In Don’s DNA

There was really no question where Don Page would study or live after leaving school in the late 1960s.

“It was inevitable that I should attend UNE,” he says. “My grandfather Sir Earle Page had gone to so much trouble to help establish Australia’s first regional university in Armidale and it was mandatory, of course, that I lived at Earle Page College.”

Australia’s eleventh Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister for 14 years became UNE’s first Chancellor, in 1954. A brilliant medical graduate of Sydney University, World War I veteran and “statesman of international repute”, Sir Earle Page was chair of the first meeting of the New England University College Advisory Council. He believed the university’s establishment would “provide an inspiration to country thought and to people in the country”.

Growing up on the family’s cattle property near Grafton on a diet of “Country Party milk”, Don recalls playing tennis with his grandfather and hearing of his political achievements.

“My mother was my grandfather’s private secretary in Canberra, before she married my father [Don senior], and would often talk in glowing terms about what he had done for Australia and the legislation he was responsible for,” Don says. “I was pretty much in awe.

I thought if my life was to have any purpose, any real purpose, then if I could achieve only a fraction of what Sir Earle achieved, I would be happy.”

At UNE, Don completed a Bachelor of Economics and lived at Earle Page College for four years, serving as Vice-President in his final year. After a year working for the Department of Trade, he returned to UNE to undertake his Masters.

“I wasn’t one of those student activists; I was more listening and watching at that stage.” And playing cricket and rugby, competing in the Earle Page College team that won Armidale’s first-grade men’s cricket competition three years and the rugby team that took out four first-grade premierships. The handy half-back – and 1972 Best and Fairest player in the New England zone – also played Combined Australian Universities rugby for three years.

After graduating and gaining some “real business experience”, Don became the fifth generation in his family to enter public office when he was elected the Member for Ballina, in 1988. He would go on to win a further six elections, serving for 27 years in NSW Parliament, including time as the Deputy Leader of the NSW Nationals, Minister for Local Government and the first Minister for the North Coast. In total, in government and Opposition, Don was a spokesperson for 12 portfolios.

“There are a few things I took away from my time at UNE,” he says. “Two degrees that gave me credibility in the marketplace and in the community. Discipline, the importance of taking a long-term perspective, and the ability to think logically and be prepared to listen to a range of opinions before reaching a conclusion. Meeting such a diversity of people in residential college was also good for me later in my political career and for working in the community.”