Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) | Hansard source

I rise on behalf of the coalition to pay tribute to former senator for the Northern Territory Trish Crossin AM, who passed away on 13 April at the age of 70. Senator Crossin served, as we know, in this chamber for 15 years, from June 1998 to September 2013. I had the privilege of serving with Trish between 2008 and 2013, and I echo Senator Wong's comments. Trish was someone who was thoroughly committed to the issues she came here to prosecute. She was someone who was always up for a chat, but she was also someone who would sit down with you and actually work through the issues that she wanted to get done in this place.

She was chosen in June 1998 to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Senator Bob Collins. She was subsequently elected to the Senate in her own right at the 1998 election. She was re-elected four more times, in 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2010. She was the 472nd member of this place, she was the fifth senator for the Northern Territory and she was the first woman to represent the Northern Territory in the federal parliament.

Before entering parliament, she served as an industrial officer and then as the Northern Territory secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union from 1996 to 1998. Indeed, during her tenure, NTEU membership in the Territory more than doubled. She was also the founding chair of the NT Working Women's Centre, something of which she was incredibly proud.

As we've heard, though, when she worked in this place her passion for Indigenous issues was second to none. Senator Crossin's connection to Indigenous Australia predated her parliamentary career by over two decades. She taught at Yirrkala Bilingual School from 1981 to 1985, and she wasn't a visitor to the community; she lived and worked there with her husband, Mark, and she was regarded as a lifelong friend to the community after she left. She fought passionately against the abolition of bilingual education in the Northern Territory. When the Territory government moved to dismantle the system, she actually opposed it from this chamber. She had seen firsthand what the education model meant to the communities that it served.

In her first speech in this place in 1998, before she had held a Senate seat for a single sitting week, she offered a personal apology to Aboriginal people and to the stolen generations. That was nine years before the national apology delivered by the Rudd government in 2008. She did not frame it, though, as a political position; she framed it as a personal statement of regret for the harm caused by the forced removal of children from their families. She then co-authored a book on the stolen generations, prepared for use during the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and continued to lobby for compensation for members of the NT stolen generations throughout her time in this place.

She chaired the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples from November 2012 until she left the Senate in August 2013. She was a member of the Senate Select Committee on the Administration of Indigenous Affairs in 2004, serving as its chair from June to November of that year. She sat on the Select Committee on Regional and Remote Indigenous Communities from 2008 to 2010. The NT Emergency Response, which began in 2007, occupied much of her attention during those years.

Her other committee work in this place was extensive. She served on the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs for many years, including as chair from February 2008 to May 2009. She chaired the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee from May 2009 until she left the Senate in September 2013. She also chaired the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee from June 2005 to September 2006, and she again served on it from May 2009 to September 2013. Her work on the education, employment and workplace relations committee spanned many years, including as chair of its references committee from December 2004 to June 2005. As we have heard, and as she is well known for, she co-sponsored the first marriage equality bill in this Senate. This is a very interesting fact about Trish and something she was very proud of. Early in her career, she asked in Senate estimates how many Australians had trachoma. The answer from the department was that they actually didn't know. That exchange then contributed to the Commonwealth committing $17 million to trachoma eradication in 2009.

Her Senate career, as we know, sadly ended in 2013, and she used her valedictory speech to say at the time what she thought about how that had been handled, but whatever the politics of that decision, 15 years of service to this institution speaks for itself. In 2023, Trish Crossin was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for her service to the parliament and to the people of the Northern Territory. She is survived by her husband, Mark, her children, Paul, Melinda, Amanda and Kate, whom we know so well, and her grandchildren. On behalf of the coalition, I extend my sincere condolences to the Crossin family.