Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Greens, I want to extend my condolences to Linda White's brother, to her extended family and to the broader Labor family and Labor movement, who I know are still grieving the far-too-soon loss of Linda White, and especially for those in Victoria who have lost two very strong, important and progressive women in a very short period and far too early.

People have heard from many others across this chamber about what Linda stood for and the work that she did while she was in this place. The speeches and the commitments you've heard from across the chamber are a testament to the principled approach Linda brought to her time here and her tenacity. I had been fortunate enough to see that going many years back, as someone who worked as a lawyer for unions in Victoria and as someone who had worked with Linda as far back as 2001.

People remember the attacks on the World Trade Center in September 2001 and how significantly that changed things for people right around the world, including in Australia, but something else happened at that time that very directly involved Linda, and that was the collapse of Ansett. At that time, I had the privilege of working as a lawyer for the ASU, and Linda was the assistant national secretary. While much of the world's attention was focused justifiably on the attacks on the World Trade Center, many of us had to grapple with the fact that one of Australia's biggest employers was on the verge of collapsing and leaving a large number of workers in the lurch.

A number of leaders of the union at the time, including Linda White; Ingrid Stitt, who's currently a Victorian minister; and Martin Foley, a former Victorian minister, were thrown into a position—with those of us who were lucky enough to be in a position to be able to help them and the workers—of having to deal with a big employer going into collapse, leaving huge numbers of workers in the lurch, many of whom stood to lose incredible amounts of money and entitlements, entitlements that anyone who works in Australia would have thought they were entitled to if their employer collapsed. All of a sudden, that was at risk for many workers, as well as their ongoing livelihoods. For the representatives, including Linda White, there was an immediate crash course that everyone had to go through to learn what happens to the workers when their company goes under, how they could try to keep their company afloat and what happens if that doesn't work. We had a situation in Australia where many of those workers stood to be left out in the cold.

Something that still impresses me to this day is the tenacity and the intelligence that Linda White and the other ASU leaders showed to ensure that everything was done to, firstly, try to keep the airline in the skies and their members in employment. This included working out how to change an administrator, which was something that many workers hadn't done before, and putting in place someone who might give the workers a better deal. When that turned out not to be the case, they had to ensure that everyone would get their entitlements. I still remember the union leadership working out how to get every single worker to come and sign a form to proxy their creditor rights to them. It was an astounding situation that shouldn't have happened. There were lines around the ASU office in Carlton as workers were queueing up, and the union leadership worked over the weekend and around the clock to ensure that the workers were in the strongest possible position to exercise their rights and get everything that they were entitled to. Of course, that was at that time, but then, over the years, it became apparent again that the workers stood a chance of being left in the lurch and potentially ending up losing savings. Especially for people nearing the end of their working life—they were relying on continuing to have a job with Ansett. For many people, it was very difficult to go and find another job, especially if you were nearing retirement age, and, all of a sudden, the entitlements that you were relying on just weren't there.

I was really privileged to see Linda White and those other representatives in the ASU, together with a number of other unions, just not give up year after year to ensure that workers of Ansett, who bore no responsibility for the collapse, got what they were entitled to. In part as a result of that, we've since changed the laws in this country and we've put workers in a slightly stronger position. But I just want to inform the House about having seen the hard work that Linda and the others did before she came into politics, and she never gave up. We've heard in speeches from other Labor members about how proud she was to be wearing those Ansett wings that, I think, a former flight attendant had given her. That was a justifiable honour that was bestowed on Linda because that work was not done for personal gain but done for the benefit of others, and it was done relentlessly.

Just as people here from all sides of politics have paid tribute to Linda's persistence and relentlessness when she was in this place, I can tell the parliament that that is a feature that was present before she came to this place, and there are thousands of people in this country, if not tens of thousands, who are directly better off as a result of what she did. People need to know that that work, that selfless hard work, day in, day out—and not only month after month but year after year—made a big difference to people.

I think the Deputy Prime Minister said words to the effect about being on the opposite side of the table from Linda White on a number of occasions, and, of course, this is not the instance to relitigate any political differences. But I do think, to be fair to her, Linda would've been the first to say that she would probably rather I hadn't been elected. The ASU, which I was a member of when I was employed in that sphere, is in my electorate, in Carlton, and they proudly campaigned for the former Labor member to retain her seat and for subsequent Labor candidates to come in and hold their seats.

That's the way it is, but, despite that, I want to pay tribute in that respect as well to the movement that Linda had been a part of in reforming the ASU and getting it to the point where they were in a position to deliver for workers in the way that I've just described. My predecessor Lindsay Tanner and some of the others that I've mentioned were part of a group called the clerks reform group, which has been referred to in previous speeches. I do want to pay tribute to the work that they did because that work reformed a union that had increasingly become out of touch with its workers into one that was able to take up the fight and represent them, including the many Ansett workers that were members. In full openness, honesty and transparency, yes, I'm sure—because we're all here in different parties—that Linda would have preferred that somebody else was sitting in this spot as the member for Melbourne. But, not withstanding that, I think it's really vital at moments like this, when we reflect on someone's life, that we can look across the chamber and acknowledge Linda's incredible work not only as a fighter for her own side and her own party but, as I said before, the very real and tangible difference she made to tens of thousands of people's lives in this country, who are better off as a result of what she did. Vale, Linda White, and, on behalf of the Greens, again I extend my condolences.

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