Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

Joan Kirner's life has been one which, from the perspective of my family, is a life that has been intertwined and lived in parallel to the interests and the lives of my family. Joan Kirner began her professional career as a person who was profoundly dedicated to education. She taught at Ballarat Girls' Technical College and essentially came onto the public stage as the president of the Victorian Federation of State Schools Parents' Clubs in the early 1970s. She went on to be an education minister in the Victorian government under John Cain.

My father was a school principal. Education has kind of been the family business in my family, other than me. I have been a disappointment to my family in that respect. I have three older sisters, all of whom have been educators at one point or another. My mother was an academic. Discussions around the household about the activism and the reform that Joan Kirner brought to bear in respect of education were discussions that were always very present in the dining room of my house. Joan Kirner was always someone who was respected and revered in that respect. She was someone who my father knew and had enormous regard for.

Joan Kirner entered the Victorian parliament and very quickly became a minister in the Cain government. She became the Minister for Conservation, Forests and Land. In that portfolio, she put in place Landcare, which the Prime Minister yesterday, or the day before, rightly described as one of the significant policy legacies of Joan Kirner. It demonstrated that Joan Kirner had a very wide policy interest and she was able to turn a very active mind to a whole range of areas and make a huge difference in the process. We all know that she served as Deputy Premier and, ultimately, in 1990 became Victoria's first female Premier and served in that role in difficult circumstances through until the 1992 election.

In her life after parliament, which was when I got to know Joan, she was an enormous advocate for women entering politics and entering parliament through her role in EMILY's List. In Geelong, there have been a number of women representatives of the Labor Party in parliament, all of whom have been the beneficiaries of EMILY's List and all of whom have drawn enormous inspiration from Joan Kirner.

Elaine Carbines, who was the member for Geelong Province; Lisa Neville, who is the current minister for the environment in Victoria and the member for Ballarine; Chris Couzens, who was the member for Geelong; Gayle Tierney, who is the member for Western Victoria in the legislative council; and even, as you would know, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker Henderson, Libby Coker, who has just been preselected by the Labor Party to contest the electorate of Corangamite—all have been the beneficiaries of Joan Kirner's inspiration.

Joan went to Geelong on many occasions and, as I speak to those people who are very much colleagues of mine, they see Joan as a huge mentor for them, as a huge inspiration for what they want to be. I think she gave them a sense of comfort that a more difficult road to hoe, as a woman in politics, can nevertheless be done, and be done with family, by virtue of the wonderful example of Joan Kirner. She was always there for all of those women, at the other end of the phone to answer a question, to give support, to deal with a difficult moment. She was tireless in that really personal dedication to them. In making this speech today, I really do it on behalf of that group of women as well.

But in making this speech I really want to talk about my mother. My mother was a lifelong friend of Joan Kirner. Mum was the first commissioner for equal opportunity in the state of Victoria. She was appointed, actually, by Dick Hamer under the Hamer government but served in this capacity through half of the Cain government and got to know many of the ministers of the Cain government well. But in fact prior to that Mum was of a generation of feminists in Melbourne and Victoria which was the same generation as Joan Kirner and the likes of Mary Owen. Through that, she struck up her lifelong friendship with Joan. I think for Mum it was an enormous source of joy to see a friend become the first female Premier of our state and to watch the incredible career of Joan Kirner unfold.

For me, with three older sisters and my mother playing that role, I saw the world as being in fact dominated by great matriarchs. I can remember going to the Mary Owen Dinner, which was a dinner for that generation of Melbourne feminists, often held in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It was a women's only event, except for the waiters, who could be the sons of the women who were putting on those events and often I was one of those waiters. That was the world of my youth. I grew up in that world and Joan Kirner was very much a part of that. Again, I am speaking here today on behalf of my mother in giving our condolences and our respects to Joan Kirner.

For my part, I got to know Joan Kirner after she became the Premier of Victoria. I knew her as a person who was always humble, who always had her feet on the ground, who never was overcome by the trappings of office, who always saw that her involvement in politics was about the change that she could make, not about what politics could do for her. She was passionate about the issues that she pursued, as I have described, but that passion for football was also one that I shared. She was a passionate supporter of the Essendon Football Club. I did not support that part of it, but she was very much imbued with the sort of passion that we have in Victoria.

She was always a class act in the generosity, in the friendship, in the support that she provided to all of us—men and women alike and I think across all persuasions of politics. She was just a wonderful person to be around, she made friends easily and she really wanted her community to be a better place. There is absolutely no doubt that her community—Melbourne, Victoria, Australia—is so much the better for the contribution that Joan Kirner made.

I would like to express, on behalf of my entire family—my father Don, my mother Fay, my sisters Vic, Jen and Liz—our deepest condolences to Joan's family: her husband Ron and her children Michael, Kate and David. You had in your midst an absolutely remarkable person. Vale, Joan Kirner.

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