Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to express my sadness at the loss of a most remarkable woman and senator, and I acknowledge the beautiful words we've already heard here today and in recent days. We've lost an important figure, and I grieve with Linda's community. I'm so sad that she has gone. She had so much more to offer this chamber and our country.

I send my condolences to Linda's brother, Michael and his wife, Julie. Michael spoke so beautifully at the ceremony last Thursday about Linda and their childhood and family and more recent special times. I also extend my condolences to Linda's very good friends, whose support and deep relationships clearly meant so much to her. To Linda's staff, I extend particular acknowledgement. Not all staff of senators have a deep bond with their boss, but Ben Armstrong and all of Linda's staff clearly did. I hope that the weight and love of that bond is a comfort in this very sudden loss. You have clearly served her so well. How much she would have appreciated and valued that friendship, love and care, especially in recent months!

I extend my condolences also to Linda's political family. The decades of service to a party she loved have left a deep legacy and many relationships, friendships and comradeship. Linda worked so hard to increase the voice of women in the Labor Party, and we see its practical and positive consequences today across our parliament. To her ASU sisters and brothers, I also extend my condolences. All those years—25 years as assistant national secretary—is a lot of work. It's a lot of bonds and a lot of solidarity. Linda's delight in the solidarity of unionism and of union sisterhood and activism was clear to all who knew her. To Emeline Gaske, Abbie Spencer and the ASU and all of Linda's sisters in leadership at the ACTU, Michele and Sally: I share your sense of loss.

I knew Linda through her decades of union activism, her feminism and her leadership. She was a union leader who welcomed research evidence. She fostered it, and she put it to work. I know there are many researchers across Australia who are conscious of the way in which she employed data in her arguments. She was not a leader who pulled the ladder up behind her. She was a generous mentor in the best feminist tradition. She was a builder and an enlarger.

When she became a senator, Linda was a very active member of so many Senate committees. She joined the Select Committee on Work and Care and actively contributed to our hearings all around Australia. She was an incredible workhorse. From my dealings with her over the decades as a union leader and over the past 20 months, I found her always a constructive colleague, always up for a laugh and always strong in her views. Linda was trustworthy, honest, funny, smart and hardworking. She was driven to create a better world, whether working as a lawyer, a union member, an activist, a feminist, a leader or a senator. She contributed to making a better world.

Senators come in many different forms. Some come here to build a career, to make a name and to make sparkling speeches. Linda excluded that pathway in her opening speech. She said she was not here to build a career. Some senators are tribal, fierce party loyalists focused on their party's interests. That was not Linda. While Linda was fiercely of the Labor family, she was not, in my experience, narrowly tribal. She was not a hater.

Linda's deep politics were anchored in making a better world for some of the weakest in it: the low-paid insecure workers that she spent decades of her life fighting for, winning big increases and improvements in their conditions of work, most especially for those in the community services sector. That changed the lives of so many people. She stood up for precarious workers, for gig workers, for casuals and for part-timers. She stood up for women who, without enough super, face an old age of poverty after a lifetime of hard work and care. These were the focus of Linda's deep political loyalty, and she would work with all of those who shared her sympathies and project, and she certainly worked across the aisle in this place. She saw the power of building coalitions.

Several people at Linda's ceremony last Thursday made the point that Linda never took a step back in a fight. She made that point herself when she said, as we have heard, that no-one in this place would die wondering what she thought. She was forthright and honest and she marshalled powerful arguments and evidence. I loved working alongside Linda as a member of the Select Committee on Work and Care. She had an excellent nose for pretence and hypocrisy. I remember her taking Amazon to task in that inquiry for their labour hire practices, where she rightfully said that Amazon's wish to be called the best employer on the planet for their own employees did not extend to anyone outside their direct employment sphere. They had many thousands of workers beyond direct employment, and Linda called it out. 'You want to be the best employer on the planet for your own employees, but it doesn't extend to anyone who's not directly employed. That's what I see. Is that right?' She kept pushing to get to the truth of the argument and the evidence that appeared before us in classic, persistent Linda White style.

Linda was courageous, she was fun, she had an incredible work ethic, and she made a direct value driven contribution. She will be much missed in this chamber, where she had so much more to offer to us. I will miss her very much and I extend my condolences and the condolences of all of my Greens colleagues to all of those who were close to Linda and who shared so many positive aspects of her life and work here.