Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to associate myself with this condolence motion for my colleague, close friend and landlady, Senator Jeannie Ferris. I thought I might make a comment first on Jeannie as a landlady. As Senator Minchin said, Alexander Downer, Nick Minchin and I were tenants of Jeannie for over 10 years. The thing I will miss most about Jeannie is that when I would arrive in Canberra on a Sunday night—usually about half past nine or something like that—the first thing I would hear when I opened the door was: ‘Is that you, Fergie? I’ve got a couple of things I have to tell you.’ Those couple of things that Jeannie had to tell me of course I would not like to classify as gossip; I think they were more in the form of information! I will always remember those Sunday nights with Jeannie, because quite often the other two tenants were not there; they would invariably arrive early on a Monday morning. I remember that time with Jeannie.

The other thing I remember distinctly is Jeannie’s complete abhorrence of smoking. You can imagine the reaction to Alexander’s cigars—invariably Cuban cigars, I think—at 11 o’clock at night as the smell wafted through the house, even with all the doors shut. One day Jeannie said, ‘We have to do something about Alexander and his cigars.’ As a reformed smoker for the past 16 or 17 years, I actually quite like the smell of cigars so it did not bother me much at all. But the health fanatic, Nick Minchin, and the landlady, Jeannie Ferris, made Alexander open every door in the house, and if he wanted to have a cigar it had to be after we had gone to bed.

As a colleague, there was nobody who worked harder in this place than Jeannie. In all the time that I have been here—and I came to this place only a few years before Jeannie—I have never seen anybody tackle as many subjects and be on as many committees, and attend all of the meetings. She would work seven days a week and many, many hours every day. Because she was on her own most of the time, she felt she had the time to do it. Jeannie was an energetic, hardworking colleague and I think that is one of the reasons why she left such an impression on her colleagues in this place and on the wider community as well—she was involved in such a broad range of issues.

As a friend, there was no-one more loyal than Jeannie. We happened to have the same friends in many cases because of the circles we moved in, previously and after she began her time in parliament. Jeannie was loyal to every friend she ever had—not just in the Liberal Party; she had plenty of friends outside of the Liberal Party. Senator Stott Despoja has already spoken of Jeannie’s friendship with her and her husband. Jeannie was intensely loyal to all her friends. Thankfully, at the end, she was very lucky that she had such loyal friends in Canberra like Lisa, who has been mentioned before. And Jeannie was able to go and see her sister, Pam, at Christmas time and her sister came back here to see her. Certainly, to the friends she had and the friends she made she was intensely loyal.

Jeannie also had a lot of successes—far too many to mention here. Many of the previous speakers have spoken about the successes that she had with the various pieces of legislation and the committee work she was involved with, particularly in the last couple of years. But I must contradict Senator Abetz. Earlier, Senator Abetz said that Jeannie Ferris said that she was involved in the civilisation of Ian McLachlan on women’s issues. That was an event that I can promise you never took place! But Jeannie certainly influenced a lot of other people when she was doing her work either inside the Senate or outside the Senate.

Much has been said by all speakers about Jeannie’s more recent successes, such as her heavy involvement in the inquiries into gynaecological cancer and stem cell research, as well as others. But the emphasis on those inquiries overlooks what I think was the most important role in Jeannie’s life: representing people in rural Australia for 20 years, without exception. From her time working as media and publicity officer with the CSIRO to her time with the NFF—during Mudginberri and the live sheep dispute, and all of the issues when primary industries in South Australia were going through quite a tumultuous time—Jeannie was at the forefront every time. After that, she moved on to be a personal assistant to Ian McLachlan when he was president of the National Farmers Federation, and when Ian came into parliament she became his chief of staff when he was shadow minister for industrial relations, amongst other things.

Jeannie’s involvement in the rural community and her contribution to rural people in more recent times, particularly in South Australia, was significant. She inevitably attended every rural council meeting in South Australia. She was the focus of people’s attention because, as a member and sometimes chair of the rural committee in the parliament, she was completely up to date with all the latest things that were happening in the rural world. I happen to live in rural South Australia, and have for a long time, but my focus has been diverted onto other areas. I would find myself getting advice from Jeannie, who had never been on a farm in a working capacity in her life. She had an intimate knowledge of rural industries throughout Australia, particularly through South Australia. She also worked with the isolated children’s association in South Australia and she would host them in Canberra when they came here lobbying for better conditions and education for isolated children. This was another part of her contribution to rural affairs.

People forget that when she was chair of the native title committee she organised several meetings with Aboriginal women throughout Australia, particularly throughout South Australia. She would sit down and talk to the Aboriginal women leaders of those communities. Because of her recent activities in other women’s issues, people tend to overlook the enormous contribution she made to Aboriginal women in rural Australia. For many years those women felt disadvantaged, and they are probably still disadvantaged, but Jeannie did her best to redress some of those disadvantages by meeting with them on a regular basis back in the nineties. I will never forget the efforts that she put into that.

Jeannie’s staff have been just marvellous. Robyn Mills, whom I have known for quite some time, has been the Rock of Gibraltar. Robyn originally worked for Ian McLachlan, then worked for Senator Mason for some time when she moved to Queensland, and then came back and worked for Jeannie. It has been terribly tough for her. She has been through the same problems herself, having family involvement in cancer. Robyn has been just wonderful. Bronte and Simon, who were here earlier, were so close to Jeannie. I know they were so shocked by her passing because they did not expect it, and neither did many other people. I have a feeling that Robyn probably knew, but it was such a shock to many of those who were close to Jeannie.

The other thing that I want to place on the record is Jeannie’s involvement in many other sensitive issues within the community—things that go unnoticed here. Very few people know about Jeannie’s involvement in the rehabilitation of young drug offenders in Adelaide. There was a safe house in, I think, the Elizabeth area, and Jeannie’s phone number was available to be rung 24 hours a day. She never told anybody about that; she just did it. She had a particularly keen interest in the problem of drugs amongst our youth, so she did something in a practical way. There are many young people who owe a lot to Jeannie, not only those who were unfortunately involved in the drug scene but also those in her extended family. I know how she has helped other people through education and matters such as that.

The thing that saddens me most is that Jeannie had such great plans in retirement. She had been a very astute investor. She had very carefully planned what she would do in retirement. One Sunday night she confided in me that what she would really like to do when she retired was to have a bookshop in Manuka, but it was important that it have a coffee shop alongside it so that she could catch up on all the gossip and people would have a chance to talk and have coffee while she ran the coffee shop. I do not think she cared whether it ever made a profit, but I can see that Jeannie would have had a wonderful time as the proprietor of a bookshop with a coffee shop alongside it, having all of her old journo mates coming in with all the latest news and titbits. I am very sad that Jeannie will not have the chance to fulfil what I am sure would have been a wonderful retirement—a retirement that we all would have enjoyed just as much as she would have.

Jeannie’s sons, Robbie and Jeremy, and her sister, Pam, have been through a terrible time over the last five or six weeks. I pass on my sincere condolences to them. The one thing that you can be sure of is that Jeannie Ferris will never be forgotten.