Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yesterday morning, my office, my party and my community in Melbourne's west heard the devastating news that my dear friend Clara Jordan-Baird had died. I want to recognise Clara's life here today in a building that she loved. The public are cynical about politics, but Clara was the least-cynical person I knew. She was earnest, swotty, passionate and committed, and she talked at a thousand words a minute. She was a joiner, a giver and a doer. She was so determined. She was committed to the Labor cause and served it working for me and elected officers of our party, and through community organisations working towards shared objectives, including Interns Australia. She made an extraordinary contribution to our country and touched so many people in just 28 years.

We're shocked to have lost her so soon and so unexpectedly. I was so proud of her and I believed that she would do great things in the future. Those of us who knew her will honour her memory in this place by serving the causes she cared about, particularly the advancement of women's equality and the rights of young people in the workplace, and also by partaking in sea change, bad puns, women's footy and mince pies. My thoughts are with her family, her many friends, my staff and the Labor members who are grieving for her today in Canberra and in Melbourne. Robert, Prue, Emily and Alice, I am so sorry.

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