Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to begin this evening by congratulating Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and the Queensland Labor government on re-election. This is a difficult time for Queensland. We faced a global pandemic and global economic uncertainty, but Queenslanders voted to stay on the road to recovery, to support local jobs and to support local manufacturing. Tonight, though, I also want to pay tribute to Jackie Trad.

Jackie Trad was a friend of many in the Labor movement. She has held many titles: the Deputy Premier of Queensland, the Treasurer of Queensland, the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships of Queensland, the member for South Brisbane, a trade unionist, a mentor, a woman and a mum. But, to many of us, she was just Jackie. Jackie achieved more than many people would have in her position.

I believe there are two kinds of people in politics: those who win office for the sake of holding a position and maintaining the privilege that comes with power and those who win office so that they can do things, achieve things and make changes with that power—the ones who get things done. Jackie got things done. She took on the fights that others wouldn't, and she fought for those that couldn't. But they weren't fights for the sake of fighting. She had the fight to win the campaign to make the change. The changes that she made are long-lasting and will make Queensland a better, safer and fairer place forever.

As Queensland Minister for Transport, Jackie took the very first steps needed to make sure that Queenslanders could build trains in regional Queensland. During a time when manufacturing workers have been abandoned by successive Liberal national governments, Jackie Trad looked to sustain the future for their jobs and the regions that they love. As Treasurer, she brought together workers, environmentalists and industry to set up CleanCo, a 100 per cent Queensland government owned renewable energy electricity company, to secure the jobs of workers in regional Queensland. She set our state on a pathway to treaty. She championed the decriminalisation of abortion law in Queensland, and she won that fight. When she did, she did more than change the law; she signalled to women, 'You can fight, you can organise and you can win.'

Politics is a tough place for women. Whether you're a volunteer, a campaign worker, a staffer, a candidate or an MP, when you're a woman in politics, it can be a tough place. But Jackie Trad was tough as well, and, in the many roles that she held in the Labor Party, she always stood up for other women. She stood up for every single one of us, and she had our backs. As women who were volunteers, campaign workers, staffers, organisers or candidates, we always knew that Jackie had our back.

There has been and will be much said about the decision by the Liberal Party to direct preferences to the Greens in South Brisbane, the preferences that made the difference in the end. I will leave commentary on that decision for another time, but I do want to say this: Queensland has lost a very progressive woman in a very powerful position who used her position to better the lives of other women. There is a reason that the Liberal National Party wanted Jackie gone, and the Greens should reflect on that. There is a cost and, when that cost is the loss of a progressive woman in a position from which she is able to make changes, you do have to question the price that has been paid. We thank Jackie, her team and her family. She did us proud, and we know that she has many more contributions to make to Queensland and to the Labor Party. That is more than many people who have contributed to politics are able to say.