments for staff of parliaments in developing countries, and McNeill accepted responsibility, on behalf of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory, for mentoring staff from the parliaments of Timor-Leste, Norfolk Island and Niue, with somewhat less formal arrangements with the parliament of Papua New Guinea.

McNeill was also held in high regard by the parliamentary officers who served under him.

One officer acknowledged his mentorship in a PhD thesis:

“I reserve special and particular thanks to the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, Ian McNeill, who has been fully supportive of academic research in respect of the history of the Assembly.

“Not particularly interested in the theory or the outcome, Ian is a rare beast who supports any interrogation of the Westminster system.

“I am deeply indebted for the courtesies he has extended, and for the time he has put into various impromptu interviews and questions in relation to the technical aspects of the operation of the Assembly.”

Members of the Legislative Assembly were both grateful to and wary of him.

Former Member for MacDonnell Neil Bell recalled: “It was impossible for a zealous Opposition Member get past him various terms of abuse.”

A linguist, Bell was confident that no one on the government benches would be alive to the word ‘meretricious’ being unparliamentary.

Nothing got past McNeill.

He quietly advised then Speaker Terry McCarthy that Bell would have to withdraw the utterance—and it was so ordered.

Former Chief Minister Denis Burke said McNeill was “a mentor to all; a thorough professional who was impeccable in the fairness he showed, and a rock in his love and defence of the legislative process and responsibilities bestowed on us as a self-governing Territory of Australia.

“He was a champion of the Northern Territory parliament and highly respected within the Commonwealth parliamentary culture nationally and internationally.”

Outside his parliamentary career, McNeill was a racing man who also loved cricket, history, theatre, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Otis Redding.

Former Member for Barkly Gerry McCarthy claimed to be the only MLA who exchanged cash with a Clerk of the Assembly.

“Annually, Mr McNeill used to turn over some cash to me, which, as a Member, I thought was very interesting, but as a Minister, I got a little nervous,” he said.

“This was his contribution to the famous Rossie Williams Julalikari tipping competition in Tennant Creek, and I used to take down the $50 and ensure Ian’s entry was received.”

At a dinner to mark his retirement in 2013, tributes were received from people as varied as Sir Robert Rogers, Clerk of the House of Commons, to God Himself, Kevin Sheedy, and His successor, James Hird.

There were fighting words, too, when then Auditor-General Frank McGuinness presented his report entitled The Bombers are Rubbish; Collingwood Rules.

That report drew a typically succinct but biting retort: “At least with the Bombers, the drugs go into the athletes and not onto the streets, Frank!”

McNeill is survived by Kit, a landscape artist, their three children and partners, and a baker’s dozen grandchildren.

Vale Ian McNeill.

Dr Smith worked for Mr McNeill as his executive officer in the Department of the Legislative Assembly.