Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Jeannie would not have expected me to be too organised today, because she knew that I am a person who does not make many speeches; so I will not be letting her down, because I am not organised. She was my keeper. She stuck to me, as they say, like the proverbial you know what to the blanket when things were tough, and things were tough at times. I am well aware that she would be hammering me from up there right now; she would be giving it to me today. I got to know Jeannie really well. She would not be surprised that I have not got my beeper on me today—she was always going crook about that. She found that the only thing that I was any good at was carving the meat at the barbecue. She was a really good mate. I have to say that she was part of the culture and part of the glue that held the rural constituency of the Liberal Party together. She was a very important part of the thinking in this parliament about the bush. The bush uses a different language to a lot of the rest of Australia. Terms like, ‘Well there you go,’ were not exceptional in the language that we speak. Jeannie helped the bush. She had long experience of life in the bush. She was a great communicator. She was a great committee person. She was a proud supporter of the bush. For me, she was the brains in my rural and regional committee. She put what we had into words and I just signed the document.

I had no idea that things were shaping up the way they were when they were. She did not communicate. She faced up to what life had dished out to her in a very transparent way. She did not really want any sympathy; she just wanted to get on with the job. I did not have a clue that when she came back for the December sittings she was terminally ill. She never let on. I went and saw her three times in hospital in the last couple of weeks and sat down with her for two hours and she never let on. We had a great yarn. In fact, I rang her on the night she died and I still did not know. All they said was that she had people with her. I said, ‘Oh, well, tell Jeannie I’ll ring her in the morning.’ And it was too late. Jeannie, I am still causing a lot of trouble; I am still a headache. I am looking forward to catching up with you in the hereafter.