Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As many have already said, Jeannie Ferris was a larger than life personality. It was with deep regret and great sadness that we learnt of her death. Not long after I learnt of it, I heard Senator Minchin on the radio discussing the extent of their friendship and support and his admiration for her. He commented on the fact that he had learnt what a formidable opponent she could be in recent debates we have had in this place. In all of those debates, she was on my side and I have to say that I could not have got there without her—I am awfully glad that she was on my side. Those debates were on RU486, stem cells and Gardasil in particular. In the debate on RU486, as others have alluded to, Jeannie did not necessarily take a prominent role but she ensured that, as much as possible in this place, the debate was conducted with respect, that people’s needs were accommodated, that people were allowed to put their views, and that the right decision prevailed.

Jeannie and I became frequent visitors to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs. Neither of us were formal members of the committee, but we became frequent visitors as they inquired into matters of conscience. The committee, as I understand it, has a fairly harmonious and peaceful existence, although a very heavy workload, so it must have been somewhat stunning to the committee secretariat and other members of the committee when the forceful, larger than life personality of Jeannie came in to hurry them along in their dealings with some complex and controversial issues. I am sure that it was somewhat stunning and amazing to some of the witnesses at some of the inquiries. We all learnt a lot in that process.

Jeannie and a number of us participated in the inquiry into gynaecological cancers—and I am sure that the four members of the committee who are going to speak here today will talk more about that. As we all know, she was still suffering enormously but she chose to make sense of the saying ‘politics is personal’. She made that personal issue a political issue and tried to make life better for others. In sitting through some very harrowing hearings in which women came forward to talk of their own experiences, while she was still feeling tired, in pain and going through the emotional trauma of treatment for her disease, she could not help but get up and offer comfort to others who chose to take that very courageous step of sharing some deeply personal stories on the public record with us all. Those of us who were involved in the inquiry can tell how much those extra steps that she took meant to them. I am sure that other members of the committee got the same emails that I did from a young woman who was living in Perth at the time but who is now back in Sydney, Tanya Smith, who felt for all of us on the committee when she learnt of Jeannie’s passing. Kath Mazzella, the woman who started the petition that got the whole inquiry rolling, went out of her way to get in contact with all of us, because we all shared the journey, although not all of us shared the pain. I know that Professor Neville Hacker, Margaret Heffernan and others were very proud of the achievement of the inquiry—it was Jeannie’s inquiry—and felt Jeannie’s passing very sadly and deeply.

Then there was the other side of Jeannie. Whenever I tried to engage her on one of those issues, she began busily telling me that one of her proudest achievements was her visit to Iraq. When the wheat for weapons scandal erupted, she felt the need to do something about that issue, too, to show that she was not just a one-dimensional person. She did not want to be seen as a single-issue woman in this place. She talked endlessly about her visit to Iraq. It obviously really touched her.

We had a dinner in Sydney during the hearings for the gynaecological cancer inquiry, and she and I were chatting after that dinner and talking about the structure of the report. She said to me, ‘Right, and when we’ve finished this we’ve got to do stem cell legislation.’ The woman did not know how to rest. I would have thought that going through one harrowing inquiry meant that we deserved a little bit of a break before we went on to the next issue, but that was not her way.

As others have said, she was a real example of how women in this place can work together. Senator Ellison reminded us of—and some of us in this place have laughed about—her imposing discipline, particularly on some of her colleagues over there. Size and gender certainly did not count. It was interesting for some of us to watch it take place. She would stand up and chastise them and then go to walk out the door. They would think that they had been dispensed with and go back to sit in their places, and then she would turn round because she had thought of some other error in their ways, and she would come back and give them another go to let them know that she was there.

I extend to her family my apologies for not being able to get back to the memorial service. I was out of the country at the time of her death and her service and, airlines being what they are, could not quite make it from where I was to Canberra in time. My condolences to her staff, who, when we worked on all of the inquiries and the letter on gardasil and what have you, were a support to me. They were a support to all of us, because they knew the extent of her suffering and we were constantly inquiring about her welfare. That took incredible strength. My condolences to Jeannie’s family, particularly her sons. Although I could not be at the service, my good friend Senator Moore has told me about the moving tribute that her family paid to her.