Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I, on behalf of the Labor opposition, would like to support the motion of condolence moved by Senator Minchin following the death last month of our Senate colleague Jeannie Ferris. On behalf of Labor senators I pay tribute to her contribution to the Senate and to broader public life, and I convey the sincere condolences of all Labor senators to her family and friends and particularly today to her Senate colleagues.

Unlike many in the chamber, I did not know Jeannie well. As senators will know, there are some people who you get to know very well and there are others who, if you do not serve on committees with them, you do not know quite as well. But I know her passing touched many Labor senators who counted her as a personal friend, and her loss affected us all.

I think she is the second senator since I have been here who died while in office. The previous senator was John Panizza, who was also Government Whip at the time. I knew him much better, and he was a very sad loss—one of the Senate characters. I think times like this bring us all back to earth about our humanity and our private lives and remind us that we ought not to take ourselves too seriously and that there are more important things than being a senator.

We had a great deal of respect for Jeannie, for her energy and for the effective way in which she carried out her duties. We were shocked and saddened to hear about the re-emergence of her health problems after she made such a successful return to the Senate. We were all buoyed by her energy and her reappearance and were hopeful that she had beaten the illness.

I, like Senator Minchin, offer condolences to her family and colleagues, but I also note that she had a highly successful and engaging career, which is probably the focus we should take. As Senator Minchin said, she was born in Auckland in 1941—I forgave her for being a Kiwi—and migrated to Australia in 1963. She worked in the public sphere for more than four decades and, as a journalist, worked on a number of publications right around Australia. She and her former husband, Bob, moved to Canberra in the late sixties and she worked for some years at the Canberra Times, and apparently also as editor of the Yass Tribune. She earned a Graduate Diploma in Agribusiness from Monash University and worked in public relations and lobbying, particularly in the agribusiness area. She became a public affairs officer at the CSIRO in 1979, and in 1984 she became Public Relations Director at the National Farmers Federation and then went on to the position of corporate affairs director at the South Australian Farmers Federation. I understand that while at the NFF she was involved in organising the famous farmers’ demonstration in Canberra in 1985—something she spoke proudly about in her first speech to the Senate more than a decade later—although at the time I think a few of our former colleagues were not so impressed by her capacity for organising.

As Senator Minchin said, she held a number of political roles before coming into the Senate: as an adviser to federal Liberal MP Ian McLachlan, with whom she had worked at the NFF; as an adviser to South Australian minister Diana Laidlaw; and as chief of staff to South Australian primary industries minister Dale Baker and his successor, Rob Kerin. I did not realise Senator Minchin was solely responsible for her preselection on the Liberal Party ticket, but it does not surprise me. As a result she was elected in March 1996. Of course, as Senator Minchin pointed out, there was some controversy at the time, and Senator Bolkus did a good job in holding out for the appropriate constitutional standards. I think Jeannie’s mistake was taking Senator Minchin’s advice and not realising earlier that she had a much more serious problem. Senator Minchin, as leader in the Senate now, should have known about the conventions in this regard, and clearly it was sloppy on his part. But, as he pointed out, it certainly was not personal, and Senator Bolkus became and remained a very close friend of Jeannie and I know was very saddened by her passing. As Senator Minchin indicates, she will be found in Odgers and other historical records as someone who had a very bumpy start to her Senate career, but she went on to make a serious contribution to the Senate.

Her first speech indicated her pride in representing South Australia. She spoke of the state’s pioneer history and more modern growth and development. She was also very proud to be part of a tradition of women who had served in public life. I know a number of women on our side found her a great ally in common causes. She mentioned a number of women in her maiden speech who had provided inspiration for political life, including Dame Enid Lyons; former South Australian senator Nancy Buttfield, whom we spoke of recently upon her passing; the social reformer Catherine Helen Spence; and her state’s first female governor, Dame Roma Mitchell. Jeannie’s commitment to advancing issues of particular importance to women was very much reflected in her later work in the Senate. In her first speech she talked about the hope and optimism she had felt as a young woman and of her belief that her role here was to ensure that all young people shared that sense of hope, saying:

Our task here—not only as elected men and women but also mostly as mothers and fathers, and some as grandparents—is to take on the task of restoring this sense of hope and optimism to all of our young people.

Over the 11 years, Jeannie built up a substantial body of work in the Senate committee system of which she and her family can be very proud. She served on a number of our committees, including in the policy areas of employment, industrial relations and education and in areas of her particular interests, in rural and regional affairs and also foreign affairs, defence and trade. She was, for her sins, a member of the Scrutiny of Bills Committee for six years and of the Selection of Bills Committee for five. Also, at various times, she was chair of the Select Committee on Information Technologies, of the Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority and of the Joint Committee on Native Title and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Land Fund. So she played a very active role in the Senate committee system and made a huge contribution there. I know she particularly spent a lot of time and took great interest in issues of child custody.

I came to know Jeannie more in relation to her role in the chamber, where for 5½ years she worked to ensure its smooth running. She was Deputy Government Whip from November 2001 and then became Government Whip in the Senate from August 2002. Being a former whip, I understand the trials and tribulations she would have gone through, particularly when she came at a time when the government had a majority in the Senate of only one. Trying to keep the National Party in line must have driven her absolutely mad. To have Senators Boswell and Joyce corralled must have been a huge challenge, and no doubt there were some fractious Liberal senators who needed dealing with. I did have the odd conversation with her about such issues—there is a former whips club in this place that has shared experiences. I did not realise she was landlord to such a motley crew. It seems like she never got any time off, then, from supervising Liberal senators! I was interested to read in Jeannie’s obituary in the Canberra Times, her old employer, that she was described as a ‘born organiser who seemed to know everyone’—qualities that of course served her well in the whip’s job and I think are reflected in the fact that so many people on the non-government side of the chamber knew her well and were very fond of her.

As I said, she made a huge impact on issues of women and health in her time here. She was also a strong advocate for the interests of rural women. In the last few years of her life she became associated with a number of highly complex and highly emotionally charged issues of conscience about which she felt passionately and argued forcefully; and I think, for those of us who have been through it, she revealed a lot about herself during those debates. She believed that women’s health issues crossed party lines and she worked effectively behind the scenes, employing her knowledge of Senate rules and her seniority with the government. Obviously she would have had a fair bit of dirt on a few senior ministers that would have come in handy as well! She defended the public funding for IVF treatment through Medicare, arguing against imposing an eligibility criterion based on age rather than medical assessment. She was deeply involved behind the scenes in the debate about RU486, in part by working to ensure a respectful and productive debate in the chamber in which she played a big role. And, along with Senators Patterson, Stott Despoja and Webber, she was one of the drivers of last year’s legislative response to the Lockhart review and changes to the regime involving stem cell research. That is when I had most contact with her, and her passion for those issues was obvious. I think she was very influential in a lot of senators coming to the views they did. Obviously she was able to draw on her own medical experience as well to advance her case. I think she held this debate and this outcome as one of her proudest achievements in the Senate.

More recently she put her efforts into improving awareness of and services for women experiencing cancer. Her own knowledge of the lack of medical awareness of gynaecological cancer and the experience of fighting it was one of the factors which motivated her work in the area. She was instrumental in establishing the Senate inquiry into the issue and lobbying within the government to see that the committee’s recommendations were acted upon. It is a testament to the effectiveness of Jeannie and those other senators who worked on the issue that the government responded in record time. She has had a lot more success than most of us have had, but she also managed to get them to respond so positively to the committee’s report. I think Jeannie, like the late Peter Cook, leaves a powerful legacy in this regard: senators who took their own experience from cancer and combined it with their strong political skills to try to provide benefits to other Australians who faced similar challenges. I think that is one of her enduring legacies.

The recent announcement of funding to establish the new centre for gynaecological cancer was a great result for her and obviously for the broader community. She made a huge impact in these policy areas to which her substantial skills and energy were devoted. I think her contribution to the parliament is one which her family and the Liberal Party can be very proud of, and I know that many Labor senators have very strong personal links with Jeannie and some of them will speak in the debate today. Her loss is felt by all across the chamber, and on behalf of the opposition I again offer our sincere condolences to her family and friends and to her Senate colleagues.