Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to pay tribute to the life of the late Dr Penny Whetton, who died suddenly in September this year. Penny was an amazing human being. She was a scientist, an artist, a nature lover, an advocate, a devoted wife and a parent to two beautiful children. I met Penny through her wife, my dear friend and colleague Senator Janet Rice.

It's rare to find two people as in love, supportive and committed as Penny and Janet were to each other. Penny and Janet met on a university field trip in 1981, and what started as a whirlwind romance based on a mutual love of all things science and nature blossomed. For two meteorology students and self-proclaimed nerds, I can't think of a more romantic setting than flying and tracking pilot balloons to help out with phase 2 of the cold fronts research project. For the nearly 40 years since, they have been practically inseparable. As their family grew, welcoming their two beautiful children, John and Leon, into the world, the pair had only become more devoted and more in love.

For those who didn't know her, to say that Penny was intelligent would be an understatement. Penny was actually a polymath. Of course, her true passion was in climate science and the natural world, but she was a photographer and a painter, and she was fascinated with Greek and Roman history. She developed other passions in linguistics, learning Latin, furniture making and even becoming an expert on volcanic eruption sites of western Victoria. The list just kept growing and growing. Penny was fascinated with the world around her, and she was an expert on just about everything.

Penny's loss is heartbreaking. While she was far too modest to ever say it, her impact on the world was enormous. As many people know by now, Penny was an extremely accomplished scientist in the field of climatology. Penny was a leader in the area of climate projections, producing credible views of our future climate if we follow different emission scenarios and making these vivid for all audiences. She worked tirelessly towards mapping out the impacts of climate change. In fact, much of our understanding of the impacts of climate change and the impact it will have on Australia and the Pacific comes from Penny's work with the CSIRO and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Her talent and hard work were rewarded with an extraordinary career that saw her work with the UN's IPCC, the EU, the CSIRO and the Victorian government, and collaborate with countless scientists across Australia and the world. She was a lead author of the regionalisation and climate scenarios chapters of the third IPCC report, the regional projections chapter of the fourth IPCC report and the Australasia chapter of the fifth assessment report. It was in 2007 that the fourth IPCC report was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Penny shared in that prize. Penny also led CSIRO's national climate projections work from 1992 to 2014. Finally, her work helping to lead the Victorian government's efforts to reduce their emissions was published in June this year after she co-authored the interim emissions reduction targets for Victoria.

Time and again her work received accolades, but she wasn't in it for praise. She worked so hard because she understood the importance of supporting global efforts to cut carbon pollution and protect the natural environment. Throughout her distinguished career the high esteem in which her colleagues, collaborators, students and proteges held her cannot be understated. She was a trailblazer who pioneered groundbreaking work in her field, and that work is now taken for granted as standard operation worldwide. She was a collaborative, insightful and inspiring leader who brought the best out in people. She was a mentor to many throughout her career, helping to educate, guide and nurture a generation of scientists. She built teams and encouraged different perspectives and fostered an environment of collaboration, rather than competition, wherever she went.

Penny also felt a deep anger about current politics and the collective lack of action bringing us ever closer to the climate crisis. She found it troubling that our political leaders ignored the science and she was distraught in the face of our climate emergency. While her talent and enthusiasm for climate science propelled her career to stellar heights, it was her passion that made her an advocate and her fortitude that made her an activist. Of course, this is not the only time that Penny's commitment to doing what is right led her to activism.

Many came to know Penny through her journey with Janet during the campaign to achieve marriage equality in Australia. Along with thousands of other activists, they worked tirelessly to make Australia a fairer, more inclusive society. But for Penny and Janet, that fight was especially personal. Penny often joked while the fight for equality raged that she and Janet were among the few couples in Australia to already be in a same-sex marriage. It seems she was ahead of the times in more than just the fight for action on climate.

Penny was unable to update her legal documentation to reflect her gender, because doing so would require her to divorce her wife. That was the hard reality for married transgender people who wanted to live authentically and continue with their marriage. Janet and Penny faced a unique hardship in their struggle for equal recognition. They had to decide whether to keep their private life private or use that platform to help educate and change the hearts and minds of countless Australians. If you knew Penny, you knew she wasn't interested in any of the glory or the public exposure. She didn't want to expose her private life, her marriage or her family to all of the things that come with being in the public eye. Despite knowing the ugliness that would come their way, together they made the decision to acknowledge the powerful role that they could play in the campaign for a yes vote on same-sex marriage and to share their story publicly. I would like to reflect on that decision for a moment.

For many people, including, I have to say, me, Janet and Penny were the first couple about whom they could put real faces and names to terms they might only have heard before in the abstract—words like 'trans' and 'gender diverse', words that are too often used to peddle fear and division and that are hurled as insults. We all remember the abuse, the hate and the ugliness that was unleashed during the marriage plebiscite. Penny and Janet knew what would come at them and their family, but they chose to look beyond it to see the importance of showing Australia that a happy, fulfilling marriage doesn't look only one way and that a family doesn't only look one way.

Penny knew that her story highlighted the ridiculous discrimination inherent in Australia's marriage laws: that somehow her marriage to Janet was worth less than when both partners were living authentically. Anyone who knew Penny and how devoted she and Janet were to each other would know that that was rubbish. Together, they showed us that love doesn't have to be the same to be equal. In Penny's own words:

I can tell you that mine and Janet's relationship hasn't changed since we became a same-sex couple and we still love each other just like we did before. Our relationship is just the same as anyone else's—wonderful, loving and valuable. We're just waiting for the law to recognise that. It puzzles me that Australia is lagging on this issue. Let's just get it done.

And get it done they did. I'm so grateful to Penny and Janet. They showed uncommon bravery, sharing themselves with the world like that. I learned a great deal from Penny, as many of us did, and I'm so honoured to have gone on that journey with them.

To my dear friend and colleague Janet, some of us joked about how in love you two were. In fact, we were a little envious. This job's a really tough gig, spending so much time away from your family, but you spoke and texted three, four or five times a day. Your devotion to each other never wavered. Janet, I'm so deeply sorry for your loss. We grieve with you at this difficult time. But rest assured, Penny will live on through you, through the work that you do, through your beautiful children, John and Leon, and all that she brought to the world.