Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the motion on the Hon. Dr Rosemary Crowley. Like the member for Kingston, I too attended the state memorial service in South Australia, together with the member for Makin, the premier and many others that were there to celebrate Rosemary's life and to hear of her achievements and her trailblazing political story, as we've heard from other speakers here today. When you think of Rosemary Crowley, it's an extraordinary story to break through that barrier, that blokey culture, that existed back then not just up here in Parliament House but within the Labor Party itself. If you think back to those years—where she continuously pushed for affirmative action and continuously pushed for women to have a greater say in this great historical political party of the Australian Labor Party—and think of where we are today, as the member for Kingston eloquently put it, with 50 per cent women in our caucus and the same with our state Labor Party in South Australia, it's due to women like Rosemary Crowley and the role that she played in the early eighties to ensure that this came to fruition and became a reality.

We heard stories on Saturday of her political career and how she actually campaigned within the party to achieve this against a wall of that blokey culture which existed back then. Rosemary was an extraordinary person. As we heard, she did medicine in Melbourne and then moved to Adelaide. She was really politicised when she came back from the US, especially when the Fraser government came into power. She had advocated for better health services through Medibank at the time that that was abolished. Even though she wasn't a member of parliament in that period, she campaigned for its reintroduction through her medical contacts and the forums that she had as a medical practitioner to ensure that Medicare came back. We know that Rosemary played a massive role in issues involving women's health and issues that involved health itself.

Of course, Rosemary was elected. It was a continuous campaign for her to get elected. We heard on Saturday from Chris Schacht, a former senator and minister from the Hawke-Keating era, about how she campaigned to get that preselection, and she left no stone unturned at a time when, being a woman, it wouldn't have been as easy to get preselection. Some of the comments and remarks she was getting from some of that blokey culture back then were things like, 'We will support whoever is the best candidate,' which we know was an excuse back then to not preselect women, but she left no stone unturned. She telephoned every delegate, every union and every member of every branch until the ballot and was successfully preselected for the Senate ticket to contest the Senate election.

I considered Rosemary a friend and a supporter. In fact, she attended the federal electorate council meetings right up until she moved to Melbourne and would still raise issues regarding health. She would still raise issues about strengthening Medicare and ensuring that people had access to public health. I think she would be proud of the announcements that have been made in the last few weeks by this Labor government. We are in the position that we're in today because of the foundations that people like Rosemary Crowley laid back down in the eighties. As I said, she was a great supporter of mine. When I was first preselected in 1998 for the seat of Hindmarsh, which was considered an unwinnable seat at the time with a 8.9 per cent margin, there wasn't a lot of support or help around the place, as people were focused on the most marginal seats, but Rosemary called me and said: 'Is there anything I can do? I know that you've got good contacts in the electorate. I know that you're committed.' She basically helped as much as she could and continued to support me right up until we actually won the seat in 2004. I owe a lot to Rosemary for her support, her guidance and for believing in me at a time when—not that other people didn't believe in me—there were other more pressing seats to focus on. I, too, may not be here, like the member for Kingston, if it wasn't for the support of people like Rosemary.

Our condolences go out to her family, and we pay tribute to everything that she has contributed to the Labor movement, to the women's movement and to health in Australia. Our condolences go to her children, her family, and her grandchildren. Vale Rosemary Crowley.

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