Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

It is with a profound sense of loss that we in the Australian Senate farewell Senator Jeannie Ferris this afternoon. Professionally, as others have said, Senator Ferris was an outstanding advocate for the people of South Australia and a parliamentarian who displayed a strong empathy for issues affecting rural and regional Australians. Her continuous membership of the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee since 1996 was demonstration of her ongoing commitment to issues affecting rural people, and she will long be remembered by this constituency for her capacity to make their concerns her own.

In 2002 Jeannie Ferris took on what we all know is the demanding position of Government Whip in the Senate, and her relationships with all fellow senators across the chamber were marked by a style and a candour that were her hallmark. I am a former Deputy Whip myself, and we often discussed the remark that keeping everyone in line was like herding cats. I have also heard her say that it was like keeping frogs in a wheelbarrow. She often discussed with me—as I would be on duty here and she would be in her usual position—and would be tut-tutting about who did not have their pagers. She said one day, ‘I just wish I could give senators yard duty or something to make them carry their pagers.’ I am sure she is looking down on us now—probably on Senator Boswell and wondering whether he has his pager with him.

However, it was her passionate advancement of issues affecting women, which has been remarked on this afternoon—most notably, gynaecological cancers—which I think she leaves as her outstanding legacy. It is very difficult to pick what is her outstanding legacy, because she was so accomplished in so many areas. Her integral, and indeed very personal, engagement with the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs and its report on the inquiry into gynaecological cancers in Australia, Breaking the silence: a national voice for gynaecological cancers, has delivered groundbreaking new initiatives that, it is hoped, will help protect a generation of women from the cancer that inexorably took Jeannie’s life. I know that she was particularly proud of the recent million dollar funding provided in February this year that she wrestled out of Mr Abbott, the Minister for Health and Ageing, to establish a new centre for gynaecological cancer set up by the government in response to the Senate committee’s report. I also recall with some poignancy that the government recently launched the new cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil, as was mentioned earlier, in Senator Ferris’s home town of Adelaide. But, whilst her passionate advocacy for this treatment will be literally a lifesaver for future generations of young women, she very sadly passed away on the eve of this related breakthrough announcement.

We in the Senate like to think—at least, I think this is true—that this chamber is different from any other parliamentary chamber in Australia. It has a character and a camaraderie that often belie modern partisan politics—and I say that very sincerely. Perhaps it is the late nights or the fact that we have a six-year tenure, but I think it breeds a relationship that is more akin, in some circumstances, to family than combatants, and it is with this sense of community that the Senate family is now mourning the loss of one of our most loved colleagues in Jeannie.

On behalf of all my Senate colleagues, I extend my deepest sympathy to Jeannie’s sons, Robbie and Jeremy, and her many friends and family members. We know that Robyn Mills and all her staff are greatly missing Jeannie, too, and our thoughts are also with them.

I am personally proud to have worked with Jeannie, and I know the women of Australia owe her a great debt for the work she did over the past 11 years for them. I entered the Senate with Jeannie over a decade ago. We were in the class of ’96, which saw the Howard government sweep into office. It was a very euphoric time. There is and always will be a special bond between those of us who were part of that historic victory, especially the women who entered parliament at that election in such historic numbers. Jeannie then worked tirelessly for the issues she cared about. Although she left us far too soon, hers was a life lived to the full, a life that truly made a difference to the thousands of other lives she has touched. Hers is a life to celebrate.

Jeannie will always be loved and remembered by those who had the great good fortune to serve with her in the Senate and to experience her warmth, her humour and her friendship, which was generously given to all who came within her circle. May she rest in peace.