Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Today the Senate recognises the remarkable life of a remarkable woman. Janet Frances Powell was a senator, a leader for her community, a champion of women's rights, a feminist and a fighter for progressive causes.

As Senator Abetz has described, she grew up in a small farming community in Victoria and, like many women of her generation, ended up studying teaching. She attended Melbourne university, completing a Bachelor of Arts and diploma of teaching. Through teaching she became involved in community education, which led her on to becoming a founding member of the Australian Democrats in 1977. She became the party's first female Victorian state president in 1984 and then became the natural successor to former Senator Don Chipp when he stood down from the Senate in 1986. Ms Powell served the Senate until 1993, after being elected initially in her own right in the double dissolution election of 1987.

As has been described in many comments—including some that Senator Abetz referred to—she controversially canvassed the idea of merging the Democrats with the Australian Greens, which was a decision that many in her party opposed. As we look at Ms Powell's career, we can see a number of ways in which she really was a woman well ahead of her time. I will mention just a number of achievements. The first is that she was, as always, a tireless campaigner for progressing the rights of women and was the first to introduce a private senator's bill to strengthen affirmative action legislation. We have come a long way in some quarters and not in others since that time, but it does demonstrate the commitment that people in this chamber—particularly women in this chamber—have had for many years to progressing and advancing the representation of women in this place.

She became the first woman and one of the few members of parliament to introduce and pass a private senator's bill, which was the Smoking and Tobacco Products Advertisements (Prohibition) Act 1989, which banned tobacco advertising in print media. Her bill was the beginning of the fight to ban electronic advertising, including

television advertising, and which then culminated in the last parliament with the passage of Australia's world first legislation with plain packaging legislation. If you look at former Senator Powell's bill, you can see that was legislation that was probably 10 or 20 years ahead of its time. Through Janet Powell's leadership, the Democrats became the only party to oppose Australia's participation in the First Gulf War, and she has been credited for persuading the government to recall parliament to debate Australia's involvement in the war.

In her time as a senator she achieved many more great things: widening disability services legislation to include psychiatrically disabled people and advancing government policy on organic farming. She was also pivotal in lifting the ban on gay and lesbian Australians becoming members of our defence forces—an extraordinary achievement—and she fought to ensure a broader representation in media ownership.

She became the leader of the Democrats in 1990 and served in the position for a short period of time. She was ever the reformer, which is one of the ways in which one can understand her support for a merger between the Democrats and the emerging Greens. In her first speech she spoke of the beliefs of the Democrats, and her character can be discerned from this:

From the very beginning the Australian Democrats have been about reform, about new ways, new ideas, about bringing people into the decisions which affect their own lives; about a world which will survive and justice for the individual.

It has been said about Janet Powell that she never fitted the mould of a politician in Canberra. We are richer for that, and we are proud to say that she served in this chamber.

Her life was one dedicated to public service, whether to her rural community or here in the Senate chamber. Through all walks of life she was honest and forthright, and she was a champion of women's rights. I pause here to make this point: there are many women who owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the feminists who have gone before. If we do aspire—as I hope most of us, if not all, do—for our daughters to have the same opportunities as our sons, it is because of women like Janet Powell, and others, who fought to ensure there is a space for our daughters to have those aspirations fulfilled. She was also an environmentalist, a true advocate for equity and a pacifist. Our deepest condolences go to her four children and her family. We thank her and we remember her.