Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to pay tribute to former Tasmanian Labor senator Jean Hearn. Jean's lifetime of activism, community service and determination leaves a tremendous legacy in our party and in the broader Tasmanian community. Jean lived in every corner of Tasmania, including in Smithton in her early years and in Burnie on the north-west coast for four years in the 1960s. We're a parochial lot in Tasmania. Yes, Senator Hearn spent the rest of her life in Launceston—when north-west coasters can claim someone of her calibre, both politically and industrially, we will do so.

In her few years in Burnie in the mid-sixties, Jean founded the pacifist group Society to Uphold the Universal Human Rights, writing many letters to the press and governments, organising rallies and supporting conscientious objectors. After 16 years as a member of the Labor Party, it was in 1970 that Jean became the first woman ever elected to the Tasmanian Labor Party's Administrative Committee through her membership of the left-wing Miscellaneous Workers Union. A decade later Jean was the first woman to be preselected at the top of the Tasmanian Labor Senate ticket for the 1980 election. It's worth reflecting that since December 2011 Tasmania's Labor Senate delegation has comprised solely women. Jean started something. We're a landmark group and we owe Jean a great deal for her pioneering work.

In Jean's first speech she expressed her concern that Australians were being sacrificed to a system that put economic values and profits before the value and potential of a human person, and declared, 'Working people are not to be discarded as an item of cost at the swing of an imbalanced market, because people have a right to work.' Those words very much ring true to this day with the rise of insecure work and the relentless attacks on working Australians from their own government. Twice elected as a senator, Jean was an outspoken member of caucus who sought to ask hard questions of those in power, even when Labor was in government.

Long after retirement from the Senate and well into her 90s, Jean was inspired by the 2014 Anzac Day address from former Tasmanian Governor Peter Underwood, where he called on Tasmanians to do something, to learn how to create peace, to create the Tasmanian Valley Peace Trust, which we've heard about. The trust has held annual festivals in the Tamar Valley promoting peace and harmony through collective activities. Just last year Jean was a nominee for Tasmanian Senior Australian of the Year, a fitting public recognition of her lifetime of peace advocacy.

Our party, the union movement and the broader Tasmanian and Australian communities are richer for Jean's active participation and leadership. Vale Jean Hearn.

Question agreed to, honourable senators standing in their places.