Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

Kate, I want to put on record this evening our appreciation and acknowledgement to you personally for the inspiration and challenge you have provided to women in our party—and that is from candidates. I well remember working and watching you supporting women in our party who had made the decision to run for politics when sometimes no-one else was there for them. We could know that you would be generous with your time, with your effort and also with your humour. So often, in working with the candidates, it was seeing your experience.

Senator Wong has gone through the awful statistics about what this place was like in gender balance when you were first elected and how you have been able to oversee the changes that we are all benefiting from now. I can name so many candidates, and you know them well, who you have provided with your knowledge and also the support of your experience, whether it was staring into Telstra trenches looking at the horrors of pair gains—something I will never forget; those things were truly ugly—or the way that you were able to talk so effectively with the people who cared about that technology. Your natural ability to communicate was seen with Telstra workers on the job, your understanding of the pressures under which they were working proved that politicians did and could understand technology. It was inspirational for all of us.

Through your multicultural experience, you were so much a part of developing the ambassador's program. Attending some of the functions that you chaired at that time and feeling the genuine love and respect of the people in those rooms is what makes the job worthwhile. You led with that and made us all so proud. It gave us the chance to think that we could work with you. Kate, also on behalf of Emily's List, we know the work that you have done for that organisation is, again, inspiring and challenging because people could get the sense, by working with you, that they could do it too.

I know that Senator Wong used the term 'you are real'. Well, you will always be real, Kate. That is part of your nature and your charm. But you are able to share that with all of us not just within our party, though of course we have been able to speak about that this evening, but also with the wider community. This is what we need to do to reinforce to the wider community the challenge and the reality of choosing to be in this job, rebuilding trust, rebuilding reality and giving us an opportunity to know that you have served your community so well. And you will continue to serve that community and continue to be an inspiration for women who work in this business.