Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

There were two PMs on our side of the House: one, who I like very much and who leads us all, and one who was the spiritual leader of the class of 2019. We met at MP kindy, as our cohort was orientated about what to expect as we entered public life. She was confident, she was outspoken, she was wearing an outstanding ox-blood power suit and she was seriously knowledgeable, showing off to the class that she knew an obscure nuance around the standing orders that she would be using in order to speak on the condolence motion for Bob Hawke without yielding her right to a first speech.

I did not care for her. 'Well, well, well,' I thought to myself, 'who is this queen bee, inserting an early dominance upon the hive?' Then, towards the end of the first day, when this Hermione Granger of Frankston was providing yet another correct and nuanced answer to some quandary that we were facing, she stopped abruptly and censored herself: 'Sorry, everyone! Just tell me to shut up when you need to; I always talk too much when I'm nervous, and you all make me really, really nervous!' And then I was charmed! One of Peta's gifts was her charisma and her ability to disarm people by being frank, open and vulnerable.

One day, a little while later, when her new medication was distorting her svelte, squash-champion figure, she sailed into my office and thrust a maroon frock down on the desk before me: 'Wellsy, I do not for one second pretend to understand or even, for that matter, appreciate Queenslanders. But I do know you'll appreciate this dress much more than I do, so here you go. And mind that you wear it heaps—I paid at least $50 for it!' Another of Peta's gifts was guileless generosity, shared by her magnificent husband, Rod, who has been so utterly generous with us all throughout this time. I honour him most sincerely.

Soon, the 'festival of babies' arrived for the FPLP. One of the many pointy things that happened to Peta while she was here was that she formed a close circle of friends and then every single one of them bred around her at the same time. Ninety-nine per cent of the time she was the personification of excited and enthusiastic support for our forthcoming endeavours. On the rarest of moments, alone in our offices late at night, she would briefly allow herself to voice how desperately she and Rod had wanted a family before cancer had taken that from them. It was in one of those raw moments that I offered her one of my incoming twins. She said that much like the witch in Sleeping Beauty she'd make good on that promise when the time came. It was always best to take Peta at her word. At some ungodly time on the day the twins were born, I texted Peta a list of the characteristics that each twin had exhibited during their first hours on earth, and she responded quickly with her selection. She liked the sound of the one who had demonstrated greater fight and future sporting potential. And so, he was hers.

Peta loved the babies of the FPLP almost as much as her nieces and nephew, and we're blessed with many photos capturing her devotion. When I look at them, I hear the soundtrack of Peta's delight at their every smile—at every time her twin behaved better than my twin or hit his milestones ahead of my twin or generally, in any way in any capacity, outperformed my twin. On one halcyon day, her twin conducted himself in such a manner at a press conference with the now PM that, for a time, he earned star billing on the illustrious Albanese social profile pictures. There was no prouder peacock fluffing their feathers about their accomplishment than Peta.

These three stories illustrate Peta's charm, her abilities, her generosity, her friendship and her loyalty. These qualities deserve to be memorialised. But, for me, these three stories reveal what was finest about Peta's character, which was that she constantly found a way to take the sharpest circumstances that life presented her with and make them a gift for others. Peta was a remarkable Australian, and her capacity deserves to be celebrated today and in times to come. But, as her friend, privileged enough to occasionally glimpse the soul fighting behind the most compelling of shields, I want to pay tribute to how hard and for how long Peta tried. Some of the qualities we all loved most were not her many natural-born gifts easily deployed; they were hard-fought dividends of a herculean amount of effort. She was given no quarter. She took no short cuts. She was the best PM we never had. Goodbye, my exceptional friend.

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