David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I reject that interjection! But certainly that's what it meant, and she said it to keep business moving, to keep things on track—not to be disrespectful but to use that position to drive that as best she could towards a good outcome. I think all of us respected her in that work.

In that work, she had multiple pressures on her from multiple different points, and she kept it on track and she delivered a good outcome for the country. She did it with good humour, she did it with grace, she did it with intelligence and she did it, as I said, with that wry sense of humour. I miss that already.

I know other speakers will want to speak, so I will be very brief. I also miss sitting there in Defence estimates, when Linda would come in there with her folder and sit at the other end of the Defence estimates—the other side of the chair—and then Nita, the chair, would say, 'We'll just go to Senator White now.' She'd be sitting there nicely and then suddenly she was just laser focused on some particular expenditure, misstep or issue that she had in Defence estimates. I remember sitting there thinking, 'Go Linda,' cheering her on. She did that because she thought it was the right thing to do. She did it because it stepped out of her values and it stepped out of her principles. Whether or not her party was 100 per cent happy with her doing that on every occasion, that was something I think she was willing to take on board. But what you saw, again, was a politician who came here with a set of principles and lived up to them.

I miss Linda. To all of her friends and her colleagues: I'm really sorry. And to her family in particular: I'm really sorry. It was a complete shock. Vale, Linda.