Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Skills and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I speak today with much sadness to reflect on, remember and pay tribute to the remarkable life of Senator Linda White, a true champion of workers and a tireless advocate for the rights of women within the Labor Party and beyond. She was also a dear friend. Linda was a recent parliamentary colleague of mine, but before that we spent years together at the Australian Services Union. I was the national assistant secretary, representing, in particular, local government workers across the country, and she had the responsibility of looking after clerks in public and private areas of our country. Together, we worked on a whole range of issues for almost a decade. We had our moments, but we mostly agreed and worked together on a whole range of issues.

We were also sometimes dealing with some in the Australian Services Union that had a different view. Of course, when you bring together so many constituent parts of the union movement, if you bring together a series of unions—the Municipal Employees Union, the Municipal Officers Association, the Federated Clerks Union—like any amalgamation, you have tensions, you have to rationalise the organisation and you have to ultimately reconcile some of the competing cultures that come together through an amalgamation. That's whether it's a council, whether it's a footy team, whether it's a union or whether it's a company. These things, of course, can be fraught, but ultimately, if successful, those matters are reconciled.

Linda and I always found ourselves on the same side, trying to ensure that the Australian Services Union was a strong union representing the interests of members first, a progressive union, and ensuring that we focused on those things that matter most to working people and their families. Some of our opponents within the union dubbed us 'the evil twins', which we appropriated and took as a term of endearment. From time to time, when we met, we would actually refer to each other as 'evil twin'!

But Linda was a remarkably indefatigable champion of working people. It was a terrible shock when I was informed of her passing just a few weeks ago. I didn't really have a chance to say goodbye to her, which I would have wanted. She was a very private person. Her illness took her very quickly, and, frankly, many of her friends and her colleagues were both terribly dismayed but also shocked at the speed with which she passed. That's been a very difficult thing to reconcile—not having a chance to properly talk to her before she passed.

During her time as assistant national secretary, she led numerous campaigns that directly benefited working people across the country. When Ansett collapsed in 2001, it was Linda White who was at the forefront of the long fight for the rights of the airline's 16,000 workers. I just so happened at that point to be a newly elected member of parliament. I'd left the union. I was also involved in that terrible corporate collapse because my seat covered many areas where thousands of Ansett workers lived—Sunbury, Woodend and Gisborne, around Tullamarine airport. She and I worked together. I was engaged in the parliament, talking to the workers and talking to the administrators that took over the company when it went into liquidation. We worked together again, even though by that stage I'd left the union.

Two decades later she was elected to the Senate, and she reminded us that the terrible thing that happened to Ansett was a brutal reminder that markets don't always prioritise the wellbeing of workers. She said in her first speech that she was inspired by the resilience, bravery, leadership and collective action of Ansett members. Ansett members eventually recovered almost all of the $760 million that was owed to them.

Linda's leadership was instrumental in that fight, but she was also instrumental in the fight for equal pay for over 200,000 social and community service workers. After nearly six years of continuous campaigning by union officials and members, pay rises of between 27 per cent and 43 per cent were achieved, following a change in equal pay laws and a favourable Fair Work Commission result in 2012. That equal pay case changed the lives of women workers in the community sector.

Linda was long concerned with the unequal retirement incomes of men and women. In her first speech to the Senate, Linda spoke of the gap between the retirement savings of women and men and how it was greater than the gender pay gap. She went on to say:

Australians' retirement savings have too long been an ideological plaything of the government, unconcerned about real outcomes for women and more about who is on the board of the industry superfund. Instead of focusing on making super work for women and others who need it in retirement, opponents of superannuation constantly tried to undermine our system. Superannuation … should be above petty partisan politics.

Linda White would have been delighted that a significant step forward for equity in women's retirement will happen next year, when super is to be paid on government paid parental leave. She served many years on the Australian Labor Party National Executive; in fact she was the longest-serving woman ever on the executive of the oldest political party in Australia. As a fierce champion of women, she played no small part in the creation of Labor's affirmative action policy, which has led us to where we are now: the first Commonwealth government in history with a majority of women parliamentarians.

Linda was a born organiser. In any group she would bring everyone together with a common purpose and goal, whether that was in the workplace or her book club. She was passionate about everything in life, and her passing leaves a profound void in all our hearts. I will miss her indomitable spirit, her sharp wit and her unwavering dedication to the causes she believed in.

I extend my deepest condolences to her family—her brother in particular; her staff; her colleagues; and her many, many friends. May her legacy serve as a guiding light for future generations. Linda told the Senate in her inaugural speech that there was no doubt in her mind that governments change lives and that strong, progressive Labor governments change them for the better. Linda White's time in this place was of course far too short, but, over a lifetime of fighting for others, she changed countless lives for the better. May she rest in peace knowing that her contributions have made a lasting impact.

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