Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I join all previous speakers and parliamentary colleagues across this chamber and the other place in expressing my heartfelt condolences at the passing of our friend and comrade Senator Linda White. As anyone watching would have seen, the whole Labor family and those from other political parties that saw the good and integrity in her were shocked and heartbroken, as she was truly a formidable person and an indefatigable champion of working Australians and the Labor movement.

As a young lawyer, she played her part in tackling injustices that were only just beginning to be confronted, and I'm talking about confronting horrendous wrongs like corruption in the police force and institutional child abuse. She saw that those things needed to be confronted and she went about being part of righting those wrongs.

She started as a rank-and-file activist and became the assistant national secretary of the Australian Services Union, where her legacy is massive, from protecting workers' entitlements in the Ansett collapse—that's one example—to leading the campaign for equal pay for social and community service workers to fighting for the right to income for members feeling the impacts of COVID.

The longest serving woman on the national executive of the ALP, Linda was absolutely central to the affirmative action reforms which led to our government, the Albanese government, being the first-ever government with a majority of female members in Australian history. So, as you can see, our caucus was literally shaped by Linda's activism and burning desire for social justice and good governance.

She was a loyal servant of the administration of the Labor Party federally and in Victoria, and it was a good day for the ALP when Linda put up her hand to enter the Senate. Although in the end she wasn't in the Senate for long, she made powerful use of the time that she had, really making a profound impact on matters as varied as the National Anti-Corruption Commission and better access to superannuation for Australian women.

Linda was someone who absolutely loved our party. She loved the union movement and the state of Victoria. She was an advocate of a big-hearted government, and she was adept at the power of collective action to set right the life of the city. She was very passionate about Melbourne and the MCG and about other iconic places in the great state of Victoria. She was political, absolutely political, but in the very noblest sense of that term. Passionate and always speaking her mind, never lacking moral courage, yearning to serve a cause greater than herself without taking credit or asserting her status—those are just some of the qualities that we all admired in Linda.

But it's right and important, as other members have done, that we also honour the broad and curious mind that was Linda White's outside of her better known political sphere. We've heard about her love of libraries, and one regret that I have is that I never got to speak with her about her love of libraries. When I was first elected in 2016, one of the first things I did was start the Parliamentary Friends of GLAM—galleries, libraries, archives and museums—libraries being such important cultural institutions. Linda was a massive supporter of libraries and a patron of the arts. Among the many organisations mourning her passing, of course, is our own National Library of Australia, and Linda sat on that council. She was a very avid reader and loved to discuss the latest works at the book club.

She is mourned, too, by the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, and she would have been stoked to see an announcement from our government today about further empowerment of midwives.

She was a titan of the union movement, and, as I said, a lover of the creative arts; of good food and beautiful gardens; of bread and roses, as the Prime Minister put it; and of the sun drenched light that falls not only on the best but on the most ordinary days in our lives and even on the worst days, if we look right. So let us never tire of remembering not only today, when it's easier, but especially when the logic of political contest takes over, that beauty oft lays hidden, even in a place like this. And let Linda teach us that, instead of inspiring the very worst in ourselves, the fragility at the heart of this human experiment of ours can also bring out the better angels of our nature, forging the most unexpected of friendships, connecting in moments of shared vulnerability and appreciating each other, and expressing that appreciation as well, while we still have this incredible privilege.

My thoughts are with Linda's family, particularly her brother Michael, her extended family and all her loved ones, her staff and comrades at the ASU and across our party in Victoria, where I first became an ALP member 20 years ago. Finally, what always impresses me about people like Linda is that they are mentors for other. They take on young people, or people who are new to the movement or the party, and mentor them through. That's how we build a stronger country. Linda always took opportunities to mentor people, and through her mentees, her legacy and her impact in Australia will live on. Vale, Linda White.

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