Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Hansard source

Being a Victorian Liberal senator, I'm going to take this opportunity to speak on this matter as well. I first met Dame Margaret three decades ago. Everyone who's a member of the Victorian Division would be aware of her status within our party. While we didn't know it at the time, it was actually the 45th anniversary of her first appointment as a minister on which she passed away, on 11 November. The Speaker, also a member of the Victorian Division of the Liberal Party, and I were down at Old Parliament House and regretted that we did not know at the time. It does cause one to reflect on the events of that day and the achievements that Dame Margaret undertook.

When she entered office, as others have commented, she entered a Senate with a sole other woman and a House of Representatives with none. But she had no wish to be defined by the then limits placed on many women; she was defined by her determination, competence and expertise. She was elected to the Senate coming from the fierce tradition of Victorian Liberal women that has been mentioned before, such as Dame Ivy Wedgwood and Dame Elizabeth Couchman, many of whom were denied the opportunities that she was presented with and took advantage of so forcefully.

At her pre-selection, where she famously beat nearly two dozen other candidates, she was asked how she would manage three children as well as her responsibilities in this place, reflecting the attitudes, sadly, of the times. She responded pointly but politely:

I'm asking you to make a decision to give me responsibility to be a representative in the Senate and I would ask that you accept that I have responsibility to make the decisions regarding my family.

She served in this place from 1971 to 1987 and saw a dramatic increase in the representative nature of this chamber when it comes to the representation of women. I won't recount all her achievements and biographical information, other than to associate myself with the contributions made earlier today. She chose as her focus matters of finance, areas where she had both a passion and professional expertise. She was not going to have her career defined by notions others had for her role. She sat on the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Government Operations, she joined the Public Accounts Committee, and she served on estimates committees just as they were beginning to make their mark, her election coinciding with their essential creation. As I mentioned, she became a minister in the Fraser cabinet of 1975 and, as others have mentioned, she went on to an extraordinary career as the Minister for Social Security and the Minister for Education.

The Hon. David Kemp, himself later a minister, but at that time a senior staff member for Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, described her as follows:

She had a tremendous gift of making a strong political point very simply. She would be able to convince the Cabinet what would fly and what wouldn't …

She continued to serve until she left this place in 1987. As others have commented, she read law at the ANU afterwards. But she continued to give generous and expert public service on tribunals, boards of inquiry and committees, which benefited from the values that Malcolm Fraser ascribed to her in cabinet: she could be totally relied upon and to think for herself. Her Order of Australia recognised her significant contributions to public life in Australia in support of many areas of public activity, particularly as a role model to young people, and to the Australian parliament.

I recently spoke to a long-serving member of this chamber, the Hon. Rod Kemp, who was also a senior staffer to Dame Margaret for five years. He has said:

Dame Margaret showed that politics can be conducted with dignity and decency … that politics in sensitive portfolios could be conducted successfully without sordid deals and vested interests.

I think this is reflected by the many contributions that have been made following Dame Margaret's passing. Margaret Fitzherbert, a former member of the Victorian parliament and unofficial historian of the Liberal Party about many of these matters, summed her up:

She was smart, charming, feminine and worked exceptionally hard. She was a living link to the strong, tough women who helped found the Liberal Party … The party has lost a giant.

I urge those with an interest in these matters to refer to Margaret's work on Dame Margaret and that generation of tough women. It may be that my party has some lessons that we need to re-learn.

In the passing of Susan Ryan and Margaret Guilfoyle, both sides of Australian politics and both sides of this Senate have lost women who both led by example and championed change, albeit in their own ways. The Senate today, while imperfect, better reflects Australian society for the work that they did. With regard to her contribution to public life in Australia and the parliament of Australia, and with particular regard to her contribution on behalf of the Victorian Division of the Liberal Party, we are grateful for the service and example of Margaret Guilfoyle and extend our deepest sympathies to Stan, who many of us also know, and to her family.