John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with deep regret that I inform the Senate of the death on 30 September 2013, of Janet Frances Powell, AM, a senator for the state of Victoria from 1986 to 1993.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate records its deep regret at the death on 30 September 2013 of Janet Frances Powell, former Senator and Leader of the Australian Democrats, places on record its appreciation of her meritorious public service and tenders its profound sympathy to her family in their bereavement.

Janet Powell lost her battle with pancreatic cancer on 30 September, aged 71. Former Senator Powell was not a traditional politician and her path to the Australian parliament was not a route taken by many of us in this place. From a small rural town in the Wimmera, western Victoria, the daughter of farmers, she graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Arts and a Diploma of Education. She worked as a secondary school teacher at Kerang and Nhill high schools. One of the founding members of the Australian Democrats in 1977, she became the first female Victorian state president in 1984. In 1986 she entered the Senate for Victoria, filling a casual vacancy created by the resignation of Democrats founder Don Chipp. The final paragraph of Senator Powell's first speech gave a clue to her style:

Political dogmatism will not remove inequity, put food on people's tables or find them jobs. The Democrats are not interested in dogma; we are interested in people. We will take up issues as they arise, making decisions as we see them in the light of our longstanding objectives and policies and in the interests of the community as a whole.

Indeed, Senator Powell was a strong role model for women in politics and I understand was always generous with her time and experience mentoring women. She was a passionate feminist. In 1989 she made history as the first woman of either house to have a private member's bill passed by both houses—the Tobacco Products Advertisements (Prohibition) Act 1989, which banned the print advertising of tobacco products.

Her successful amendment of the Disability Services Bill 1986 meant that the psychiatrically disabled were included in such legislation for the first time. Senator Powell was also instrumental in the establishment in 1988 of the Senate Select Committee on Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals, which investigated the use and impact of pesticides.

After a national ballot of Democrat members, she succeeded Janine Haines to become leader of the party in 1990, becoming only the second woman to lead an Australian political party. After the initiation of a petition to oust her as Democrats leader in 1991, Senator Powell lost the leadership challenge. One of the criticisms of her at the time was that she had canvassed the possibility of merging with the Australian Greens, a party that she later joined. Former Democrat leader and founder Don Chipp described this incident as the most tragic story to have hit the Democrats.

A year later in 1992 Senator Powell resigned from the Democrats to serve out her term, which ended in 1993 as an Independent. As Democrat leader, Senator Powell had opposed Australian intervention in the First Iraq War and had advocated cutting military ties with the US. It does sound very Green. In her valedictory speech Senator Powell's admiration of the Western Australian Green senators is apparent, and in 2004 she joined the Australian Greens.

Throughout her career her commitment to the community stood out. The life of a parliamentarian does not leave much spare time on the margins, but Senator Powell always managed to carve out a space to serve the community. After leaving parliament, Ms Powell continued to dedicate her energy to volunteer leadership roles in health, women's issues and services for the disadvantaged. In 2002 Ms Powell was made a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of her service to the parliament and community, particularly through the leadership of the YWCA. YWCA President Laura Hutchison paid tribute to Ms Powell's 'inspired leadership'. She also said:

Janet was a past president (1994-2000), rowing club patron and life member. She spearheaded a transformation that modernised the YWCA and ensured its survival. Janet drove systemic reform such as changing our constitution to enshrine young women in leadership roles and on a personal level she also mentored a series of younger presidential successors, training and new generation of female leaders. The YWCA continues to benefit from her legacy and is indebted.

Similarly, the Epilepsy Foundation of Victoria praised Senator Powell's sense of community, and they did it with these words:

All of us at the Epilepsy Foundation of Victoria are deeply saddened by the passing of Janet, a long-time member of the Epilepsy Foundation's patrons council.

I pass on my sincere condolences, on behalf of the government, to former Senator Powell's family, her four children—Katrine, Emma, Nick and Alex—her granddaughter, her friends and her colleagues over the years. They are all entitled to be extremely proud of their mother, grandmother, friend and colleague for her contribution to our community and our nation.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to 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.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to join with others in the Senate to celebrate the life and pay tribute to the contribution of the late Senator Janet Frances Powell. Janet was an extraordinary woman, as we have heard, in her upbringing and her aspirations to do better things for Australia—for women, for the community and for the nation. That is what she set out to do from a young age, from country Victoria, in the work that she did to get to university at that time and then to return to country Victoria to teach. She took into country Victoria and into those schools enormous leadership and inspiration for young girls to go on in life and to do the best they could possibly do and achieve their full potential. Right to the end of her life, she mentored women in every place she went, whether it was in schools or in the parliament, and when she left the parliament she continued to mentor young women, as has been said, in terms of leadership roles. She was a member of the Patrons Council of the Epilepsy Foundation of Victoria and a life member of the YWCA. She was appointed to the Victorian Honour Roll of Women. She was a Member of the Order of Australia, in recognition of her service to the parliament and the people of Australia and her leadership of the YWCA.

In terms of the Greens, as well, she invested a huge amount of time in helping young women through the party and talking to them about how to make way and how to continue to contribute both to politics and to strengthening the community. As has been said, she was a founding member of the Democrats in 1977 and then replaced Don Chipp as the senator for Victoria in 1986 and then won the seat in her own right the following year. Once she became leader of the Democrats in 1990, she aspired to merge the Democrats and the Greens, and at that time, in the early 1990s, the Democrats were a much larger and more established party than the Greens were. I was present at the meeting that we had in Launceston with Janet when she came down. Bob Brown and I went and met with her and talked to her there, and her aspiration was to merge the two strongest progressive forces in Australia so that there would be one stronger progressive force, in her view, and also she wanted to move beyond the Democrats' aspiration of, basically, a hand on the shoulder of government. She wanted to go beyond that and see the progressive side of politics form government, and you can see that in the kind of legislation that she introduced. It was more than just accountability that she was seeking; she was trying to implement a progressive agenda in a whole range of areas, as has been outlined.

She had a very difficult time of it and, as has been said, she resigned from the Democrats in 1992 after the leadership spill, but she remained in the parliament for the rest of her term as an Independent. The former Senator Gareth Evans said of her time in parliament that she:

… I think won a great deal of respect and admiration for the way in which she has withstood, with apparently infinite good cheer, the buffeting of what has been, on any analysis, a pretty tumultuous political career.

I think that is absolutely true, and she remained very even-handed, very kind and very positive in spite of all that had happened to her at that time. She joined the Australian Greens in 2004 and she stood as a Legislative Council candidate in the 2006 Victorian state election. She was unsuccessful in that but, as I have indicated, she made a big contribution to the Australian Greens and in particular the Greens in Victoria.

I want to go to some of her achievements in the parliament. As I said a moment ago, it was beyond accountability for the government of the day; it was actually progressing reform. Senator Wong spoke a moment ago about her private senator's bill on tobacco advertising, and both Senator Abetz and Senator Wong have also recorded her success in having psychiatric illness included in the definitions of disability for the purposes of disability services legislation. Her vocal opposition to the Gulf War was really courageous at the time. She was outspoken. Her pacifism was on show for all to see, and she made such a contribution that the Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, recalled both houses of parliament in January 1991 to debate Australia's involvement. I think the leadership and courage that she offered in the course of that debate were quite extraordinary, and I pay tribute to her pacifism. I also make reference to her work in trying to advance sustainable and organic agriculture. I think that, having been brought up in the country and having taught in the country, she had seen some of the impacts of the increasing industrialisation of agriculture, and she instigated the establishment of the Senate Select Committee on Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals to have a look at that at the time.

She was always guided by a strong sense of social justice, and that came out particularly in relation to women's rights. You would have to say that she was not only a role model for women in politics but a pioneer for women in politics. The leadership that she offered was not only in the policy initiatives that she brought to the parliament but also in her sustained commitment for change and her courage in continuing to argue for that change regardless of the opposition that came before her. As has been said, her attempt to strengthen affirmative action legislation is really important, as are her attempts to end discrimination of all kinds on the basis of sexuality and her success with the Defence Force. But she went beyond that. She continued to argue to end discrimination right till the end of her life.

I want to particularly say to her children, Katrine, Emma, Nich and Alex, that they should be really proud of Janet for what she contributed, and I am sure they are. She mentored many of us, and in terms of environmentalism she was quite extraordinary for her time. I spoke to her before she died, and she showed enormous courage in the face of death. Interestingly, even then her whole concern was to stay with the course of action for a more progressive, more inclusive, fairer Australia. That is what she wanted, that is what she campaigned for and that is what I pay tribute to her for doing. On behalf of the Greens, I just want to say that she is an inspirational model of our party and I really admire the fact that she was prepared to take on the idea of a merger right in those early days, and right till the end of her life she stayed committed to a strong progressive movement in Australia to bring about change. I pay tribute to Janet Powell.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask honourable senators to stand in silence to signify their assent to the motion.

Honourable senators having stood in their places—

The motion is carried.