Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Today I rise to pay my tribute to the life and parliamentary career of Senator Jeannie Ferris and, in so doing, to support the motion moved by the Prime Minister and seconded by the Leader of the Opposition, to which the Deputy Prime Minister has just made a contribution. Of course, as the earlier speakers have said, Jeannie Ferris made a strong contribution to the life of her parliamentary party, to the life of the government and to the life of rural Australians and, of course, she was a strong contributor on behalf of my state of origin, South Australia. She was a parliamentarian who contributed beyond the confines of party politics and seemed to take a great deal of delight in doing so. She was a passionate advocate of Australian friendship with America and she was, until the day she died, Chair of the US Australia Parliamentary Friendship Group.

She will be most remembered by many on this side of the House for the things she did for the betterment of women and for the stance she took in this parliament and more broadly on behalf of women. As has been indicated to the parliament today, she made an unbelievably outstanding contribution when battling cancer herself to lead the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, along with a number of female senators, to make sure that there was a spotlight on the plight of women with gynaecological cancer.

We should not forget that on the very day the committee reported to the Senate—after the moving and heartfelt experiences of those who made submissions to the committee were heard by the Senate—Jeannie Ferris herself marked the first year of her own battle with ovarian cancer. I am sure her colleagues in the Senate would agree that it was due to her dedication to this work that the government’s reaction to this report was timely and very responsive.

It was not the only time that Jeannie Ferris battled alongside other women in this parliament to do what she thought was right. She contributed to the stem cell debate. She had a passionate view about medical research and in making a contribution to that debate she talked about how research could in future make a difference for people who were battling cancer. She was prepared to argue strongly for that legislation in this parliament.

In a similar vein, she battled with others within her party and beyond to ensure that there was prompt funding available for the cervical cancer vaccine and that that be made available to Australian women and girls as soon as possible. In her own party room she advocated the rights of women and their families to gain access to IVF treatment on the basis of medical assessment rather than age or income. She strove constantly to make sure that women had the ability to make their own set of choices. When she made her first speech to the Senate, Jeannie paid tribute to great Australian women and recounted the great privilege she felt when, working as a press gallery journalist, she met Dame Enid Lyons in Canberra. In her maiden speech, she quoted Dame Enid’s famous remarks from her first book where she described her entry into the federal parliament as:

... like a lamb to the slaughter, like a sheep before the shearers, I was led forth to have a go.

There was never anything lamb-like about Jeannie Ferris. She was feisty. I am sure she could be ferocious. I never saw the ferocious side of her. Some Labor colleagues in the Senate undoubtedly did and I am sure many of her party colleagues here today also saw the ferocious side of her from time to time. Along with being feisty and ferocious, she was enormously good fun. She had an inherent sense of mischief and, with her sparkling big blue eyes, she was a very stylish older woman. I would look at her as she would be making merry and I would think, ‘Gee, as a younger woman, she must have been drop-dead gorgeous and the life of every party she attended.’ She was just great good fun.

One of the great things about this parliament is that from time to time—perhaps on too few occasions—women work across party lines to support things they genuinely believe are in the interests of Australian women. I did have the opportunity to get to know Jeannie in that context. We had some great fun. We shared some jokes, mainly at the expense of our male parliamentary colleagues—they probably do not bear retelling and ought not be retold. Jeannie was also passionate about the things she believed in and had enormous political savvy. I will always remember her that way.

I want to pay tribute to the work that she did in this parliament and say that my thoughts are with her sons, Robbie and Jeremy. As people have remarked, and I believe the Prime Minister himself remarked, it is almost too much to imagine that any children could lose both their father and their mother in such a short time and in such tragic and interrelated circumstances. It was an enormous double tragedy for them to bear and our thoughts are with them as well on this day.

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