George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate records its deep regret at the death, on 20 November 2017, of Mrs Jean Margaret Hearn, former senator for Tasmania, places on record its appreciation for her service to the Parliament and the nation, and tenders its sympathy to her family in their bereavement.

Jean Margaret Hearn, nee Button, was born in Launceston on 30 March 1921. She was the eldest child of Elton Roy Button, a draper, and Emily Gertrude Button. She was raised in the small town of Smithton, on Tasmania's north-west coast, and was educated at the Methodist Ladies' College in Launceston.

On 28 December 1940, Jean married Frederick Howe, with whom she had a son. It was a year after the outbreak of war. In another 12 months time, the war would reach the Pacific. Frederick enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force. In 1942 he was captured by the Japanese in Timor, and in 1944 he perished in a POW camp in Java.

Frederick Howe's death had a profound effect on Jean, igniting a commitment to pacifism that would endure unabated all her life and inform many of her contributions to public debate in this place. It was a pacifism of the 'swords into ploughshares' variety. She became a Quaker, and in her maiden speech to the chamber she lamented that the earth's finite resources were being wasted on the machinery of war:

Vast sums of money—

she said—

are spent on armaments while millions die of starvation each day. The world has, in kilograms per person, more explosives than food. Yet, it is not only the shortage of food which is the cause of hunger but the price that is put upon food.

She continued:

If we consider the money that is spent on armaments—as much money is spent on armaments in one hour as is spent on all the underprivileged children of the world in one year—surely it is a matter of shame.

In 1948 Jean married Alfred Beverley Hearn, a schoolteacher from Ballarat. The couple had two sons and a daughter together and moved to Geelong in 1954, where Jean worked as a preschool superintendent. It was the same year that Jean was to join the Labor Party, though she would not play an active role in party politics for more than a decade to come.

The family returned to Tasmania after five years in Geelong. Here Jean Hearn worked as a librarian, first in the Huon Valley for five years and then for another four in Burnie, before returning to Launceston to assume the position of supervisor at Broadland House Church of England Girls Grammar School. Jean's preparliamentary years in Launceston were spent in the service of countless local community projects and interest groups. She was, among other things, President of the Launceston Family Day Care Association from 1975 to 1980 and a founding member of the Regional Council for Social Development. She served on the state council of the Family Planning Association of Tasmania from 1970; co-authored a cookbook, entitled A Taste of Tasmania; and practised as a civil celebrant from 1975 until after her election to the Senate.

Jean Hearn joined the Tasmanian Labor Party's State Administrative Committee in 1970, the first woman ever to have been elected to that body. Her first, unsuccessful, tilt at elected office came two years later, when she was among the eight Labor candidates to run for a seat in the state division of Bass. Between 1975 and 1977 she worked as a research assistant for former President of the Senate Senator Justin O'Byrne. Two years later, in 1979, she was preselected to lead the Labor Party's Tasmanian Senate ticket, guaranteeing her election to the Senate at the poll scheduled for October 1980. Three days prior to polling day, however, Jean was appointed by the Tasmanian parliament to fill the casual vacancy created by the departure of the leader of the Labor Party in the Senate, Ken Wriedt, who had resigned to contest the seat of Denison. And so, following the expiration of former Senator Wriedt's term on 30 June 1981, Jean Hearn returned to the Senate, having in the meantime occupied the casual vacancy, the very next day to take the seat she had won in her own right.

The Senate was ideally suited to Jean Hearn's outspoken style and provided her with a platform from which to pursue the causes that had animated a lifetime of activism. She served on the Senate Legislative and General Purpose Standing Committee on Trade and Commerce from March till September 1981 and on the Standing Committee on Education and the Arts from September 1981 until her retirement in June 1985. It was to the latter of these committees in particular that she brought a unique perspective from her work in schools and as a long-time proponent of Steiner education.

Jean Hearn was re-elected on a short term at the March 1983 double-dissolution election and remained outspoken on the issues that had first spurred her involvement in public life. In 1984, she became the founding secretary of a parliamentary friendship group for nuclear disarmament, and was sympathetic to the New Zealand Labor government's declaration of a nuclear-free zone in 1984, using her growing public profile to push for global disarmament and nonproliferation in parliament as well as in print. In fact, Jean would frequently pen letters to all manner of newspapers and periodicals on matters of public interest, from the ANZUS Treaty to the old age pension. However, it was among her more esoteric missives in print that would lead to one of the odder episodes of Jean Hearn's career.

In a letter published in the autumn 1985 edition of Organic GrowingMagazine, Senator Hearn wrote, somewhat impenetrably:

The cow has horns in order to send into itself the cosmic astro-ethereal formative forces, which, pressing inwards, are meant to penetrate right into the digestive organism of the cow. In comparison—

Senator Hearn explained—

the antlers of the deer are altogether different. Observe the deer's intense communication and sensitivity to the outer world. Through the antlers, the deer sends outwards certain currents and lives very consciously with its environment, thereby receiving all that works organically in the nerves and senses. In certain respects—

Senator Hearn concluded—

all animals possessing antlers are filled with a gentle nervousness and quickness. We see it in their eyes.

When reportage of Senator Hearn's theory of the cosmic properties of certain livestock spread beyond the subscribership of Organic Growing Magazine to The Sydney Morning Herald, the senator disappointingly declined to elaborate further.

Under the then retirement rules of the Labor Party's Tasmanian branch, Jean Hearn was deemed ineligible to stand for re-election following the expiration of her term on 30 June 1985 because of her age. And so, in what she knew would be her final speech to the chamber on 31 May 1985, Senator Hearn reflected upon the aims that had motivated her election to office half a decade prior: civil liberties, human rights, economic inequality and community cohesion. Of her impending retirement, she claimed to be looking forward to the opportunity to continue to work for those ideals which can create for people the realisation of peace and true humanity. In pursuit of these laudable aims, Jean Hearn was tireless to the end.

In 2015, already well into her 90s, Jean Hearn oversaw the creation of the Tamar Community Peace Trust to raise awareness of peace issues through the arts, education and the media. In 2016, at 95 years of age, she was selected as Tasmania's nominee for Senior Australian of the Year, in recognition of her lifelong advocacy for peace. Half a century of political activism and public service never dimmed Jean Hearn's idealism, nor dented her determination. And in appreciation of a life given to the betterment of humanity, I offer, on behalf of the government, my gratitude for her service and tender my condolences to her family.