Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to make some brief remarks on our comrade and colleague Senator Linda White. I recognise that there are many in this chamber who knew Linda longer and more closely than I did, but what I want to say is that I really, really liked Linda White.

I probably first met Linda about 20 years ago through our joint activity in the Labor Party, and she was always a formidable presence. She was always a principled voice, whether that be on internal debates of party machinery matters or on policy matters, and, when I think about Linda, probably the word that I keep coming back to more than anything else is 'principled'. That was an approach that she continued in her all-too-short time in this chamber, which has already been noted by a number of members of the opposition. I'm sure that will be a continuing theme over the course of today.

As well as being principled, Linda was incredibly humble—a quality not often seen in politicians but something that she exemplified along with her enormous work ethic, which, again, we saw both prior to her time here in politics and in her willingness, as Senator Wong reflected, in taking up any number of tasks as a backbench senator, in her committee roles and, again, in internal political matters. She was always there to take up the work, always there to take up the fight in pursuit of her principles, always being direct, always being honest and, as I have come to learn since her passing, always being prepared to mentor other, younger people coming through the ranks—in particular, women. These were the qualities that Linda brought to every single thing that she did.

I want to join other senators in expressing my sympathy and sincere condolences to Linda's family, her friends, her colleagues and her staff, none of whom I particularly know but who I've learnt a lot about over the last few weeks. I really want to pay tribute to all of you for carrying on Linda's legacy in the work that you've been doing.

To share a couple of personal reflections: in preparing a few notes for this speech, I was actually reflecting on the fact that, while, as I said, Linda and I were not incredibly close friends, we actually shared quite a lot in common beyond our membership of the Labor Party and our presence here in the Senate chamber. We were both ASU members, although Linda rose to much more exalted heights in that union than I did. The ASU is the union I joined as a young articled clerk myself and remain a member of today. We were both lawyers at Maurice Blackburn, what I consider to be Australia's greatest labour law firm, which takes up the work for workers, unions and disadvantaged people each and every day, and we heard a little bit about Linda's work at Maurice Blackburn—in particular for the victims of sexual abuse as children.

One of the things I also learned about Linda after she became a senator and a hardworking member of the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee was that we also both had a family background in the dairy industry. I remember Linda taking up with great delight the opportunity to represent me as the agriculture minister at a number of events in rural Victoria. A wonderful photo of her at one of those events was displayed at her service last week. I think she genuinely loved reconnecting with those family roots in the agriculture sector and getting the opportunity to make new connections in rural Victoria and in an industry that she hadn't worked in herself but her relatives had. That was absolutely wonderful to see.

As others have noted, Linda made an incredible contribution in every aspect of her working life. Probably before I knew Linda personally, I remember seeing Linda White from the Australian Services Union on the TV fighting for those Ansett workers year after year. It turned out to be a 10-year fight, which I know is something she pursued with other members of our Senate team, to recoup the entitlements of those 10,000 workers who were sacked when Ansett collapsed without the support of the federal government of the day. She then, as we've heard, was a leading member of what turned out to be a six-year fight to gain equal pay for predominantly women workers in the social and community services sector. The fact both of those fights took many years again points you to a personal quality of Linda's, which was her tenacity. Just because she didn't win at the first turn didn't mean she stopped, and we saw that over and over again in ALP matters, on policy matters. It's something she developed as one of the leading union officials in this country in recent decades, and possibly ever.

That contribution continued here in her all-too-brief time as a senator, and I have no doubt, while I wasn't personally involved, that principled approach that she brought to the task was instrumental in delivering what I think will be an historic legacy, being the formation of the National Anti-Corruption Commission. It took someone with deep principles to be able to guide what could have been a very politically contentious model through, but she did it—again, with the work of a number of other senators in this chamber.

I also want to recognise Linda's phenomenal contribution for Australian women. This is probably one of the ways in which I first got to know Linda, observing her in action at various ALP national conferences pursuing affirmative action in our rules when it came to the preselection of women and when it came to the participation of women in our party more generally. I honestly don't think it's overstepping things to say that we would not have as many women in the Australian parliament, on the Labor side, as we do today without Linda White. I recognise there were a number of other significant contributors to that, including, in particular, our Senate leader. But from my perspective, not being actively involved in that debate, it was always Linda who would come back and report to the Left caucus, would take the fight up on the conference floor, would be doing the hard work in the backrooms against what was, at times, pretty strong opposition. Again, I don't think we would have the number of outstanding women that we have in this Australian parliament without the efforts of Linda White. And that, of course, is in addition to those other issues that she pursued on behalf of Australian women, such as that equal pay case and issues like paid parental leave. I know she would have been really happy to see that legislation passed in the Senate yesterday, led by Senator Gallagher.

Linda was a joiner, and she reflected in her first speech about her family's tradition in being joiners and getting involved in local organisations. She obviously did that throughout her life, whether in the ALP or as a member of the executive of the ACTU, as well as through her very wide and diverse other interests that we all learned a lot more about at her service: her interest in football; her interest in the arts; her membership of the book club; her board memberships, including at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image; and her love of good food. As Senator Wong has already mentioned, that notion of bread and roses was something that Linda lived herself and thought that everyone deserved—that, as much as it is important for those of us concerned with the lot of working people to pursue their material interests, or their bread, it is also important to make sure that everyone in this country has the opportunity to enjoy life and enjoy the finer things of life. She certainly tried to take the opportunity to do that herself.

I haven't managed to find the exact quote in Linda's first speech, but the last thing I was going to say is that I was reminded at her service that one of the things she said was words to the effect of, 'It's always important to find our better selves.' Again, Linda's own behaviour always exemplified that. That is something that I have benefited from directly from Linda. There've been fights and debates in the Labor Party where I had to reconsider my position because of the argument being put and the way in which it was being put by Linda White. Also, as a pretty freshly minted minister, I will fess up to the fact that Linda's pursuit of an argument in the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation, along with Senator Scarr and others, did cause me to reconsider my position and to make a very, very minor adjustment.