Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's sometimes difficult to recall where friendships begin. For me, a very special friendship began in the spring of 1996 at a local Chinese restaurant in Garema Place here in Canberra on a crowded table of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, liberally minded young people. All had descended on the nation's capital from different corners of our country, eager and excited to be doing their part in the newly elected Howard government. It was politics that brought us together, but a passing remark about our mutual love of Neil Diamond music cemented a 20-year friendship. Tonight I would like to share both my memories and the memories of others and have them recorded in this special place about a special person. Her name is Anna McPhee.

At the memorial service held for Anna on Saturday, 8 September at St Clement's Anglican Church Mosman, her friend of 20 years Michael Priebe reflected on a long friendship. Such was the warmth of the response from mourners to Michael's heartfelt and poetic reflections, they're worth sharing this evening. He said:

My first impressions of Anna were cultivated at the parties she hosted,

Which quickly gained notoriety for all the right reasons.

These parties often had a theme that required some form of dressing up.

This was a deliberate tactic on Anna's part—it compelled attendees to make an effort and shed both their usual attire and their straight-laced demeanour.

Anna's parties were well-catered, raucous affairs.

For me, Anna's enthusiastic hosting of revelry was initially perplexing.

Anna didn't drink or smoke.

But it was Anna who instigated dancing,

Anna's loud, infectious laugh created an overwhelmingly light hearted and inclusive ambience of fun.

I once asked her why she loved hosting parties if she didn't partake in alcohol.

"Isn't being the only sober person at a party boring" I enquired.

Anna's response was telling "I just love watching people have fun".

Anna was also a lover of politics—more than a lover; an active participant and influencer. While Hansard has never recorded Anna's spoken word, it has regularly recorded her influence. For over 20 years Anna's contribution to contemporary conservative politics was profound: the first female chief of staff to a New South Wales Liberal Premier, Barry O'Farrell; the first female deputy campaign director in any Liberal Party division across Australia; and the key driver of the New South Wales Liberals 1996 marginal seats strategy delivering John Howard a prime ministership and the federal parliament one of the largest ever numbers of coalition female parliamentarians. This achievement was not the product of a silver spoon, but of years of old-fashioned blood, sweat and tears, honest effort and having had an earlier start than most. Delivering her father Bill McPhee's eulogy in September 2008 we were reminded that she had gone to her first political event in the womb in 1970: 'So I was saying, "Turn on the lights," well before Fraser and Howard in 1975,' she remarked.

At her memorial service, former New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell remarked, 'Anna is undoubtedly one of the best MPs the New South Wales Liberal Party never had.' New South Wales Liberals got a glimpse of this in a courageous speech Anna gave not long before her passing. Most didn't realise Anna was very ill and in pain when she took those steps onto the stage at the New South Wales Liberal Party Futures Convention. Elizabeth Warner, who joined Anna on the day, said she was determined to have her say. When Elizabeth asked Anna what her plan B was, the response was clear: 'There is no Plan B. This is it.' With that, Anna mustered all of her strength and delivered a powerful call to action to the party, calling for preselection based on merit, not faction, arguing for and encouraging Liberals to listen to women. Australia's Liberal women have lost their strongest advocate before she even really got started.

Anna was a bridge. She weaved with ease through different worlds and connected people from different industries and walks of life. Anna was always a champion of and for women. She always knew her worth and empowered other women to know theirs. In 2004, the Howard government appointed her chief executive of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency. Later she was the chair of the employer-member organisation Diversity Council Australia. On her passing, the chairman of the Diversity Council, General David Morrison AO, summed up Anna's contribution wonderfully, saying:

Anna was a beacon of courage and resilience for all of us who seek to make the world a better and more equal place.

The council has since renamed their annual oration the Anna McPhee Memorial Diversity and Inclusion Oration to honour Anna's contribution.

But there was always more with Anna. She represented Australia at the United Nations convention on women, addressed the topic of women in leadership at Stanford University forums and, until her illness, led the Retail Council as its chief executive. In Anna's eulogy to her father, she attributed her feminist passion to him, saying:

Dad was a great feminist role model … Dad pioneered 14 years unpaid maternity leave, training and development and mentoring. He strongly believed that women had a role beyond the family in business, politics and the community.

At Easter, Anna faced a choice. In January, Anna had gone into remission after spending a year courageously fighting against an aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Anna shared with her family and friends her decision: 'To live as well as I can until I can't.' 'This,' she said to a dear friend, 'is so much more fun and impactful, in my experience, than living at cost.' Her response to her second diagnosis was inspiring and instructive. Bucket list drawn up, Anna embarked upon a series of other journeys—to Hawaii with her sisters, a State of Origin game in Brisbane with some of her favourite guy mates, a transcontinental trip on the Indian-Pacific and a seaplane ride to the Cottage Point Inn.

Anna always had strong male friendships, and none was more important than that with her husband, Reggie. So very proud was Anna of Reggie. She loved Reggie and she loved his love of his family, his love of his country, his service and, of course, his political banter. Our thoughts are with Reggie, now without his Anna. Anna's sister, Donna, summed up a life lived full at the memorial service. She said:

Anna lived a full life.

She had a self-belief and always gave it her best shot.

She didn't dwell on disappointments but learnt from her mistakes before fiercely moving onto the next project or goal.

She showed that it is possible to be a woman with a high-powered career and still make time for family and friends,

To make the most of opportunities without compromising her values,

To be successful while promoting and supporting other women and men to be their best,

To be taken seriously but still look for and find humour in the most unlikely places,

To be decisive, strong, assertive

And also warm, kind, caring and feminine.

Anna did not use illness as an excuse to relinquish the weight of responsibility. Her acceptance of her situation helped us to come to some level of acceptance of both her mortality and our own.

One of my fondest and most easily recalled memories is dancing on a coffee table for what must have been hours and deciding to pull aside the curtains only to discover that a new dawn was breaking. I remember we were dancing and singing over and over again to that John Denver classic Annie's Song. Written by John Denver for his then wife, the song is said to have become a prayer for him: 'You fill up my senses like a night in the forest, like a mountain in springtime, like a walk in the rain, like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean. Let us always be with you. Come let us love you. Come love us again.' Preparing for Anna's final farewell, Nina Blackwell made this beautiful reflection: 'For all of us, we are lucky to have known her, but our lives are smaller without her.' Vale Anna McPhee.

Honourable senators: Hear, hear!