Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

How do you begin to sum up someone so incredible that is such an amazing force in this place, like Senator Rice? I think I echo everyone's comments that we have been so fortunate to have been able to work with you. She's loud, she's proud and she's fierce but also she's warm, caring and so welcoming. She is so smart, dedicated and passionate.

Senator Rice—and I too am going to keep calling her Senator Rice until the end of the day—has well and truly shown us how politics should be done differently and how compassion and determination can in fact co-exist. What an amazing and incredible activist and an amazing all-round person you are, Janet! You give such inspiration, not just to us as colleagues but to everyone in our party and in the movement. We're just so grateful. I've had the great privilege of working alongside you in the party room since 2021, but I probably fangirled for longer than that.

We know your amazing bio and the work that you've done since coming to the Senate in 2014. Whether it's forests, tourism, marriage equality, foreign affairs, aged care, social services, government services, transport—the whole gamut, really—in all of that work you leave such an amazing legacy, but the big work of founding the Victorian Greens is such a huge part of this party, and we will continue to work to ensure that our development and our growth as a Greens movement is part of what you started. For this alone, we owe you so much. Thank you.

I'm not going to draw this out any longer than I should, but one of the really great memories that I have of you, Janet, was the protest, also. When we asked, 'What does that look like?', you just knew from the time that this was crafted what you were going to do and your confidence in that just told me: 'Oh, it's great. Janet has a plan.' And it is something that I know and that I hold onto when I work alongside you: 'Janet has a plan, and we're in safe hands.' The stewardship that you gave us in the party room as our party room chair gave me great confidence from day one when I worked in that place. The quiet conversations—whether it was dinner at the Kingston foreshore or your coming to Perth to help me campaign to be re-elected—are the really precious moments that I have about the quiet confidence, the mentorship, the support and friendship that you offered to me in this place.

For me, some of the bigger parts of the work around the cashless debit card and the way that you passionately talked about the abolition of the cashless debit card came through as so important in your work and your passion for working alongside as a great ally to our First Nations communities. There is the legacy that's left by Rachel Siewert and Raise the Rate in eradicating poverty for our communities, and you just grabbed hold of that, took it and made it your own. I'm so glad, when I come into the chamber and make a speech, to say, 'Oh, I agree with Senator Rice,' because there were so many things that you just paid so much attention to. I want to thank you from all the First Nations people that you worked so passionately with, particularly over the last 18 months in that campaign.

You continue to be so present, and I think Senator Smith and Senator Pratt both articulated your visibility in this place as a constant reminder that you give us about the rainbow family. To be a proud ally standing beside you and campaigning, particularly in Perth at our pride events, is one of the memories I hold very close to me.

You worked so hard, Janet, and you deserve a rest! I'm glad to hear about the forest retreat. I'm sure that you and Anne will make some wonderful memories in the future. Like Larissa, I look forward to the wedding invitation and the pending nuptials. But enjoy your retirement and your rest in particular. I know this won't stop you. I know your passion and your energy, because you can't keep a good woman down for too long, and I know that's you. Thank you so much, Janet.