Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a privilege to follow the Attorney-General's beautiful remarks about a remarkable member of this place. There has been something beautiful and moving in the tears that have been shed this morning and over recent days at the loss of Peta Murphy. Sometimes this magnificent space, a space that Peta Murphy called the cauldron of our national conversation, can be parched and harsh. The demands of this cauldron can challenge us and draw out from us either good or bad, courage or selfishness, brinkmanship or statesmanship. Today the strength, courage, fearlessness, and bravery of one whom we all mourn only draws out from us the very best.

Peta Murphy was an extraordinary woman—whip-smart, sharp, incisive, generous, funny, warm and joyous. She didn't waste a moment in this building. There's a universality we all share when we're first elected to this place—wonder, amazement and awe. And in those first days, buoyed by our win and the love and affection and pride of families, we feel almost an intoxication in the belief that with time anything is possible. Peta Murphy didn't get to truly experience the fullness of that joy. Within a week of being sworn in, the cancer she had fought years earlier had returned. She told us that treatment made her sick and scared and angry. Yet despite it, or maybe in spite of it, she pressed on stoically and defiantly, saying:

I am neither unique nor alone in the fight that I am about to take on … but I am someone who has a platform that can be used to benefit others. And as long as the people of Dunkley continue to vote for me to represent them in this place, I intend to use it.

And she did.

Peta stood for a range of causes, from constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians, to more support for unpaid carers, to research for Australians facing metastatic cancers. Peta chaired the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs and championed the case for reform to online gambling. In her first speech, she said, 'Sport is more than a game to us … it's more than a game to me.' It's why she wanted to untangle the unhealthy intertwining of sport and gambling, particularly as it related to children. She didn't do so out of any puritanical belief that she knew better than others but with the lived experience of a solicitor, a barrister and public defender, having seen the disproportionate impact gambling can have on communities from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. It's to Peta's credit, as well as that of the member for Cowper, who was the deputy chair, that the unanimous report was delivered.

I first got to know Peta through the 2022 McKinnon Institute for Political Leadership's Advanced Political Leadership Program. The McKinnon Institute is a gift to our country, and I particularly want to acknowledge at this time Sophie Oh and Grant Rule, who make it possible. On our side of the House, at the federal level we were represented in that program by my friend the member for Fisher, the member for Moncrieff—who's at the table today—and Senator James Paterson, and on the other side there was my friend the member for Macnamara, Peta's very good friend the member for Jagajaga, the member for Fremantle and Senator Marielle Smith. I'm grateful for that experience and for the friendships that were formed across the aisle and across the country with our state colleagues on both sides that participated in that well. As Peta said of the program, it creates a generous perspective—and she was right.

Much of the work of the McKinnon Institute is the brainchild of her husband, Rod Glover. I remember asking Peta about the story of how she and Rod met, when we were doing the course. As the Attorney-General indicated, Peta was a staffer working for Duncan Kerr at the time and Rod was working for one of Labor's economics spokespeople. Rod, in his typical way, came in, sat down, saw Peta and wanted to talk to her about some aspect of economic policy. That was the first day, and it continued on into a second day and subsequent days to the point where Rod never left; he was drawn by her beauty and magnetism, as we all were.

Watching them interact during the program, I saw the wonderful interplay of Rod's rationality and practicality and Peta's idealism and even her sentimentality. I'm sure the member for Jagajaga has seen this many times but I've often wondered what would be like to sit at the kitchen table of a morning with Peta and Rod, watching them debate policy and watching them challenge each other in terms of different ideas—Rod with his intricate brain and Peta with her cut-through, never-say-die idealism and advocacy which marked her out as such a special person in this place. I'm sure there is something of Peta's influence and interactions on what Rod has done with the McKinnon program, because even from the first day Peta embodied the ethos of McKinnon and their shared belief in the need for all of us to reimagine democracy, particularly to respect the political institutions of which we are all custodians for a season. As Peta said, there is too often a machismo about politics which mistakes aggressiveness for aggression, which demands certainty and rejects reflection as weakness, and which is quick to judge and slow to forgive.

Peta's very first statement in this House was on the constitutional recognition of Indigenous people. I want to put on record that I am grateful for the many private interactions Peta and I had during the parliamentary debates and the committee process that occurred over the course of this year. I am privileged to be standing next to the member for Menzies; he and Peta Murphy were the lead interrogators on the joint parliamentary committee that looked at the constitutional amendment. It was a tall ask for both of them; they were there to grill retired High Court judges and some of the best legal academics in the land, but they proved themselves entirely worthy. We saw in that process Peta's very substantial contribution and forensic skill. As Peta reminded her community after the referendum, the work is still before us to better close the gap.

If there is an idea that sticks with me about Peta, it's the interaction of work, purpose and a meaningful life—to look out and up even in the midst of suffering. Peta worked to the very end. On the very last day of her life Peta was championing the Breast Cancer Network Australia report on metastatic breast cancer. Last week she joined us at question time and participated, with no quarter asked and none given. In the weeks and months where she knew what lay ahead, she drew closer to her community—standing tall on Remembrance Day; taking a clipboard, pen and brochures to community catch-ups; opening a community centre; participating in a croquet morning; cheering on participants of blind sports; throwing the first pitch at Frankston softball; playing with a golden retriever service dog; heartily joining in an evening with the Sandhurst Singers; supporting a sausage sizzle at Bunnings; collecting Christmas toys for local families; wearing a bright pink hat for breast cancer awareness; and continuing to work on an inquiry into unpaid carers, again and again with a smile beaming out and a purposeful determination to make a difference. It wouldn't have been easy and it wouldn't have been easy for her staff, too, and I want to acknowledge them today. Recently Peta attended the opening of the Jubilee Park complex, something she'd fought for. Inscribed at the new stadium are the words 'play with respect, win with grace'. It could have been describing their local member.

Peta was drawn to the work of politics, so let me conclude with a small aspect of that work. In Australia one in seven women are diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime, as are one in 500 men. On a typical day like today, 57 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and three of those women will be young, and nine Australians will die every day from breast cancer. So much progress has been made in the diagnosis and survival rates, but we can't afford to let up. To the end, Peta was putting a case for a national register for metastatic breast cancer. May we all pick up this work and mantle for change.

Last week, the member for Gippsland, speaking for all of us, said that the member for Dunkley was facing her challenges with 'courage, humility and good humour.' And he added, 'It is bloody hard to watch.' Occasionally in life we find our teachers are people who point us to a path that we do not know. We watch them, and we learn from them. In facing death and choosing to serve, to work, to smile even when it was so hard and to continue to lift up others, Peta taught us something about life itself and how to use every second we have in this cauldron, and that's what we remember today.

When she arrived here, Peta Murphy said she was neither rare nor unique. I beg to differ. No, no; she was rare and she was unique.

I want to end with two thoughts from my tradition. In my tradition, the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said, 'a community is where people know your name and where they miss you when you're gone.' In this community, we miss Peta already, and I'm sure her own community does too.

In the Psalms we are reminded to teach us to count our days that we may develop a heart of wisdom. Peta did not have many days, but she used each and every one of them wisely.

To Peta's husband of a quarter of a century, Rod Glover; Peta's parents, Bob and Jan; the Murphy family; Peta's community; Peta's staff; and the Labor Party, I offer my condolences. May the memory of Peta Murphy be a blessing.

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