Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to honour the life of Anna McPhee, daughter of Bill and Trish, wife of Reggie. She departed this world late last week after a long battle with breast cancer. Such was her verve for life that death waited until she slept to take her. Anna was a true Liberal. She fought for the rights of those who could not, because she understood better than most that by protecting the rights of the meek she was fighting for the rights and privileges of all people.

She was an uncompromising advocate for the advancement of women at a time before it was welcomed, and often to her own detriment. She represented Australia at the United Nations convention on the advancement of women. When, in 1995, she went to the United States, most people in our party wanted time with Newt Gingrich and his stormtroopers. Anna instead wanted to learn how the Democrats had coaxed, encouraged, recruited and trained women into public life. She was instrumental in ensuring that, when the Liberal Party won government in 1996, it was with a record number of female representatives. In 1998, when the Liberal Party lost the popular vote but won the election, it was because this cohort of female candidates had held their seats when many of their male colleagues had not.

Her contributions are far more numerous than this, but none was greater than the way she could bring light to an argument that seemed intractably cloaked in darkness. While we will all miss Anna, in truth, she will not leave this mortal coil while those of us left keep her alive in our memories.