Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

I want to associate myself with the comments of the Prime Minister, the opposition leader and all those opposite who've spoken, particularly the minister for skills—great friends—the minister for aged care, the member for Jagajaga and the member for Canberra. I have some news for you, though. If Peta was here she'd tell you stop sooking: 'I'm the one who's dead. What are you sooking about?'

To the member for Jagajaga and the member for Canberra, thank you for your very kind words about your dear friend. But I don't think she really enjoyed public praise very much and I'd suggest that she's going to suffer a little bit more here today as we all reflect on her achievements in this place.

We are part of one of the most exclusive clubs in Australia. It takes a selection panel of more than 100,000 people to choose each of us, and, once we're elected, we should expect first-class treatment wherever we go in Australia. We deserve Comcars to take us everywhere. We should demand that people know just how important we are. If anyone in this place believes any of that, come to the dispatch box and resign right now.

The member for Dunkley never forgot where she came from. The member for Dunkley never forgot the people she was here to serve, and she never took herself too seriously. In Australia, there is one thing you do not want to be. You do not want to be up yourself. And the member for Dunkley was not up herself. The member for Dunkley had a great skill in walking amongst some of the highest officials in this country, spending time at the United Nations with world leaders, but she could still walk the streets of Frankston and be loved by the people who knew her well. The Prime Minister himself reflected on the incredible authenticity of our friend Peta Murphy.

As I reflected on our relationship over the weekend and the last couple of days, I realised it was based primarily on taking the mickey out of each other. Last week when I went to see her, she pointed out that at least she had invited me to her 50th birthday, because the member for New England was never going to invite me to his wedding! It was a cruel but fair comment.

But, on a serious note, I do want to extend my heartfelt condolences on behalf of Gippslanders and my wife—Julie—to Peta's husband—Rod—her loved ones, her staff, the entire electorate of Dunkley and the extended Labor Party family. To Rod, while we have lost a friend and colleague, you have lost a soulmate. Thank you for caring for our friend in those difficult circumstances. Losing a loved one is never easy, and I know that we were aware of Peta's ill health and her suffering, but it still took me by surprise on Monday. She was full of good humour till the end and she was selfless and courageous.

I think the federal parliament has lost a true champion of the battlers across our nation with the passing of Peta Murphy. I think she inspired us and I think there are a lot of lessons for all of us in the way she conducted herself in her time in this place. She inspired us with her determination to keep fighting for causes that she was passionate about, with her leadership in incredible adversity, and it should never be forgotten. She really believed in this place—she really believed in the power of public advocacy—and she wasn't going to waste a minute. I do feel we have all been a bit ripped off, and I said this on ABC Radio just the other day, when I was interviewed alongside the member for Jagajaga. I think we've been a bit ripped off. The nation has been robbed of even greater achievements from the member for Dunkley. She had so much more to offer.

I do want to reflect on her selflessness—the selflessness of someone who would come to this place, the most public of places, as they struggled with metastatic breast cancer. I don't know how each of us would respond if we were faced with those circumstances. I don't know how I would respond if I were faced with those circumstances. I think I would be tempted to run away and hide. I think I would be tempted to find an island somewhere and spend the rest of my time basking in the sun in whatever time I had left with my family, friends and dogs. But Peta wanted to make sure that others suffering from this disease knew they had a public champion, an advocate who wouldn't hide from the difficulties they were facing. She made sure that cancer didn't define who she was. Peta defined the cancer on behalf of mainly women but also men around our country. Her advocacy in this place to her last day in Canberra was an inspiration to me. I am certain her sacrifice has been respected by the Breast Cancer Network and I am sure she will be rewarded in the days to come, with the government and the opposition working collaboratively to achieve a metastatic breast cancer national register so that data can be counted and shared across the nation.

If Peta were here, though, I really do think she would tell me to harden up a bit, stop sooking so much at the dispatch box and stop being so nice to her. I often reflected on why Peta would spend her last days on the planet in this place fighting for the causes she cared about. The best I could come up with was that was she didn't want to waste her chance to be in such an important role in the public square of debate in this country. The member for Gorton reflected on that as well, and I thought his contribution was sensational. She never took her time in this place for granted and she wanted to make sure that it did count. We are all perhaps a little bit guilty from time to time of thinking that we have unlimited hours in this place—unlimited time as members of parliament—but she knew what an honour and a privilege it was to serve her community, and she was a warrior for things that she was really passionate about. And she was passionate about a lot of things, I've got to say. Squash was only one of them. There was human rights, women's health, education, the battlers in her community. But there's a lesson to us all here: don't count the days in this place; make the days count; spend your time here well.

But, speaking of time, the average length of service for a member of the House of Representatives is about eight years. There have been 1,242 members of parliament serve in this place, and the average time spent here is about eight years. So Peta Murphy's time in this place was below average. I just had to get that in, in case Peta's listening somewhere and can hear me sledging her in the public environment! She would have been expecting a couple of cheap shots from me, particularly when she can't answer back! This will be the only time I have ever had a debate with Peta Murphy, and a conversation with Peta Murphy, where I've had the last word.

In fairness, there was nothing below average about Peta Murphy, and we can never measure our contribution just in hours or days or years in this place. She was blessed with a combination of fierce intelligence—and I can understand why the new members, when they arrived in this place, would have been intimidated by this force of nature. She had passion. She had whip-smart humour. She had sarcasm and sass in equal proportions. She was more than a match for anyone in this place. If merit was the sole determining factor, I think she would have been a cabinet minister, but I'm sure her ill health intervened in those decisions. Having sat in a few cabinet rooms, and been sacked from a couple of them as well—a point that Peta would regularly point out to me if I was ever getting too far ahead of myself—I know she would have acquitted herself well within a cabinet of any government, and I think that it is a great tragedy that she didn't get to serve at that very high level.

In her inaugural speech—and others have reflected on this—she demonstrated a self-awareness that most politicians lack. Let's be fair: most politicians don't have a high degree of self-awareness. But she did know that her time in the federal parliament would be limited and she wasn't going to waste a minute of that time. It was a brave and a powerful speech, in many ways, and she reflected on how she'd like to be remembered as a parliamentarian. And it's interesting that both the member for Jagajaga and a member of the Nationals picked out the same quote as I did from her inaugural speech, in which Peta said:

… I would like to be able to say that I left Australian politics—Australian democracy—in better shape than when I joined it, that I was part of a generation of Australian politicians who worked to recover the public's faith in our democratic system and who strove to reharness politics as that vehicle for enlarging opportunities and enlarging our national imagination …

I do think there's a message, in Peta's passing and Peta's inaugural speech and the way she conducted herself, for all of us in this place. In this increasingly hyperpartisan world of politics, there are still friendships to be forged across the aisle. I've benefited from listening to Peta's opinions—and, let's face it, she was very happy to share her opinions with me on a very regular basis! But we can all learn from each other if we respect the ideas coming from both sides of this chamber.

We were thrown together last year as parliamentary representatives at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, with Peta joking to me at the time, as we departed, 'You know the only reason we're going is 'cause I'm the cancer chick and the Nats don't want you in the country!' There was a fair bit of brutal truth in that for both of us!

Peta was no shrinking violet. She had many passions to match her fierce intellect. We bonded over our mutual love of dogs—most of our conversations started with, 'How are your dogs going?'—our love for regional Australia—as a Wagga Wagga public school graduate, Peta was very proud of her regional roots—and a shared willingness, as I said earlier, of not taking ourselves too seriously. Her authenticity shone through in so many conversations. I'm aware that I'm going over time, but I challenge the Deputy Speaker to sit me down, because coming up is a contribution from Peta's own staff.

I acknowledged Peta's staff in my opening remarks, and it's important that we remember you guys at this time—and two of them are in the chamber right now. They have lost a friend. They have lost a mentor, a boss who fought the good fight with everything she had. Her passion for fairness, for women's health, education, overcoming disadvantage in the seat of Dunkley and around our country have added to my personal resolve to make a difference in those areas, and I hope to carry those Murphyisms with me as I go forward in whatever time I have left in this parliament.

I asked Peta's staff if they'd like to say a few words today, and here's what they had to say about their boss on behalf of their colleagues in Dunkley:

They often say you judge a parliamentarian by the number of staff that stay in their office.

And for Peta, most of her staff have been with her since day one. And those few that moved on, always did with her support and have remained part of Team Dunkley.

That was the effect of Peta.

As many in this place would know, Peta was fiercely independent. The adjustment to having a team of staff took some time.

As we worked to support her in her role, she would often remark, "I feel bad for making you do this."—

I know a few MPs that would never feel bad about making you do anything, but I digress from your message—

Peta had such a way with words. She could always be relied upon to give a speech on short notice. Famously jumping to fill 90-seconds statements.

On the rare occasion we wrote a speech for her, Peta would often proceed to ignore it. Afterwards, she would sheepishly return to the office—where we were forced to admit that hers was better anyway.

We always teased Peta because she didn't have a poker face. She showed all her emotions, and we admired her for that.

Over the years, it has made for some entertaining photos and Peta always participated in the annual Dunkley Christmas blooper reel with good humour.

Peta was also annoyingly perceptive and had supersonic hearing. There was no hiding anything from her and she often called down the hallway from the office, "I can hear you, you know".

Being so close with Peta, we saw the roller coaster ride this is living with metastatic breast cancer. But most of all, we saw her determination to represent our community even as her health declined.

We'll miss Peta's black humour, her sage advice and her interesting fashion choices.

Peta was more than a boss to us. She was our mentor. Our friend. Always on our side.

We are so proud to have worked in the office of Peta Murphy MP.

I want to thank Peta's staff for their thoughts. Similarly, I want to acknowledge the staff of the United Nations, who Peta embraced last year. They were equally impressed by her intelligence, her warmth and her good humour. It was an honour for me to say a few words last week in Peta's presence.

Rest in peace, Peta. You are the strongest girl in the world; remember that.

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