Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to offer my sincere condolences to the family, friends, loved ones and work colleagues of Sarah Carter. Sarah tragically passed away last week, aged just 45.

I know it's reckless to try and predict the future, but I think all who met Sarah assumed she'd go on to achieve much more in her life. She was on such a positive trajectory already. She'd been a long-serving councillor of Maribyrnong and a fierce advocate for the people of the western suburbs of Melbourne. She'd been mayor on three occasions at the tender age of 45. She was a classic example of someone who was taking action locally, but she was also an incredible global citizen. She saw disadvantage and wanted to be part of the solution and fix a problem wherever she found it.

Sarah had a very strong sense of injustice and was determined to make a difference in the lives of the most vulnerable and underprivileged people she met anywhere in the world. She was pivotal in her role with Save the Children, in the international engagement that organisation provided. My thoughts are with her colleagues, in particular, who were shocked by her loss last week.

We first met on a delegation to Cambodia about 10 years ago. Colleagues will well understand that hosting members of parliament on overseas delegations is a bit like herding cats. At times, when logistics went wrong, despite Sarah's best efforts, it was like watching a blindfolded tightrope walker juggling four balls and answering phone calls—but she always managed to fix the problem somehow, get the logistics back on track, dust herself off and return to that picture of serenity. That's until the next crisis hit, and she went into fix-it mode again. We stayed in touch over a long period of time on issues that we were both interested in. While she was core Labor at heart, she had a lot of affection for the Nats and for regional Australians and battlers, so we had a lot to talk about over the years.

As members of parliament, we do get to meet many inspiring people, and sometimes it makes us a bit hard to impress. But I was very impressed with Sarah Carter. She impressed me with her passion, her intelligence, her determination and her resilience. She's been a huge loss to our nation and a huge loss to the Labor family. I guess we will never make sense of why someone like Sarah would leave us so early. And the challenge for us in this place is to make sure she's not forgotten and, I think, to take the memory of someone like Sarah and make an inspiration for us in the roles we do.

Our job is not always easy. Sometimes the political winds blow the wrong way, and we suffer misfortunes ourselves in our political lives and question our future in this place itself. But, if you need an inspiration, I say to everyone in this place: just think of what someone like Sarah Carter would have given in a year in this place—a month, a week, an hour! We all thought that Sarah was destined to join us in this place as a member of parliament, and she would have been an extraordinary MP. May she rest in peace.