Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Obviously I endorse the comments of the others, but I feel that I should speak on this condolence motion as an apology from an errant senator who will tragically not be able to give this apology in person. I hope this is not taken as presumptuous, but I feel that at times I may have been Jeannie’s biggest problem, obviously prior to a malady that sadly took her from us.

In St George, long before entering the Senate, I had my first meeting with Jeannie when I was an observer at a rural and regional affairs committee meeting into water. Slightly exasperated, she was trying to control a gentleman named Senator Heffernan—a job that I believe she never completed. On arrival in the Senate I remember being summoned, with Senator Nash, to a first meeting with the whip. Senator Nash was basically running to the meeting for fear of being late. With my usual recalcitrance, I said: ‘She’ll be right. She can wait.’ Senator Nash said that I would learn from unfortunate experience in the future that the smart money was on not keeping Jeannie waiting. Much later, after entering the Senate, I remember the meeting between Senator Heffernan, Jeannie, me and Helen Georgopoulos about the development of remote and depressed regional areas. I see Senator Heffernan’s work in this area as a testament to Jeannie and a benevolence from her to the people of remote and regional Australia and Australia itself.

We have all heard about the life and anecdotes of Jeannie. I would like to add to those and note my respect for her immense courage, which I have only just realised. She did not go on with the terrible distraction that her health would have been; she got on with her job. I wonder whether we will meet our end with that bravery. She was ferociously to the point. One anecdote I remember is when I wanted to raise with the government a dissenting point from here. Jeannie spotted me and came to visit. Senator Murray, who was presiding in the chair, asked me if I wanted the call. Jeannie answered for me in the negative, which was very kind of her. She then explained to me, in a very Jeannie way, how she thought my approach may be inappropriate. Jeannie was not very subtle in how she approached my wandering spirit on some issues. I remember her screaming at me, ‘You’re outrageous!’ when I found issues on which I disagreed with my own side and voted accordingly. Later we had a quiet chat: ‘Barnaby, you must understand. It is give and take in this job and you owe it to your colleagues.’ You could guess the rest of the conversation. That was her job and I understood it. She never showed me that she took it personally. I always wanted to tell Jeannie about the time, in her absence, when three government senators missed a division on native title. That was saved only by the fact that three non-government senators had missed it as well. Maybe we all relaxed a little bit too much in her absence. It would be fair to say that there would have been fur and feathers all around this chamber had she been here.

Obviously, I disagreed with Jeannie’s views on RU486 and embryonic stem cell research, but she never carried that as a point in her whip’s dealings with me.

Jeannie had that spark that beautiful, full women have and never lose—that sparkle in the eye of a fellow free spirit, but one who has the self-discipline to avoid legislative pandemonium.

I keep Jeannie in my prayers and I hope others do too. I think her spirit will be in the corridors and dwell somewhere up the end of this chamber. I keep thinking I am going to see her looking out from her office or glaring across the chamber or meeting us prior to prayers to give us the drill for the day. In the next life, I hope we do meet again and I can continue trying to explain myself to her. She will haunt me, I suppose, and I know that she will be looking down with those impeccable teeth and sternly warning me at some stage in the future. Jeannie, I felt, softened at the end, and her humanity was more apparent. In the last meeting we had, she was earnestly explaining to me that as a National I could not nominate myself for trips overseas allocated to Liberals. She must have wondered what the hell she had in her office. But she did it with quiet grace and humour.

To Robbie, Jeremy and Pam: your family, via Jeannie, has made a great contribution to your nation and you should be proud of that. I also acknowledge the great tragedy of the loss of your father, Bob, as well. Robyn and Bronte were also devastated, and my thoughts and prayers go out to you all.

A final parting thought, as a salutary message: I tried today to google Jeannie’s maiden speech; it is no longer there. Things have changed. Things have moved on. The page cannot be displayed. Maybe that is a message for all of us—to remember that our human nature, in all of us in here, is far more spectacular than any of our tribal peripheries.