John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House record its deep regret at the death on 2 April 2007 of Senator Jeannie Margaret Ferris, Senator for South Australia, and place on record its appreciation of her long and meritorious public service and tender its profound sympathy to her family in their bereavement.

The death of one of our serving colleagues always touches us in a particular way. Jeannie Ferris’s death on 2 April this year, after a long and heroic struggle against ovarian cancer, touched all of us in this parliament, particularly her many friends and colleagues within the Liberal Party in South Australia and elsewhere and also the rural community of Australia.

Jeannie fought her illness with great tenacity. She was candid and open about the likely outcome but she never gave up hope. I will always remember one night ringing her in Canberra after she had received what could only be called a terrible prognosis. She was surrounded by her family and friends. She was frank about the daunting task ahead, but absolutely determined to do her best to fight the illness and to be an inspiration to others suffering like cancers. I know that the Deputy Prime Minister in his remarks will have something to say about the great courage she displayed in accompanying him on a trip to Baghdad in order to do good things for the wheat industry of Australia. The outcome of that was an arrangement with the Iraqi government that saved a wheat shipment that otherwise would have been lost, as it had been caught up in concerns flowing from the inquiry into the activities of AWB.

She was a person who had a rich and varied life. The memorial service held in the Great Hall was not only in a fitting location to say farewell to a loved friend and colleague but also an opportunity in the national parliament to honour somebody who was the genuine article.

Jeannie was born in Auckland, New Zealand, in March 1941. She came to Australia in the early 1960s to continue her education at Monash University. There she graduated in agricultural economics. She first worked on the Rotorua Post in New Zealand and then continued her journalistic career here in Australia. She worked on the Canberra Times and was editor of the Yass Tribune. She took great pride in claiming that she was the first female newspaper editor for 165 years in rural Australia.

She worked in public relations and she worked in the early 1980s for CSIRO. Later she was to find her real love, which combined a passion for the bush and politics, when she became director of public relations with the National Farmers Federation. She also served for a period of time as corporate affairs director of the South Australian Farmers Federation. At the NFF she formed a close association with a former colleague of ours, Ian McLachlan, who famously led the NFF through some of its most effective years in the 1980s. Ian spoke very warmly at the memorial service of her dedication to people in rural Australia. Jeannie often spoke with great pride about that amazing gathering of 45,000 Australian farmers outside the Old Parliament House in 1985. They gathered in peaceful assembly to voice their concern about policies that they believed were hurting the farmers of this country. It was a well-mannered, well-ordered protest. There was no property damage, and no need for hordes of police to restrain people who were endeavouring to break the law.

Jeannie participated in a number of delegations representing the Senate overseas in places as diverse as Venezuela, Morocco, Latvia, Mexico and the Russian Federation. She was a dedicated parliamentarian. She served as Whip in the Senate, and her booming voice down the corridor with expressions such as ‘I want to talk to you!’ brought many recalcitrant coalition senators to heel.

One of her proudest moments in the Senate came only a few weeks before her death when she spoke in the Senate about her involvement in the inquiry by the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs into gynaecological cancers. Supported by Jeannie’s hard work and advocacy, the report, titled Breaking the silence, was instrumental in drawing attention to the issues involved in dealing with this form of cancer, particularly for women in rural Australia. It is now a matter of record that the government responded to the report by providing $1 million in seed funding for a new gynaecological cancer centre. Her speech on the success of the report came, as we now know, when she was receiving treatment for this terrible disease, and it was to be her last speech in the Senate.

As I told the service in the Great Hall, I have not forgotten her last attendance at a joint party meeting. As is the wont, I guess, of both sides of politics, when members and senators arrive they tend to take a seat and hang onto it. She took a seat—I think I would put it this way—to the centre right of the desk. That was moderately appropriate—if I can mix my metaphors—to describe Jeannie’s position on many things. What struck me on that occasion was that, despite the terrible health challenge she faced, she was in there talking about issues of enormous importance to rural Australia. I know, from discussions I have had with my wife—who takes an interest in many of the matters that Jeannie was interested in—of her intense concern and passion for people struggling with cancer and struggling particularly with the form of cancer that ultimately claimed her life.

We have lost a wonderful stalwart of rural Australia. She was an intensely practical woman who believed in doing practical things to get practical outcomes for the intensely practical Australians who live in the rural part of our country. She was passionate about the things that she believed in and, although she was broadly conservative on many issues, you could not typecast her. That was one of the endearing things about her personality. She was a passionate believer—let me leave you in no doubt—in labour market deregulation. She was a great believer in the reforms that this government has enacted in that area. She was a great believer in the right of people to negotiate directly with each other, subject to decent minimum conditions. She was a great proponent of the cause of rural Australia in some of those historic industrial relations disputes and debates of the 1980s, such as at Mudginberri. When working with Ian McLachlan, when he was President of the National Farmers Federation, they represented a powerful force for change and reform in those areas.

I am very saddened by her death. I liked Jeannie immensely. She was courageous, she was very gutsy, she was very forthright, she was a lovable soul and she cared about her duties. We will miss her terribly. We extend our deep condolences to her two sons who suffered the double tragedy of losing their mother and father in the same week. It is hard to imagine how anyone could properly come to terms with this terrible tragedy. It is a sad thing when you farewell a serving colleague who has been taken long before her time and claimed by a terrible illness. But she left behind a wonderful example of courage in adversity, a determination to help other women facing this terrible illness and for all of us, her former colleagues, a memory of a lovable soul and somebody who cared deeply for her country. We offer our sympathy to Robbie and Jeremy and their extended family as we mourn and record the death of a wonderful Australian.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Prime Minister’s motion of condolence. Jeannie Ferris was devoted to public service—as a journalist, as a public relations director, as a corporate affairs director, as an adviser and as a senator. Jeannie Ferris always worked in pursuit of public service. It is what drove her, it is what motivated her and it is what inspired her—to make a contribution, to serve and to make a difference. Above all, this is what each of us in this building strives to do, each in our own different way—to make a difference. For a decade in the Senate Jeannie Ferris did just that. Jeannie made a difference and delivered for her state of South Australia and for her community. Jeannie had many friends in this building from all sides of politics. Jeannie had a smile which always had a habit of bringing a smile to your own face. Jeannie was feisty, gutsy, warm and gregarious and she drew people to her. You could not help but respect her—you could not help but like her, actually—and you could not help but admire her.

It was a combination of her hard work, her energy and her quick wit which earned Jeannie her appointment as Deputy Government Whip in the Senate in 2001 and Government Whip in August 2002. This was a role to which Jeannie was well suited—that of keeping her colleagues in line and keeping the Senate running efficiently. Jeannie recounted what she told her colleagues back in 2005. She said: ‘I told them that now more than at any other time this parliament turns on the power of one’—this is a message for all whips. ‘I told them missing a vote will make them very famous and very famous very quickly. There will be no excuses. They will be slaves to the beepers and bells.’ She said: ‘When you hear the bells, don’t worry what it’s about; just start walking. If you are over there on the Reps side, walk fast. If you are upstairs in a committee room, walk doubly fast—in fact, run. Use the stairs; don’t rely on the lifts.’ If we had all taken Jeannie’s advice, we would all be much fitter today.

Over the years, one of the things which we on our side of politics always admired about Jeannie was her frankness. She was never afraid to speak her mind, even when it meant disagreeing with her colleagues. And Jeannie did so on a range of issues, such as family custody, drug law reform, abortion, IVF and stem cell research. Jeannie was also an active contributor to the Senate committee process, one often largely unseen and unheralded. There is no doubt that Senate committees play an important role in this place. They have often protected the Australian community against poorly drafted legislation or poor public policy and they have on occasions exposed neglect, administrative failures and corruption.

Jeannie was a very active participant in that committee system. She used her skill and experience not simply to advance her party’s political interests but also to pursue important policy matters. She had a particular passion for rural Australia. She loved the bush. She loved the bush with a passion. She would always be talking about the bush. If you browse through the reports from the rural and regional affairs committee, for example, you will find endless examples of Jeannie pursuing the interests of Australian farmers. You would find evidence of Jeannie criticising poor government policy and you would find her mounting a case for a change to that policy. Jeannie took the same approach to her work with the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs and, in particular, as the Prime Minister has just made mention of, the landmark report Breaking the silence: a national voice for gynaecological cancers adopted last year.

While tenaciously fighting her own battle with ovarian cancer, Jeannie did all she could to help others fighting the same battles. The late and much-loved Peter Cook did much the same. Jeannie described her own journey, like that of many other women, as ‘a largely silent journey’, which was at times, in her own words, ‘quite frightening’. Jeannie described how scores of women were simply unable to find the support they needed, how often women have feelings of—and I use her words again:

... guilt, shame and embarrassment, and as a result their gynaecological cancer journey is often made alone and in silence ...

Jeannie described her own battle with cancer as a journey. Jeannie showed tremendous courage to return to the Senate after undergoing cancer treatment last year. In bringing a new focus to this terrible and insidious disease and advocating tirelessly for more government assistance, Jeannie was an instrument in gaining support for a national centre for ovarian, cervical and other gynaecological cancers. Jeannie lost her personal battle, but leaves a legacy which anyone would be proud of.

For Jeannie’s family, again as the Prime Minister has made mention of, her loss soon became a double tragedy. Just days after Jeannie’s death came the very sad news that Jeannie’s former husband, Bob Ferris, who was a journalist here in Canberra, had died after a car accident. Life can in fact be very unkind to so very many.

On behalf of the parliamentary Labor Party, we offer our condolences especially to Jeannie’s sons, Robbie and Jeremy, her family, her friends and her colleagues. They should know that Jeannie had many, many friends in the parliamentary Labor Party, particularly among Labor women, who loved her dearly. Her life and her legacy will be warmly remembered for years to come.

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in recording our sympathies to the family of Jeannie Ferris and our great sadness that the nation has lost a great contributor to public affairs in the Senate, in this parliament and in this government. Jeannie Ferris was a great friend and colleague to us all and a great advocate for all matters regarding rural Australia, notwithstanding her beginnings, coming from the Land of the Long White Cloud. Her first employment was actually with the Rotorua Daily Post in New Zealand. When she did move to Australia and started working in journalism in this area with the Canberra Times and the ABC in the press gallery, she very quickly, as we all knew, picked up her Australianness and loved this country dearly, particularly that part of Australia that we lovingly refer to as the bush.

That passion about rural Australia only became much stronger when she later went on to work for the NFF as their political adviser here and in South Australia. She was, of course, as the Prime Minister indicated, a participant in many of those great struggles as far as the rural community in Australia is concerned that are now part of our folklore and our history in getting a greater understanding of the differential circumstances that confront and beset families living and working in regional Australia. She continued that fight for greater recognition of their circumstances when she entered the Senate in 1996.

It was not a smooth start, coming into the Senate in 1996, but it was certainly an indication of her tenacity that she did ultimately join the Senate. She actually had to resign shortly after taking office because she had worked on Senator Minchin’s staff between her election to the Senate in March 1996 and the start of her term in office in July of that year. Fortunately, the parliament of South Australia then very wisely reappointed her to fill her own casual vacancy. It was an indication of the strength of commitment that she had to public service, to serving the nation and particularly that rural constituency in the nation. Once she got into the Senate, Jeannie Ferris became a strong and effective advocate for matters of rural and regional Australia right until the end of her career and the end of her wonderful life.

As the Prime Minister indicated, one of my most memorable experiences and one that is the epitome of her commitment and tenacity was in February of last year at the height of the debate about the future of the Australian wheat industry, our relationship with Iraq and that market for Australian wheat growers. Jeannie, as the chair of the government’s agriculture policy backbench committee, joined me on a trip to Iraq. In spite of her illness and going against the advice of her oncologist, she took that trip because she saw how important that was going to be to Australian wheat growers to be able to deliver a message on behalf of Australian wheat growers to the government in Iraq.

We travelled to the Middle East and flew into Baghdad in the normal manner that you can: in an RAAF C130 with helmets and flak jackets on. We should bear in mind that when Jeannie undertook this trip she had only just completed a fairly lengthy series of chemotherapy treatments that had left her quite weakened. Once we got to Baghdad we then had to transfer straight into US Air Force Black Hawk helicopters to fly from the airport into the Green Zone. Again, wearing flak jackets in the transfer and running across the tarmac it was exhausting for all of us—and I know the Prime Minister has had this experience as well. But the only thing that Jeannie was concerned about—and she declared that it was her only fear—was that her wig stayed on straight underneath the helmet whilst the cameras were on us and taking photographs of us racing across to jump into the Black Hawk helicopters and buckle up for the trip into the Green Zone. Of course, she did that with great aplomb and did it very, very well.

When we met Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi and his ministers in the main parliamentary building, we had quite a lengthy, frank discussion about the difficult circumstances at the time and the fact that we were representing the interests of wheat growers and no other entities in between. Jeannie was able to make that crisply clear, as a member of the parliament, not necessarily as a member of the executive—and she did. She engaged very deeply in the complications of the process at the time and the processes of the wheat trade. She had a profound impact on getting agreement from Deputy Prime Minister Chalabi that they would continue to do business with Australian wheat growers. This is just one of the great memories and legacies that Jeannie Ferris has left us.

To do that trip at that time, straight after her very tiring chemotherapy treatment, was a great testament to the feisty way she undertook her commitment to the people of rural and regional Australia. It has left everlasting memories in my mind as, only months before that time, I had had a brush with another form of cancer which, fortunately, I have survived. I know that I am not the only one in this place who has had that experience. So we all feel very deeply that Jeannie was not able to beat this insidious disease. It is incumbent upon all of us to ensure that we do whatever we possibly and humanly can to find cures for this disease, to ensure that our children do not face the sorts of challenges later in life which ultimately took Jeannie’s life.

We will all have those everlasting and very fond memories of Jeannie Ferris. She will be greatly missed. I join with the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in expressing our sympathies and condolences, particularly to her sons, Robbie and Jeremy, and to the rest of her family and friends.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I rise to pay my tribute to the life and parliamentary career of Senator Jeannie Ferris and, in so doing, to support the motion moved by the Prime Minister and seconded by the Leader of the Opposition, to which the Deputy Prime Minister has just made a contribution. Of course, as the earlier speakers have said, Jeannie Ferris made a strong contribution to the life of her parliamentary party, to the life of the government and to the life of rural Australians and, of course, she was a strong contributor on behalf of my state of origin, South Australia. She was a parliamentarian who contributed beyond the confines of party politics and seemed to take a great deal of delight in doing so. She was a passionate advocate of Australian friendship with America and she was, until the day she died, Chair of the US Australia Parliamentary Friendship Group.

She will be most remembered by many on this side of the House for the things she did for the betterment of women and for the stance she took in this parliament and more broadly on behalf of women. As has been indicated to the parliament today, she made an unbelievably outstanding contribution when battling cancer herself to lead the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, along with a number of female senators, to make sure that there was a spotlight on the plight of women with gynaecological cancer.

We should not forget that on the very day the committee reported to the Senate—after the moving and heartfelt experiences of those who made submissions to the committee were heard by the Senate—Jeannie Ferris herself marked the first year of her own battle with ovarian cancer. I am sure her colleagues in the Senate would agree that it was due to her dedication to this work that the government’s reaction to this report was timely and very responsive.

It was not the only time that Jeannie Ferris battled alongside other women in this parliament to do what she thought was right. She contributed to the stem cell debate. She had a passionate view about medical research and in making a contribution to that debate she talked about how research could in future make a difference for people who were battling cancer. She was prepared to argue strongly for that legislation in this parliament.

In a similar vein, she battled with others within her party and beyond to ensure that there was prompt funding available for the cervical cancer vaccine and that that be made available to Australian women and girls as soon as possible. In her own party room she advocated the rights of women and their families to gain access to IVF treatment on the basis of medical assessment rather than age or income. She strove constantly to make sure that women had the ability to make their own set of choices. When she made her first speech to the Senate, Jeannie paid tribute to great Australian women and recounted the great privilege she felt when, working as a press gallery journalist, she met Dame Enid Lyons in Canberra. In her maiden speech, she quoted Dame Enid’s famous remarks from her first book where she described her entry into the federal parliament as:

... like a lamb to the slaughter, like a sheep before the shearers, I was led forth to have a go.

There was never anything lamb-like about Jeannie Ferris. She was feisty. I am sure she could be ferocious. I never saw the ferocious side of her. Some Labor colleagues in the Senate undoubtedly did and I am sure many of her party colleagues here today also saw the ferocious side of her from time to time. Along with being feisty and ferocious, she was enormously good fun. She had an inherent sense of mischief and, with her sparkling big blue eyes, she was a very stylish older woman. I would look at her as she would be making merry and I would think, ‘Gee, as a younger woman, she must have been drop-dead gorgeous and the life of every party she attended.’ She was just great good fun.

One of the great things about this parliament is that from time to time—perhaps on too few occasions—women work across party lines to support things they genuinely believe are in the interests of Australian women. I did have the opportunity to get to know Jeannie in that context. We had some great fun. We shared some jokes, mainly at the expense of our male parliamentary colleagues—they probably do not bear retelling and ought not be retold. Jeannie was also passionate about the things she believed in and had enormous political savvy. I will always remember her that way.

I want to pay tribute to the work that she did in this parliament and say that my thoughts are with her sons, Robbie and Jeremy. As people have remarked, and I believe the Prime Minister himself remarked, it is almost too much to imagine that any children could lose both their father and their mother in such a short time and in such tragic and interrelated circumstances. It was an enormous double tragedy for them to bear and our thoughts are with them as well on this day.

Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to join with the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and others in this condolence motion for Jeannie Ferris. Jeannie Ferris was, of course, a senator for South Australia and we were immensely proud of her as part of our Liberal Party team over here in Canberra. Others have talked of her background in New Zealand. I did not know her in those days but came to know her somewhat through the work she did in the eighties and nineties as a political staffer with Ian McLachlan; Di Laidlaw, who was a state minister and is a very close friend of mine; Dale Baker; and Rob Kerin. Jeannie was very active around the Liberal Party through all of that period and she won preselection as a Liberal Party candidate for the Senate in 1995. I am glad to say I strongly supported her for that position because I judged then, and evidence has borne it out, that she would make a very fine senator for South Australia and, indeed, for Australia as a whole. She was elected in 1996. The Deputy Prime Minister talked about the complexity of her election. As it turned out, she was a New Zealand citizen and so it had to be redone. Anyway, her appointment was reaffirmed by the South Australian parliament and we were delighted with that.

I came to know her very well in more recent years because for something like the last 10 years Senators Ferguson and Minchin and I lived in her house in Bank Street, Canberra. She lived in a flat at the top of the house and we had a bachelor environment, to say the least, on the ground floor. I will not go into a broad description of that, but Jeannie—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Rudd interjecting

Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition wants me to tell the House more. I think not. Jeannie was a wonderful person to share a house with. She would come back late at night and we would sit around, sometimes having a drink—in fact most times having a drink—while she regaled us in a lively and feisty way with stories of what had happened during the day and her irritation with different senators and members of parliament, sometimes Labor but frankly sometimes not, and with a good deal of gossip. It is sometimes said that you should not gossip too much, and we all pretend we are a bit above gossip, but the fact is that everyone likes to hear a little bit of gossip and Jeannie was a great one for that. She always had a story about what was happening over here in Parliament House or back in South Australia which was of great interest to us.

I recall her, towards the end of last year, coming back late one night. I was sitting in the living room watching television—I guess watching Lateline or one of those late-night programs on the ABC—and Jeannie came in and started talking about the stem cell issue, which she was very passionate about. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition has spoken of her passion on that issue. She asked me what I thought about it and I talked a bit, without any great expertise, of my feelings about it. She started harassing and cajoling me and telling me that it was enormously important for the future of humanity that I support this piece of legislation. I did not dare resist her. I did vote for the legislation. Her advocacy was very important in making up my mind on that issue. It was typical of Jeannie, really, because Jeannie was essentially a pretty conservative person; there is no doubt about that. She believed in the great verities of conservative politics in Australia. But on a range of different issues, particularly medical issues—and you find this a bit in South Australia—she was actually what you might call liberal. And stem cell research was one of those issues that she did feel very passionate about.

She was an enormous champion of rural Australia, specifically rural South Australia. I had a meeting recently with apple growers in my own electorate. They were telling me, and I pass it on to the House, how deeply they missed Jeannie Ferris, who had been such a champion of the apple industry in its controversial problems with the possible importation of New Zealand apples and the risk of fire blight. She was enormously popular amongst other rural industries in South Australia and, no doubt, more broadly around Australia.

She was a champion of many causes, a woman of enormous courage. She was not one of those people who would shy away from an argument because she did not want confrontation or thought it might not suit her preselection prospects. She was somebody who very passionately stood up for what she believed in. She was a woman whom I admired enormously and who, I know, was admired right across the spectrum of the Liberal Party in South Australia and throughout very much of the South Australian community. She is and will continue to be very sadly missed by so many of us. I join with others in passing on my deepest condolences to her sons, Robbie and Jeremy, and to her extended family.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services, Housing, Youth and Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity to add my support to the motion that has been moved by the Prime Minister and seconded by the Leader of the Opposition. In a place where, by definition, our actions are political, Senator Jeannie Ferris stood out time and again as someone prepared to put politics aside for the greater good. That is not to suggest that she was not a strong and committed activist for her own side—she clearly had a long and devoted history of supporting the Liberal Party—but she had a lot more to her than that. She was a proud South Australian by adoption if not by birth. She was a journalist, a lobbyist and a political staffer. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has described her as a conservative. I am not sure whether she would have described herself that way but she certainly fitted my definition of a feminist. She was a strong supporter of equality between men and women and a strong supporter of women’s participation in the political decision-making process.

She was an outspoken critic of internet gambling and the dangers it holds in increasing problem gambling. She raised at various times the dangers of marijuana smoking and its link with teen suicide. She stood up for grandparents who are separated from the grandchildren they love after the parents divorce.

Jeannie Ferris covered very many topics in her years as a senator, but perhaps she was best known for her commitment to women’s health. Labor women have long known that there are allies in the coalition ranks, women and men whom we can go to when there are serious health issues at stake and say: ‘Let’s put politics aside. Let’s work together for the benefit of the people we represent.’ Women’s health issues were always on the agenda for Jeannie Ferris, and we always knew that we would get a good hearing, we would get wise advice and we would get dedicated action.

Senator Ferris was an outspoken defender of reproductive choice. She understood that no woman makes the decision lightly to terminate a pregnancy. She always opposed the periodic suggestions to make access to pregnancy termination more difficult. She was a leader in the RU486 debate. She was also a firm defender of women’s ability to access IVF treatment based on medical suitability rather than on age or on other discriminatory measures. In this she was absolutely consistent. Time and again she supported a woman’s right to choose as much as is possible when and if to have a baby.

She also supported much greater choice for women once they had had their children. She was a supporter of greater funding for child care. She was well known for her work on stem cell research, too, as the Minister for Foreign Affairs has said. Senator Ferris said, ‘Science helped save my life, so these days I listen very closely to scientists.’ I am sure that her personal experience in the later years of her life was a very strong motivating factor. As usual, Jeannie was using her personal difficulties to benefit society more broadly.

Jeannie Ferris was a brave woman. Others have spoken about her travel to Iraq, despite fears for her own safety, to urge the Iraqis to take our wheat. But perhaps her greatest act of bravery was the dignity with which she dealt with her ovarian cancer. Even when she knew she was gravely ill she wanted to use that knowledge for the benefit of others. She chaired an extremely well-received Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs inquiry into gynaecological cancers. The report was well received by the government and was responded to within what must have been record time, less than six months, with most recommendations accepted in full. I know that the Labor senators who worked with Jeannie Ferris on that report credit her leadership for the excellent results they received.

I am sure that I speak for all members of parliament when I offer my sincerest condolences to Jeannie Ferris’s family, in particular to her sons, Robbie and Jeremy, and to all of her friends. And I am sure that I speak for all of us when I say that all those who had the benefit of working with her respected her outspokenness, her sincerity, her constructive approach, her dedication and her bravery.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a mark of respect, I invite honourable members to rise in their places.

Honourable members having stood in their places—

I thank the House.

Debate (on motion by Mr Abbott) adjourned.