Senate debates

Tuesday, 8 May 2012

Condolences

Adams, Senator Judith Anne

12:37 pm

Photo of Eric AbetzEric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate records its deep regret at the death, on 31 March 2012, of Senator Judith Anne Adams, Senator for Western Australia, places on record its appreciation of her long and meritorious public service and tenders its profound sympathy to her family in their bereavement.

'I am looking forward to getting on with the job of strengthening Australia.' With those words Senator Judith Adams concluded her first speech in this place. It was a speech which gave a wonderful insight into what would be an all too short but nevertheless by any measure a very full period of service as a senator. She got on with the job, and she did help to strengthen our great nation, Australia. We in the coalition lost a true friend on 31 March 2012. At the thanksgiving service for Judith Anne Adams it became obvious that her local community of Kojonup had also lost a great friend and community leader as well, and two sons had lost a loving mother. The service, so ably led by the Reverend Lindy Rookyard, heard many a moving anecdote, especially from her two sons, of whom she can be extremely proud. We heard of a life well lived, dedicated to the service of others. As an aside, it was good to see and hear Wilson Tuckey, the former member for O'Connor, actually sticking to a script and being reduced to tears. When a bloke like Wilson Tuckey is reduced to tears, you know you have been part of a very deep and moving occasion. And so it was, because everyone felt the loss of Judith as a personal loss.

For us in the Liberal Party, we lost a respected friend and colleague—our senior Deputy Opposition Whip. The presence at her memorial service from across all the parties was a wonderful tribute, as is the very kind courtesy extended to me this afternoon by the Leader of the Government in the Senate by allowing me on behalf of the coalition to move this condolence motion. I know that Senator Judith Adams would have been most grateful for that, and we on this side of the chamber, Senator Evans, are very grateful. We Liberals lost a committed worker, be it in committee work or be it doorknocking—especially in the seat of Hasluck. She was one of those senators who was able to debunk the stereotype that senators have no idea who constituents are and that senators have no idea what grassroots politics is all about. She was the exemplar of grassroots politics in the Liberal Party. Marginal seat members in the other place, from both sides of politics, could take a great big chunk out of Senator Adams's book about looking after the grassroots areas of their electorates. So, be it doorknocking or be it attending functions, Senator Adams was there, getting on with the job that she dedicated herself to in that first speech.

Our senior deputy whip had those endearing qualities of a lady brought up on a farm, who worked the farm and had a career in nursing in both the military and country areas—qualities of determination; a no-nonsense attitude tempered with a genuine loving soul. Her no-nonsense approach, chances are, would have her protesting that it is a waste of good opposition time today not to have question time and not to hold the government to account. I think she would have preferred the Senate to undertake its normal business. But I also know that Senator Adams, watching on as I am sure she is, will appreciate this token by the chamber, by all senators, to adjourn later on this afternoon in appreciation and recognition of her great work as a senator.

Senator Adams had a work ethic second to none. She was unassuming yet absolutely forceful. The feminine and finer things of life were part of Senator Adams's make-up too. When we go to the senior deputy whip's office now, there are not the wonderful floral displays that always welcomed you. Can I thank our Chief Opposition Whip for organising the sheaf of flowers that rests on Senator Adams's desk as a tribute to our colleague. I think Senator Bushby will have something to live up to in relation to the flower arrangement side of things in the whip's office.

Senator Adams's policy interests were broad and varied. Her maiden speech bears testimony to that. Her work bears testimony to the fact that she was actively engaged in following through, or getting on with the job. Her support for the military, both through her rich family history—having lost her grandfather, a New Zealander but a member of the ANZAC forces at Gallipoli—and through her public policy pursuits, was there for all to see. The presence of our military at the thanksgiving service, for the ode and the last post, was something that Senator Adams would have truly appreciated and treasured.

The last time I personally saw the good senator was shortly before Christmas, while attending a business roundtable that she had organised. She conducted the forum as though all was well. It was only afterwards that she sort of confided that she was in some discomfort. Her tenacity and stoicism would put a lot of us blokes to shame. Her obvious pain, even before the parliament rose, was dismissed by her as some passing ailment that would soon be overcome. When I spoke with her this year she was apologetic about the need to seek a pair. She spoke of the nuisance value of her ailments, all of which she was sure she would overcome. While in hospital, she followed question time, and she regretted not being able to fully follow estimates in February. Such was her dedication to duty as a senator. If we should be afflicted as our dear friend was, may we be able to show the same grace, patience and determination as displayed by Senator Adams. Her loves were there for all to see: the Liberal Party; meeting people; doorknocking; committee work, especially in the Senate Standing Committees on Commu­nity Affairs; the rural and regional areas of Australia; and her beloved state of Western Australia—but, above all else, her family.

The Bible reading chosen by the Reverend Rookyard as the basis for her homily on the occasion of the memorial service was taken from Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Part of that scripture read, in verses 12 and 13:

I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God.

Senator Adams was richly blessed. She was happy, she did good while she lived and she found satisfaction in all her toil or, as she would put it, 'getting on with the job of strengthening Australia'. May Senator Adams rest in peace. Condolences to her extended family. The coalition salutes not only a great senator but, above all, a great person.

Honourable senators: Hear, hear!

12:46 pm

Photo of Chris EvansChris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise on behalf of the government to support the motion moved by Senator Abetz expressing our deep regret at the death of Senator Judith Adams. I think this is quite a different occasion for us in the sense that normally, when we deal with condolence motions, we deal with people who have long since left the chamber and often are unknown to us. This is a much more personal experience, I know, for all senators. In my time here, I think we have only done it twice before. Once was for the late Senator John Panizza and once was for Senator Jeannie Ferris. I might point out that all were whips of the Liberal Party at the time of their death. All three were well-regarded personalities and strong contributors to the Senate.

The first thing to say about Judith is that, for the outside world, she was probably not one of the better known senators. That was because she dedicated herself to the more important work of the Senate—her role on committees, her role in representing the community and her activism in the community. She was not one for the one-liners at the doors, which is how a senator normally gets noticed—either favourably or unfavourably depending on whether they nail the line. Judith was one of those people who saw the opportunity of working in the Senate as a great privilege. Every day she showed her respect for that privilege and seized the opportunities that came with the job. She was tremendously proud and grateful for the opportunities and resolved to make every day one where she contributed.

She was a great advocate for rural and regional Western Australia and, as Senator Abetz said, had great passions—probably driven by her nursing background and her service in the New Zealand territorial army as a nurse. She had a tremendous passion for health issues and for the health of rural and regional Australians and Indigenous Australians. She had done a lot of work in the community in the years leading up to her election as senator.

She also had a huge interest in defence matters and in the welfare of Australian serving personnel. I used to tease her that she fancied men in uniform and that that was the reason for her strong interest in defence activities—which she never really denied, but she said there were other motivators as well!

Senator Abetz rightly pointed to her work as a campaigner for the Liberal Party in elections. She did put many senators to shame with her commitment to marginal seat campaigning. I used to support my very good friend Sharryn Jackson in the seat of Hasluck, both as a candidate and as member. Judith campaigned for Stuart Henry. I remember it was a really difficult time for us—Sharryn's family had lived in Kojonup and her parents spoke very warmly of Judith. Sharryn had to deal with Judith putting out material against her every week and then her family talking lovingly about Judith at dinner, saying what a great community worker she was. Things were further complicated by the fact that Stuart Henry and I were old rugby mates—I had a real soft spot for Stuart. So it was a very difficult campaign in many ways. Sharryn won that one and then, thanks in no small part to Judith's efforts, the Liberal Party won the seat at the next election.

I think we all know that Judith came to the parliament as a breast cancer survivor. She had a really long battle with her health. You would not have known it, unless you knew her personally, because of her stoicism and her absolute drive to continue to do the job to her full capacity. She also dealt with personal tragedy during that time—the loss of her husband—so she had a really tough period. But, as I say, she got up every day and worked and worked and worked. Nothing was too much trouble. I remember speaking to her a number of times, encouraging her, as many others did, to slow down, not to feel she had to go to the committee hearing in Katherine or wherever with her partners in crime from our side and the Greens. She would just not accept at all that she ought to slow down. Even when she was having tremendous difficulty getting on and off planes, and senators from all sides were helping with her bags et cetera, she insisted on continuing to do her job. That commitment was an inspiration. When I visited her in hospital earlier in the year, her only focus, her only conversation, was about when she could get back, how she could get back and how frustrated she was at not being able to contribute. I did advise her to stop watching Senate question time. I could not possibly understand why she tortured herself with that while in a hospital bed, but she insisted. She followed it very closely and even chipped me about one of my answers while I was visiting her.

But I think that reflected, as I say, her commitment to and her friendships across the parliament. I think the funeral really indicated that. We not only had Liberal and National senators and members there, we had Labor senators and former senators, we had Greens senators and, though people may not remember, we had a couple of Democrats senators as well, which I think reflected the strength of her relationships across the parliament. I, like Senator Abetz, was struck by Wilson Tuckey displaying another side of his personality and character; it was a re­markable event. But he made a tremendous speech. There were also very fine contribu­tions by her sons Stuart and Robert, who are very impressive young men and told amus­ing and instructive anecdotes about their mother. The turnout from the local com­munity was a sign of her enormous support and of the community work she had done over many years.

So I, on behalf of all government senators, express our condolences to her family and friends. She is a loss to the parliament and a great loss to the Liberal Party in Western Australia. We do acknowledge her absolute dedication and commitment, and I think it can be said of her that she absolutely seized on and respected the opportunities of being a senator and gave the electors much more than they could have expected. So, on behalf of the government, I extend our condolences to Judith's family.

12:53 pm

Photo of Barnaby JoyceBarnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise to concur with the remarks made by Senator Abetz and Senator Evans. Everybody is saying the same thing: we are talking about a lady of tenacity, a lady of stoicism, and a person of commitment; a person who apologised for her infirmities, as awkward as that made us feel, rather than make excuses by reason of her infirmities.

The public may not have known who Judith Adams was, but we certainly did. She was a person who showed that a commitment to the nation can be given at any time in your life. She joined the Senate at the same time as me and many others here. She was 62. I remember that at the time I was 38. She was a person who did not make age a barrier. She wanted to make sure that her contribution to her nation would be unambiguous, consistent and all the way through.

She showed that you could have a commitment coming from any area—she came from regional Western Australia, though born in Picton in the northern part of the South Island of New Zealand. She grew up with an affinity for and knowing what it was like to be a part of a regional area, as she was both here and in New Zealand. She showed that a person could come from any background and have a commitment to this nation. She was a person with a heritage—a heritage that linked so closely to ours, her grandfather having been missing in action at Chunuk Bair in, I think, August 1915.

This was a person who had many facets to her character, but I think the thing that resonates with so many people is what she represented. She represented the person who was quietly suffering in silence but working diligently and hard—even while going around, in many instances, in that little electric wheelchair. She was a person who really jerked us back into gear. We think about the small problems we have, and yet here was a person who obviously knew that her time was coming but did not show it; she just kept working on.

She was a person who had a commitment to her fellow man—I am sure she was never politically correct; 'fellow man', 'fellow person', whatever you like—and in 1967 she was part of the Colombo Plan as a nurse in South Vietnam. She also, later on, joined the New Zealand territorial army. That showed a passion, a patriotism and a commitment to her fellow man that resonated throughout her life.

As to her role in this Senate, I know how proud she was when she started. That was just another manifestation of an exemplary character. I found her, and I am sure that many other people found her, to be a person who was strong. If you asked, 'What is a word you could associate with Judith Adams?' it would be 'strength'. She was a person of strength. She was resolute. And there was that item that has been spoken about so often this afternoon—no fuss. She just hated people fussing over things. She wanted you to get to the point and get going or get out of her life and go away! But I think all of us feel it was a great honour to know Judith.

She also did much work with ovarian cancer and breast cancer; she had major roles to play with those. She did these things congruent with her life in politics. She did not just say, 'My life in politics is the be-all and end-all.' There were other facets that she would participate in on the way through.

I did not manage to go to her funeral; I had other parliamentary business. Fiona went, and I thank Fiona for that, though Fiona would have gone in any case. But it was a privilege to go to the funeral of her husband, Gordon, and to be with her at that point in her life. Once more, what shone through was a person dealing with the implications of the funeral and the organisation of the family. Most of us, at the loss of a partner, would be overwhelmed by grief; it was not that she did not feel the grief, but that she controlled it because she had a job to do. These are other instances of a person of great character.

She is survived by Stuart and Robert, and we see how they reflect their mother, their mum. I know our thoughts and prayers go out to Stuart and Robert. At least they will have the knowledge that their mother was a great person. She was great because her colleagues—who are the best people to judge you—the people in this chamber, saw her as a great person, saw her as a strong person.

She was absolutely partisan and passionate about Western Australia—sometimes, much to the grief of myself and others. On the loss of the single desk: she supported their views; she went in to fight for the views of her people. Likewise, she was a passionate member of the Liberal Party. And we respected that. Every person respects the person who puts the views of their party and the communal job above their own desires and follows that course. With Judith, there was no doubt about it; we knew which party she was in, and she pursued that course without diversion, and without diversion for her own personal goals. She did not have a personal goal; she had a party goal, and she pursued that. She was an enthusiastic supporter of the Australia's defence forces as well. It was something that went through her life and was so evident, especially in the exchange programs that we have in this place. Even at her age and with her past health issues, she wanted to be a participant and show her support for the Australian defence forces. These were all her mannerisms and why I think it is a great honour for us to have known and served with Judith Adams and to be a small part of a great person's life. I did not go to the funeral but I did write an op-ed for Judith in the Canberra Times. I will close with my final paragraph from that op-ed:

My recollection of Judith will be her intense interest in the lives of regional Australians. She committed to the task knowing she was never going to be a senior office holder. The reality is that many of the wider public would probably not even know her name. The strength about Judith was that this was not what was driving her.

She just wanted people to have their lives affected in a way which made things better for them. She didn't want the fuss and the bother of the laurels. Even when she was going around on her electric wheelchair in Parliament, she always said that this was only temporary and that she was getting better. I have a sneaking suspicion she realised the truth but just didn't want the attention to distract her from her job for others.

Rest in peace, Judith.

1:01 pm

Photo of Rachel SiewertRachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

I join with the rest of the Senate in wholeheartedly supporting this condolence motion. I thank my colleagues for allowing me to lead for the Greens in this condolence motion because, out of all of us, I knew Judith the best, both being proud Western Australians. Senator Milne and I came in in the same intake of senators as Judith. I could not calculate the number of hours that I spent with Senator Adams in hearings of the community affairs committee and the rural and regional affairs committee. It is fair to say that many people outside this place do not realise how much cross-party work we do and how much time we spend travelling together on planes, cars and buses, and eating when we are doing committee work. All of those things I shared with Judith.

I had the privilege of attending her funeral service at the Kojonup Memorial Hall. About a decade previous to her service I attended a marriage celebration at the same hall. I am pleased to be able to say that her service was a celebration of Judith's life. I knew a lot about Judith but one of the things many of us learned was that, as a young woman, she also undertook fencing. There was a dramatic photo of Judith fencing and it did remind me of how good Judith was at fencing—verbally was my experience with Judith.

When Judith made her first speech here, she articulated how pleased she was to be here but also that she was, as Senator Joyce just said, over 60 years of age. She shared the point about the need to value experience and for experienced people to mentor younger people in all walks of life. She also talked about a range of issues she was passionate about which she took up in this place. Many of those issues I shared with her and was equally passionate about, so we worked very often across parties. I will go into some of those in a moment.

I want to touch on how strongly committed, dedicated and strong willed Senator Adams was. Her capacity to work was renowned. Her inability to give up was renowned. Her ability to keep working in the face of adversity was, again, renowned. I remember the day that her husband, Gordon, passed away. She was supposed to be attending a community affairs committee hearing. The way that she handled that overwhelming loss was remarkable. They were moving to their new home on that day. For those who do not know, the family had sold their farm in Kojonup, had lived in Perth for a short while and had found a beautiful home in Gidgegannup, just north of Perth. The day that Gordon died was the day that they were moving into their new home. Judith handled that with aplomb. We all sent flowers, and I remember just a couple of days later Judith ringing and talking to me, saying thank you and talking about what had happened. I thought what a brave person she was to be phoning and responding and saying thank you so close to the tragedy of Gordon's passing.

As many people know, Judith had this illness for a while, but people outside would not have known. I have travelled on committee hearings with Judith when she was ill, out of public sight, in 'the ladies', and when she came out nobody would have known that she had just been feeling very unwell. Not one member of the public or any person in that hearing would have known. That was her strength: she kept on going and she was focused on the issues. When she was not able to join us—and I know that Senator Moore will be able to confirm this—she was making sure she was sending through questions and making sure we were following up the right issues. She was very fierce when she was cross. I remember one time when we were having hearings in Central Australia, in Alice Springs. We usually stay in the same hotels and one of my colleagues had said something in the media that Judith was very angry about. We were having breakfast and she stomped into the dining room and told me off. It was about the Army, by the way, and I agree with Senator Evans. I have also joked with Senator Adams about her support for men in uniform, and we shared the joke several times.

I would like to quickly touch on some of the issues I am aware of that Judith so proudly worked on in this place. Her passion and support for rural Australia was well known. She consistently took that up everywhere and she particularly focused a lot on rural health and Aboriginal health. At some stages when we were developing recommendations for the community affairs committee I think there was a bit of a competition as to who could suggest the toughest recommendations.

Wilson Tuckey gave the eulogy, and I join Senator Evans and Senator Abetz in saying that I was deeply touched by Wilson's eulogy. I thought it was beautiful and that he did a fantastic job. He did break down at the beginning but I thought he did a beautiful job. In his speech he touched on Judith's support for getting rid of the single desk and how that was not shared by some of her colleagues on the same side of the chamber. That is one thing that she and I also had in common. She also worked on the Opal fuel issue and was passionate in her support for it. I just remind senators that she was very supportive of the mandatory rollout of Opal fuel. In fact, one of the last conversations we had in this place was about needing to do something about the mandatory rollout of Opal fuel.

As we know, Judith also worked on breast cancer and bowel cancer. I remember her and me leading a rally around Perth's central business district yelling out, 'Get behind bowel cancer!' because at the time we thought that was a really good slogan. She did a lot of work on the community affairs committee on bowel cancer as well as breast cancer. She was passionate in this place in RU486 and stem cell debates and was passionate about regional health as well. She was a fearsome advocate for the issues that she cared very deeply about. She was an extremely compassionate person on those issues. As an aside, most people I think will be aware that she was very passionate about horses and racing. However, again it was not until the service celebrating her life that just how much she was involved in the racing scene came out. What she did not know about horses was not worth knowing. She combined those passions with her other civic duty work. She was a JP in Kojonup and I do not think there is a single person in Kojonup who did not know Judith. Not to prove that WA is so inbred, but I have very close family friends also in Kojonup who know Judith's family and it was the same situation: you could be very passionate about issues but when it came down to family and personal staff that was a whole other area of life that you did not cross over into in terms of getting those political arguments going.

Judith will be sorely missed in this place and sorely missed on the community affairs committee. Until very recently, she never missed estimates or a community affairs hearing. You could always rely on Judith being there. As Wilson Tuckey also said, she would go to Senate committee hearings from across the country if she was needed and if somebody else could not make it. You could always rely on Judith to come and participate and ask hard questions. I suspect FaHCSIA and DoHA will be breathing just a little bit easier on certain issues because they know Senator Adams will not be there to ask them some hard questions. Senator Smith, I do not think you will be up to speed enough to be able to ask those piercing questions in estimates this time around.

I would like to join in offering our deep condolences on Judith's passing to her family, to Stuart and Robbie and to Judith's granddaughters, whom I know she was very proud of. She travelled to Canada to spend time with them. She was thrilled at the birth of her granddaughters, and I was so happy that she was able to spend some time with them. At a personal level, I will miss working with Judith on so many of the issues that we shared and were passionate about. I will miss her presence in this chamber and her presence as deputy whip. She has left an indelible mark on this place and on the issues that she worked on. I will finish by giving my support to this condolence motion and wishing her family all the best.

1:11 pm

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

Judith Adams began her parliamentary career unusually late in life. She was already in her 60s at the time she was preselected by the Western Australia division of the Liberal Party for the No. 3 spot on the 2004 Senate ticket, replacing our former colleague Senator Sue Knowles. She was elected and became a member of this place on 1 July 2005, so she was among us for only six years and nine months until her death on 31 March at what is these days the relatively early age of 68. But she made a very strong impression on everyone. One only has to hear the tributes paid across the chamber today to appreciate what a strong impression Judith Adams made.

I remember one of her first coalition party room meetings, which Senator Joyce has already adverted to. There was a lot of tension at the time between the Liberal Party and the National Party on the issue of wheat marketing and Senator Adams, representing the views of Western Australian wheat producers, was a fierce opponent of the single-desk selling system, which the National Party strongly supported. The then Prime Minister, John Howard, struggled manfully to reach a compromise position with the National Party on this very acute and difficult issue. Judith Adams arrived in the party room and she was not satisfied with the approach the Liberal Party was proposing to take. Unusually for a new backbencher, she rose and let John Howard know exactly what she thought, and it was very clear to all of us who were at that meeting that he had a very formidable person on his hands. In fact, I think he might even have been a little bit scared of her. They were not very far apart in age at the time and she certainly had his measure. The usual baubles that are hung before junior backbenchers were of absolut­ely no use in trying to propitiate the very strong views held by Senator Judith Adams, and she shifted the debate in a material way towards the outcome that she wanted. That is the first impression I had of Judith Adams—that she was a very determined and fearless person. But of course she was, at the same time, a perfect lady. She was a gentle person, quietly spoken, but very, very strong in her beliefs.

She was a wonderful advocate for regional Australia, particularly for regional Western Australia. She was obviously one of the great pillars of her local community. We have all seen, when we travel in the regional parts of our different states, how in small country towns or centres there is one formidable person, usually a formidable lady, who is the chair of almost every community organisa­tion and really makes that community run. Well, in Kojonup, in the wheat belt of Western Australia, that was Judith Adams—and I gather it had been for many years.

She brought great life experience to this place, too—a function of the fact that she already had a long life behind her when she arrived. She had seen service in Vietnam as a military nurse and then she had a long and successful career in the pastoral industry. She had so many very fine human qualities. I have mentioned her strength and determina­tion, as have other senators. She had great integrity. You could always trust Judith Adams. And she was, as has already been observed, very, very reliable—if you asked her to do something, it would always be done. She was very diligent in her committee work.

Obviously, Judith Adams had aspired to a parliamentary career for a very long time. When she was elected to the Senate it was not her first attempt to get into parliament. But I do think that the Senate was the right place for her. I think a forceful but quietly spoken person has a better chance of being heard in the Senate, and in particular in working through the committee system, than in the House of Representatives. And it was her work in the committee system, particularly on regional and rural affairs, that distinguished her.

She was the soul of courtesy. She was, as Senator Abetz has mentioned, the senior Deputy Opposition Whip for some years—and it was an office she discharged impecca­bly. Yet, throughout the six years and nine months that we had her among us, she struggled with adversity. She was, as others have mentioned, already a cancer survivor at the time she was elected to the Senate, and her illness came back and ultimately, sadly, claimed her. So she had to deal with that. She also had to deal with the death of her husband, Gordon. And yet there was never a moment when I ever saw Judith Adams seeming to feel sorry for herself. Her attitude was to get through life's adversities, get on and get the job done.

That same attitude of courage in the face of adversity was evident right up to her very last days. She did not come to the Senate after the end of last year, because she was being treated in the terminal stages of her illness. Like most of my colleagues, I gather, I rang her up from time to time at the Royal Perth Hospital, and she was always cheerful, always determined to get back. As Senator Evans has mentioned, she was a compulsive viewer of question time—and an expert assessor and critic of the quality of some of the performances in question time, though never in a malicious way, because she was a generous person.

I will miss her. It is, I think, one of the great features of this institution, which, from our own different philosophical perspectives we all value and treasure, that a person like Judith Adams, in a relatively brief political career—one that spanned, for all practical purposes, little more than six years—can have made such an impact through her work here, although she was not on the front bench, through the assiduousness, conscien­tiousness and sheer industry of her committee work. She engendered respect among her colleagues of all political persuasions.

So might I join with my leader, Senator Abetz, and other senators, in expressing my condolences to her family—to her sons Stuart and Robbie, to her grandchildren and to the other members of her family—and my gratitude to have known such a good and gracious person.

1:20 pm

Photo of Stephen ParryStephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I, too, join in the condolence motion and endorse the comments of all senators who have spoken before me. I do not intend to go over the biographical details of Judith's life but maybe I will give some insights into my close relationship as chief whip to a very loyal and exceptional-working deputy whip.

When we joined together in 2004, as a number in this chamber did, we got to know each other from the Senate training school days and then the variety of activities you undertake with each other as senators. Our relationship was really cemented when we moved into opposition—I was elected as Chief Opposition Whip and Judith as my deputy. For those who do not know, and who are listening to the broadcast, the unique position of the whips' offices in this building—I still don't know why—is such that you share the same kitchen and you have conjoined offices, so you tend to spend a lot of time in each other's company. Equally, you walk in and out of the same meetings together at various times every day and you pop into each other's offices from time to time. So Judith and I got to know each other on that basis, and she became a great confidante—an exceptional, loyal deputy. I had trouble getting her out of the chamber to go home when she was in pain at times, in her latter days. Judith was just a tremendous person to work with.

She had a reasonable sense of humour—I tested that one day. She was on her Gopher, heading to the party room meeting one Tuesday morning. She was leaving her office, and I cut across the courtyard. Judith went up the corridor on her Gopher, past the Prime Minister's office to the party room—and she actually beat me. I suppose she had people opening doors for her whereas I did not. When I got back I said, 'Judith, you have been clocked doing 22 kilometres per hour past the Prime Minister's office.' She was horrified to think there was a speed camera in that corridor! She took it seriously for a short while. To follow it up, a few days later, on a Thursday morning, she had parked the Gopher in what I would call a precarious position outside the opposition lobby. A lot of senators were coming in and out of the opposition lobby at the time having to move around the Gopher, so I stuck an infringe­ment notice on it for irregular parking. Judith loved that.

Regarding the comments about her illness, she shared a little bit about her illness, but she was very stoic and private about it on most occasions. She was very private about her hair loss after the last bout of treatment, when she wore the wig, as everyone will recall. When she removed the wig and had that very short haircut—apart from the fact that she had more hair than me—she looked quite smart. She dressed up very nicely in a beautiful blue gown—and don't ask me whether it had sequins and all of those things—one evening when the Queen was here. We were leaving our offices together, and Judith looked absolutely magnificent. I said to her, 'You look like Dame Judi Dench,' and she did. If you took a quick glance at Judith when dressed up in her beautiful elegance, with her poise and demeanour, she looked like Dame Judith, so we called her Dame Judith for quite some time thereafter. She really enjoyed that. I think it tickled her.

Judith bought to the office a willing determination to get things done. If we were bogged down in different issues, from time to time Judith would use the persuasive power of her being (a) a mature female and (b) very forceful. She would say, 'You are speaking now and that is that.' It was quite good when Judith did that every now and then.

I agree with your comments, Senator Siewert, about her stubbornness and force­fulness with issues, because I can remember many occasions on which she had been to a breakfast meeting with you and then come back and said, 'That Rachel Siewert!' It was very good. She had a very healthy respect for you, both when you were working in adversity to each other and when you worked together on things, as she did for her colleagues in the Labor Party.

I miss her dearly and I think we all will, for a variety of reasons. I miss her for the close cohabitation we had in our offices—just being able to talk to her and pop in and see her. I went to see her in hospital earlier this year—I was there the day after Senator Evans called in. She was thrilled to pieces that he and others had taken the time to see her. But she was still running the show there. She had been moved four or five times from different wards, and she said: 'I am not moving again and that is what I have told them. This is exactly where I am staying, and that is that.' And apparently she stayed there until she finally went home.

She had a nasal-gastric tube in for feeding at that stage, because she could not physically eat. She had just come back from surgery, where they had failed to put a more permanent line in through her stomach. There was liquid in the feeding apparatus and I asked, 'What flavour is it, Judith?' Silly me. She said: 'I don't know. It goes straight into my stomach and I can't taste it.' But, although she said it had all the nutrients, she was looking forward to eating again, which I understand never happened.

She was also looking forward very much to coming back to this very session. That is what was keeping her going. It was what was driving her. From the look in her eyes, she was determined that she was coming back. Right or wrong, she was going to join us for this session. She was disappointed that she was not coming back earlier. It was so sad when the chief whip announced that she had extended leave and was not coming back until June. Then, of course, even sadder, she left us.

Her funeral was a tribute to her life, to all she had achieved and to the esteem in which she was held across this chamber and across the parliament. I think it was nice for us to show that sense of strength and companion­ship and friendship to her family. It was a great display for her family.

We will miss her around the corridors and we will certainly miss her from our team. I offer my deepest sympathy to her sons and granddaughters. We shared stories about grandchildren from time to time. Judith was very proud of her family, and I think that in the end family always would have come first for Judith. We respect that in every senator who places their family at the highest level. Rest in peace, Judith.

1:26 pm

Photo of Claire MooreClaire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

The Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate will note Judith Adams's service. It will talk about when she came to join us, it will talk about all the committees she was on and the delegations she served on and it will also talk about her passion for issues such as the military, because of the various occasions she shared with them. But behind all of that there will be an absolute knowledge of a passionate, committed woman who gave her life to service and who loved being a senator.

It is very important that we share the joy that Judith Adams had for her time in this place. In her first speech she said she was here to represent the people of Western Australia, and she did. But more than that she represented the community across this country, and in particular the people who live in rural and regional areas, where her heart belonged. At Kojonup we saw that they knew her heart was in that area.

I know that people in this Senate cared for Judith Adams. The expressions of grief we share not only come from the people sitting in this chamber but, as I have seen in the last few days, also come consistently from others such as Comcar drivers and people in various other areas. They all talk about this wonderful woman—they knew she had been unwell—and how they will miss her. This session this afternoon gives some indication of the way she was valued. I think it is so important for her family that there are so many senators contributing to this session. That is a part of the value that Judith had. But I know that this whole institution, this wonderful place in which we serve, understands the way that Judith served in the Senate and the way she enjoyed being here.

Judith was born to be in the committee system! She loved talking with people. No matter where you were—it did not matter whether you were in Central Australia, upstairs in various committees, or travelling—you would find Judith having a chat. It was so important for her to hear what people had to say and to give them the opportunity to do so. She felt that the committee system in this place was of value in learning to govern better—she believed that it should be a Liberal government, but nonetheless she wanted to make sure that we could govern better and the way we would do that would be to listen to the people who gave their time to come and talk with us. I had the real honour and pleasure to sit with her in so many committee hearings, as many senators have because she sat on so many committees. It would be interesting to see just how many senators here did not have the opportunity to join at some stage in a Senate committee with Judith Adams. She felt that was the way we would operate best as a Senate.

I so enjoyed listening to her asking her questions. Most of her questioning began with 'I'm from Western Australia,' and she went on to say 'from Kojonup', as though we should all know where Kojonup was. By the end of the session we did. But in terms of the process it did not matter which issue we were talking about, and certainly from my experience I was mainly working with Judith in the areas of health and community affairs but I know also her passion in regional and rural. We have heard already from many senators about her absolutely resolute questioning and advocacy across so many areas. I do remember walking back from committees along that corridor from Senate estimates back to the Senate. We would have long walks back there together at 11 o'clock at night, when she would share her particular views on many important issues. I remember in our very first period she shared with me all about wheat and was quite disappointed that I did not know enough about wheat to respond. She was clear in her explanation. Senator Brandis talked about experience in the Liberal caucus. Whilst not breaching any confidentiality of another party caucus, she explained how she felt it was her job to put forward her view and it did not matter that she was a new senator, it does not matter how long you are here—you are here elected by your people to give your view. She took that extremely seriously.

Senator Siewert has spoken about some of the issues in community affairs which Judith held dear. We know of the issues around ovarian and breast cancer which she worked on so hard, and she talked very much about her own experiences. Being a cancer survivor was not something that Judith held back: she announced that she was a cancer survivor and talked about the work she had done in many committees in Western Australia. I rarely went to any organisation that had not known of Judith Adams and the work she had done. They all had respect for the ongoing advocacy.

We laugh about the most enjoyable aspects of Judith's activities on committees. I am not quite sure whether she more enjoyed being surrounded by professors of medicine and the repartee with them about what was going on in various policy areas, while strongly supporting the role of nurses and the position that nurses should be much more involved in some of those professions, or more enjoyed being surrounded, as we have heard, by various elements of the military. We have heard of the teasing that went on, but Judith had absolute respect for military service and showed sheer joy when she came back to describe her experiences in Northern Australia in the dirt, or the naval experiences where she managed to break an arm, though that did not stop her. It was an enthusiasm and a joy with which she was able to inspire others about this program and get them engaged. When she had various members of the services sharing time with her in her office, Judith would be scooting around this building at speed followed by young personnel from the different services, who were completely exhausted after they had spent this time with her. I talked with many of them and they would say, 'We can't keep up.' They went away from their experience with great respect for Judith and also great respect for our institution.

No-one in the health and community services area could talk about Judith Adams without mentioning the words 'patient assisted travel'. This phrase has become synonymous with Judith Adams in this policy area. As we have heard, officers from the Department of Health and Ageing come well prepared to estimates, and will continue to do so, but particularly when Judith was asking questions they knew which areas she was going to delve into, and the area of patient assisted travel was certainly one. I know the officers and I know that they had the full brief every time to make sure that they knew what was going on. To these areas she brought her great professionalism because of her professional training, her lived experience and also her genuine compassion for people in need.

I first met Judith working across the chamber in the debate around RU-486. She was a relatively new senator at that stage and with others in the chamber actually had a direct and common-sense approach to the debate. It did not matter which particular position you took, she felt it was important to be true to yourself and to be absolutely clear on your position and be open about it. It did not matter how much pressure was being applied by advocates from either side; once you had made up your mind, your job was to be clear about that and to ensure that you followed through. That was the aspect of reliability. You were never unsure of the position Judith was going to take on any issue. She did not rush into making up her mind—she did clear research and spoke to as many people as she possibly could in the community and in the professional areas, and then she openly contributed to debate. I felt that was particularly important when we were talking about issues to do with improving health and improving the welfare of our community.

I have great memories of working with Judith in Aboriginal communities and seeing her talking with elders in local communities or with young mums with their bubs, being totally at ease and respecting their culture but being very open about what she felt was the way we should work together to move forward, and knowing at times she was up against people who had great disagreement with her position. Nonetheless, she treated everybody with respect and ensured that people understood that there are processes to go through but her overwhelming compassion was with the individual and the community. So, even if there was disagreement, her heart was there to be seen and people respected that. We saw that very often.

A number of us were with Judith the day she heard her husband had died and also subsequently when she heard that she had lost her mum. On both occasions she worked with us and almost tried to make us feel better, because it is never an easy thing to deal with someone who has had loss. She was aware that we were caring about her and tried to make us feel better. I think that is a wonderful aspect of her personality. I will miss her professionalism. I will miss her reliability. We have heard about that. It is always important to know that there is someone who cares when you are working on difficult issues. I certainly will miss the fact that Judith would always care about you as a person. I cannot remember a time in the last five years that she did not ask me about how my health was. That was at times when I knew that her own health was not great, but her first issue was always: 'How are you holding up? Have you been to the doctor? When are your tests coming back?' That was her issue. That was how she dealt with everybody. I know that. Many people in this chamber shared that side of Judith. It was always her care for others.

We will miss Judith, but her memory will be strong and her impact on policy will be strong. I know that she is somewhere there watching us, and we will know that we will have to be on side to ensure that we keep up the quality of the work that we do. I know that the extension of the bowel cancer screening will meet with her approval. I have to admit that when I heard that that policy was being put forward I was very pleased, and I know that Judith will be pleased by that.

In terms of her family, to Stuart and Robert: thank you for sharing Judith with us. It is a big call. Those senators from Western Australia do extra travel to get across to so much of the work we do, and we know that they have that extra time. Judith always spent that time well. There are a number of ministers, shadow ministers and parliament­ary secretaries who shared that flight from Perth to Canberra many times who got off that plane very relieved that Judith was no longer talking with them about the various issues she was following up—because she was a fearless advocate. She would then check in with me and say that she had spoken to so-and-so and she thought they had got the message now. I know quite a few Labor ministers who were on that particular flight who know that they did get the message very well! To Stuart and Robert and the family: thank you. We share your loss, and we share your pride as well. Thank you to Judith Adams.

1:39 pm

Photo of Fiona NashFiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Education) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise also to speak on the condolence motion and concur with many of the remarks that have already been made in this chamber about Judith Adams. I came in with Judith in 2005 and we shared a lot of similar thoughts about many issues. We were both women—clearly—and we were both farmers and we were the only two rural women who came in in that intake in 2005. Regardless of the fact that we were from different sides of the nation, there were so many similar issues in communities over on this side and communities over on the other side of the nation.

She was a fierce Liberal; I am a fierce National. Very occasionally, we would bump heads on issues where there was certainly no agreement. She was absolutely tenacious. She was the most tenacious person I have ever come across in this place, because when there was an issue that she believed in, that she wanted changed, that she wanted some action on, she just would not let go. She was truthful. She was genuine. She was honest. I think one of the really important things about Judith in this day and age, where so many people do not particularly hold politicians in very high regard, is that she gave politicians a good name. She was so well respected by those who knew her and, while—as I think Senator Evans said earlier—she was not a household name in the papers, the people who knew her knew how incredibly diligent she was in her work and how much she put into the job.

She was in some ways such a contradiction. She was always such a lady. She was always well groomed. She always had her earrings on. And yet at the same time she could absolutely mix it with the blokes. I think Senator Brandis hit it on the head earlier when he said that she had even the Prime Minister's measure at the time when she came in—and she truly did; you could see that. I think it is particularly salient that he points that out.

She was a ferocious advocate for Western Australia, and through the whole single-desk-for-wheat debate we saw that very, very clearly. That was probably one of the very few issues we disagreed on. I can remember going to Senate inquiries on the single-desk issue. Judith and I would be sitting next to each other, and it would be very, very, very chilly, to say the least, but we had great respect for each other's ability and each other's need to take the position that each had taken. I think we were always courteous about it. It was probably one of the hottest issues we have ever dealt with in this place. She was amazing. She believed in what she knew was right, in her view, for the people of Western Australia. All I can say is: you won that one, Judith.

She was an extraordinary lady. When I went to the service in WA, as so many others did, somebody said to me, 'Isn't it a shame that it's not until somebody passes and we're at their service that we find out so much about them, the person that they were and their lives?' I think that was really true particularly for Judith's service because I felt like I knew a little bit about her, but after that day, with all of those wonderful people saying extraordinary things about Judith and her extraordinary life, it was not until she had actually left us that I felt like I really knew her. It is probably a sad thing but a wonderful thing to have gained that knowledge and gained that insight. I think it will always be ironic that I have seen Wilson Tuckey cry but never Judith.

Her committee work, as everybody has mentioned, was extraordinary. The committees she was on: the Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs, the Senate Standing Committees on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport, which I was on with her, the Selection of Bills Committee, the Senate Standing Committee of Senators' Interests, the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories—the list just went on. It just indicates her incredible breadth of interest in and extensive knowledge of such a variety of issues, from rural and regional to community affairs and health to defence. Some of us have some expertise in areas here and there; Judith had expertise in such a wide range of so many issues. I think it really reflects the woman she was, coming from a regional community, where all of those things are important, that she was so representative of such a broad spectrum of the community.

Her travelling was legendary. Her work in estimates was extraordinary. I can always remember Judith in estimates or in hearings. It would be Judith's turn to start asking some questions. You could see it coming. She would normally start with, 'Right,' and you thought, 'Here it comes.' Those on the other side of the table were just waiting for it, and off Judith would go with her relentless questioning. I absolutely admire the work she put into the detail of that committee work, and the contribution that she made was just extraordinary. I remember one of her last hearings that we attended in Broome. She was extraordinary. She was so ill and yet she travelled all that way because it was important to her that she be there. As Senator Moore said earlier, it was more important that those other people were able to have their say and that they were heard on what they wanted to put forward about the issues that were important to them. Judith saw that as being so incredibly important. Occasion­ally, we will not make it to something but Judith made sure that she was always there insofar as she possibly could. That necessitates an enormous amount of admiration from us and certainly makes me feel as though I have not achieved what she had in that level of dedication to service to this place.

Her children are incredibly proud of her. To her boys Stuart and Robert, I extend my very sincere condolences to you and to the family. She was an extraordinary lady and a mother, I know, that they are extremely proud of—and so they should be. She was an extraordinary advocate for regional commu­nities, particularly in Western Australia and those communities, as we in this place, are sorely going to miss her.

1:45 pm

Photo of Christine MilneChristine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise today to express my sadness and to support the condolence motion on the death of Senator Judith Adams. I certainly want to convey my best wishes to her two sons Stuart and Robert and to her granddaughters.

Senator Adams was elected at the same time as I was. We were all part of what we refer to among ourselves as the class of 2004. I remember very keenly her first speech. I remember it because it was so different. She stood up and said, 'I am really proud to be one of the oldest women elected to the Australian Senate.' It was a cutting-through thing to say because it was about valuing life's experience. She went on to say, 'Life experience cannot be bought or traded.' It was just such a statement of where she was going to come from as a senator representing Western Australia. Then she went on to talk about the life experience she had had and how she hoped to bring that life experience to her parliamentary life. She talked about the fact that she had had this long history in her family of association with the military, from Gallipoli to her mother's experience as a nurse and her own, her own engagement in the military, how proud she was of that and how Anzac Day made her reflect on the values of Australia, but particularly in the military.

She also talked of her experiences in rural and regional Australia. I was interested in that because I was sitting there thinking we will have a quite a bit in common because she talked about the impact of salinity in Western Australia. She talked about feral animals and the need for appropriate quarantine. She talked about a whole range of issues from which I then got to know her better on the rural and regional committee. I sat on that committee with Judith over many years and with my colleagues in here as she raised a number of those issues.

I thought it was interesting that she brought the combination of her background as a nurse with her total identification with rural and regional Australia, and that her husband Gordon had been a pilot with the Royal Flying Doctor Service. They knew the remote communities around Western Australia collectively and individually from their different experiences. She brought that commitment for rural issues, for rural health issues as well as environmental sustainability issues. She often talked about the need for greater attention to mental health support for rural communities, particularly in times when the drought was making things very difficult.

Her hard work has already been talked about here and she certainly was a keen worker on all of those community consulta­tions through the committee system. But her stoicism was characteristic of Australian women, particularly older Australian women who have been incredibly stoic having experienced some pretty tough things in their lifetime. Judith faced her long battle with cancer and other sorts of things with that personal resilience she had, with courage in being an advocate for cancer sufferers and for people in rural and regional Australia who need access to health services and also, as has been discussed, her resilience at the time of the death of her husband.

I remember talking to her then. This was when her depth of experience and her rural experience, particularly, came to hand. She talked about at what point will we deal with the issue of succession planning in rural and regional Australia, helping people to get from the farm and hand over to their children, the next generation. How are they going to manage it? She talked often about being worried that she and Gordon probably needed to leave the farm, to sell and go. She thought that through, that he was taking longer to come to the same conclusion, which is often the case. It was certainly the case in my own family. It is the case you find in most rural communities. She often talked about this being not a simple policy matter; this is a cultural context and we have to talk about ways to help people make these really hard decisions. People who have identified so long with one place, one community, one property—they know it like the back of their hand.

I remember having those conversations with her and thinking she was really able to represent the voice of her communities. She has lived it, she has experienced it and she has led a lot of others through those difficult decisions. She was a good person. She was generous; she was kind; and she was compassionate.

As Senator Moore and my colleague Senator Siewert said, she recognised through the committee system of the Senate the opportunity to develop relationships across party politics and to work to put the issue above politics, where she possibly could. She certainly had a view about how things should be done; but, where she could, she saw the value of building alliances and maximising the strength of those alliances to get out­comes for people. As such, she was certainly a valued colleague in this Senate. She was a good senator for Western Australia, she was a loving mother and, as I said, she was a respected and valued colleague. I will finish by reminding people what Senator Adams said in her first speech:

… I will do my best to represent you with honesty, sincerity and integrity.

And she did.

1:52 pm

Photo of John WilliamsJohn Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise to say a few words in this condolence motion. My time with the late Senator Judith Adams was while working in the whip's position. What a wonderful time it was to work with Judith. Senator Joyce and others today have mentioned the strength of the lady. Look at her history. She was a nurse in Vietnam; imagine what she would have had to endure there. She had the strength of character to represent Western Australia, especially regional Australia, with her passion for the bush. Sadly, there was the sudden death of her husband, Gordon, just a couple of years ago. This all shows how strong Judith was. She was not one to complain. She was probably suffering more pain physically than any of us here—but never a complaint. Generally, I do not think I ever had a cross word with Senator Adams, except for a couple of times when she brought up a particular member of parliament—I think it was the former member for O'Connor. Sometimes we preferred to steer around that discussion anyway, which we did! But it was a pleasure to work with Judith—as I said, a strong woman.

We must mention those in the medical profession who, no doubt, over many years, assisted not only Senator Adams but also many other Australians. At times we hear people criticise our health system, our medical system, but those workers are so professional and do so much good. I would like to thank them for all the assistance they gave Senator Adams through a long period of illness, coming good and then falling back a bit until the inevitable end. They also need a special mention.

To Judith's sons and her grandchildren, I say: be proud of what your mother and grandmother has achieved, and of her passion for this place and her passion for this country. It is with sadness that we observe her passing. I support the motion.

1:54 pm

Photo of Carol BrownCarol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I would like to make a short contribution to this condolence motion for Senator Judith Adams. It was with great sadness that I learnt that Judith had passed away after her long battle with cancer. I just want to relate a short story. I was in Kingston, in Tasmania—actually, Senator Abetz lives around that area somewhere—and I was at the local swimming pool, talking to the owner. She said, 'It must be hard being a senator, with all the long hours that you have to work,' and I said, 'Oh, yes; it is.' Then she said, 'But you're not the only senator that I know.' I said, 'Who else do you know?' thinking: of course it is going to be the bane of my life—Senator Abetz's name is going to pop up! But it was Senator Judith Adams. In the words of the pool owner, 'She's the most wonderful senator. She works so hard for Western Australia. We were such good mates and we haven't caught up for a while.' This was in February. Such was the impact of Judith that someone that she had not seen for a long time, who had since moved to Tasmania, still considered her a great mate. It was as if she had just seen Judith yesterday, and I know that she was very sad when the news came through that Judith had lost her battle with cancer.

Judith made a great contribution during her time in the Senate. I of course knew Judith mostly through our membership of the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs. As we have heard from everybody today here, she was well liked by members of all political persuasions. I know that all our thoughts are with her family and friends.

Judith was first elected to represent Western Australia in the Senate in 2004 and again in 2010. At 62 she was the second oldest woman to enter the Senate, a fact she was very proud of—and we have heard that here today. I know this to be a fact because she told me she was very proud of it when she gave me a long lecture on something I had not got right.

During her time in the Senate, Judith was a strong advocate for her home state of Western Australia as well as for people living in regional and remote areas. She had a rich and varied life, both while she was a senator and before she entered parliament. We all know that Judith started off life as a Kiwi before she became an Aussie, and she trained as a nurse. In 1968, I understand, Judith moved to Western Australia and continued her hard work, helping others with her training by being a relief matron and midwife through rural and remote parts of the state. She also demonstrated her passion for the health sector, as she was a councillor to the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association and a member of the National Rural Health Alliance. I mention these roles because it was these many and varied roles that Judith was involved in throughout her life that made her the passionate and experienced member of the Senate that she was. Judith was well respected and she will be greatly missed by her family, her friends, her parliamentary colleagues and her constituents.

I have also been asked to pass on the sincere condolences of former senator Natasha Stott-Despoja, who wanted to express her sympathy to Judith's family and friends, and to remember the wonderful group of cross-party women that Judith was part of and the work that Judith did on many of the private member's bills that have been mentioned here today, most particularly on pregnancy counselling.

I would also like to strongly support the words of Senator Abetz today, when he described Judith as a great senator but above all a great person. I will finish by quoting Judith herself, who said in her maiden speech, which has also been mentioned by Senator Milne today:

Life experience cannot be bought or traded.

I believe this sentiment fittingly sums up the active and diverse life that Judith led and pays tribute to her contribution as a senator. Thank you, Senator Adams.

1:59 pm

Photo of David JohnstonDavid Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | | Hansard source

In supporting my leader's motion, I want to begin by offering to Judith's two sons, Stuart and Robert—both of whom I know quite well—and their families my deepest condolences on the passing of your mother, your mother-in-law, your grandmother. She was a dear friend and colleague who was taken from us far too soon. I also wish to pay my respects and offer my thanks to Judith's staff, who supported her so well when she was in treatment, kept the wheels turning for her when she was not able to do so herself and who had the sombre task of packing up her office after she died. I know that could not have been an easy task. Judith was very grateful for your support and I know she kept you busy right up until the end, because she certainly never stopped working and expected as much from her office.

I visited Judith in hospital a few weeks before her death and she was sitting up checking her BlackBerry, still entirely focused on work and the issues of the day. She never let her illness get in the way of her work and responsibilities as a senator—never ever; it was a job she loved to the very end. Even after the death of her husband, Gordon, in 2008 and her diagnosis three months later of secondary breast cancer, you could not stop her from participating in her senatorial duties. She refused to wallow and just simply got on with it. I think her full workload helped her to keep going. She was that sort of person. Her strength made her almost seem indestructible, and it makes it harder to believe that she is not with us in this chamber anymore. Judith brought to the Senate, in her own words, 'the background, the experience and the will to represent WA', and she had a lot of each of those. She was the second oldest woman to be elected to the Australian Senate but she had the energy of many senators half her age.

Trained as a nurse and a midwife in New Zealand, she cut her teeth in rural health in Western Australia and met Gordon in Meekatharra, of all places, where he worked as a pilot for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. With her husband, Gordon, she raised two sons and farmed for 35 years in her beloved Kojonup in the deep south of Western Australia. When elected to the Senate in 2004, Judith travelled widely around Western Australia and threw herself into issues affecting Western Australians. Following her diagnosis, she was an outspoken advocate for women with breast cancer, particularly those living in rural and remote areas. She pushed for the national rebate scheme for breast prostheses and also championed improvements in, as we have heard, the Patient Assistance Travel Scheme. If I did not know anything about the Patient Assistance Travel Scheme before I met Judith, I certainly do now. Judith's advocacy and hard work for the issues facing regional Australia, particularly in health care, are unrivalled in this chamber and are a model for us all. Rural women will benefit from Judith's work for many, many years to come. I know she would be proud of these achievements, but they were achievements that she saw were necessary; they were not about any accolades for herself.

She was also a very strong supporter of the Australian Defence Force, having served in Vietnam as a theatre nurse in the New Zealand Territorial Army before her move to Western Australia. She also took part in several tours, particularly with the Navy, in the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program. Many a former Chief of Navy would say to me that they thought Judith Adams had more sea time than they did.

I am very proud to have been a colleague and a fellow West Australian Liberal in the Senate alongside Judith Adams. She was a very wise counsel over the years and a true and loyal friend. She was also a loyal servant of the Liberal Party and a tremendous asset to any lower house member lucky enough to have her helping in their campaign for election. Judith was instrumental in the campaign for the member for Hasluck, Mr Ken Wyatt, our first Indigenous representa­tive in the House of Representatives. Hasluck was, and continues to be, one of the most marginal seats in Australia. Judith relished the challenge and, as they say, the rest is electoral history. She got Ken over the line at the last election, and we hold her in great and high esteem for that achievement. More recently she set up Liberal House in Albany, a second office to reach out to the Great Southern region of Western Australia. Judith was determined to have the seat of O'Connor return to Liberal hands, where it belongs. I am sure we will all work hard to ensure that her aspiration, her dedication, to get that seat back is achieved. Her tremendous efforts will not be forgotten when we do successfully return that seat to the fold at the next federal election.

Judith was such a decent and respected senator. She was well-liked and highly regarded by members and senators of all political parties. I know she was particularly chuffed while in hospital to receive a giant get-well card from all the Labor senators who wrote such kind and supportive words to her. I pause to thank you all for that.

We farewelled Judith on what would have been her 69th birthday. People came from all over Australia to say goodbye. She would have been humbled by the turnout. Members and senators came from all over the country and were joined by our federal leader, Tony Abbott, and WA Premier Colin Barnett. The former member for O'Connor, the Hon. Wilson Tuckey, gave the eulogy, and it really was a touching tribute to a great lady. May I pause to thank all the non-Liberal members and senators who attended, who travelled so far to be there and pay their respects. It was truly a magnanimous and gracious gesture.

Even though she was taken from us far too soon, Judith packed more into her life than most of us can ever aspire to. In simple terms, she was a doer. Rather than sitting back complaining about what should be done or who should do it, she went ahead and did it herself without fanfare and without seeking acclaim. The Liberal Party has lost one of its finest, but she will not be forgotten. Thank you, Judith, for being such a fantastic representative for our state of Western Australia and for the Liberal Party, but, more importantly, thank you for being a loyal and true friend. We will all miss you deeply.

2:06 pm

Photo of Anne McEwenAnne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I too stand to support the condolence motion for a very fine senator, Senator Judith Adams. I would like to pay tribute to her with a few words. We commenced in the Senate together on 1 July 2005. We attended 'senator school' as well and together we learnt the ropes of how to be a senator—and didn't she turn out to be a fine senator, indeed! It was a great privilege for me to be able to attend her funeral, her memorial service, at Kojonup, a place I had never been to before. It was wonderful to see the whole community there turn out to pay tribute to their friend and community member. I will never forget her first speech in the Senate, when she so proudly announced that she was the second-oldest woman ever to be elected to the Senate. It has resonated in my heart ever since. She continued to be a fantastic advocate for and supporter of women, particularly rural and regional women. She attended every rural women's conference, event and function that you could imagine and did it with such great enthusiasm. She told us in her first speech that she was a survivor of breast cancer and, as everybody has said in this chamber, that horrible disease never actually left her, but it certainly never stopped Judith from doing everything that she wanted to do in the Senate, and it is such a great shame that she has gone from us so early.

I also remember her as an avid participant in the ADF Parliamentary Program. What a credit to the Senate she was for all the programs that she attended with so much enthusiasm. It was a fine tribute to see members of the Defence Force turn up to her memorial service. As Senator Moore said, whenever you spoke to them about Senator Adams's participation in those programs, they spoke about her with such genuine affection and awe for the kind of workload that she undertook.

Senator Judith Adams was a whip, and us whips like to stick together. It was a pleasure to work with her in her capacity as a whip. My staff and I can attest to her patience, her good humour always and her commitment to the many nitty-gritty, day-to-day whipping jobs that you have to do. She could be a harsh critic of bad behaviour in the chamber, both on your side, opposition senators, and certainly on our side. She never held back when it came to pointing out what she thought was inappropriate behaviour in the Senate, because she held this place in such high regard. Like all good whips, she understood that the functioning of the Senate depends so much on cooperation, a great deal of cooperation. But, unlike a number of senators who do not appreciate the grand principle of 'what goes around comes around', Senator Adams certainly understood it and applied that to her whipping duties. I should say that, when strategy required it or when opposition imperatives required it, Judith could be as deliberately obtuse as any other senator and her focus was always to protect her team in the Senate and her party, and you should be very proud of what she did in that regard.

During the long hours that a whip spends in the chamber, you often wander over and sit with the whip on the other side to have a general chat about things. I always looked forward to those occasions with Senator Adams, because she had such an amazing life. She had views on everything. She would never withhold her views on anything. She had great insights into human behaviour, which I found very useful in my job as whip. Overall she was always extremely compass­ionate and kind. Whenever we had those chats she would always have an extraordin­ary intelligence about what was happening on this side in terms of people's personal health and other issues that people might have in their job. She would always ask, 'How are your lot travelling?' and she would know more about people than you would ever expect, and that is because she had such great respect from everybody that people would share personal knowledge and information with her.

My condolences to her family and friends, particularly her two boys, Stuart and Robert, and their families. They gave wonderful eulogies at the memorial service. I think I will take away from that how they referred to their mother, Senator Judith Adams, as 'Senator Mum'. We will miss her.

2:11 pm

Photo of Nigel ScullionNigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise also to support this condol­ence motion for the late Senator Judith Adams. I can recall meeting Judith sometime in 2004, when we were doing all the 'baby senator' sessions. Judith basically bounced up to me in the corridor. I was having a bloke moment; I was really trying to put together who I was talking to. Within two minutes of that conversation, I realised she was talking to me because she wanted to understand who I was, what my role was here and what I knew that might be useful to anybody, and she left about 10 minutes later. I was quite exhausted, feeling husk-like. She had certainly taken away almost every piece of valuable information that she thought was appropriate. She left me and I shook my head and thought: 'There is someone who has been somewhere. She seems to have an insight into everything.' She left me with the impression that she was really going to make a significant contribution to the Senate, and that she did.

So many people around here have talked about Judith's experience and why she was able to make such a wonderful contribution. I know she would want me to preface these remarks by saying that I in no way want to diminish the young and shiny senators who have come here with bright ideas, but I think the vast breadth of experience and diversity that, as an individual, she brought to this place really enabled her to make the special contribution she did.

If we can think about her life for a minute—we have already touched on so many of those areas—Judith was brought up in a little town, Picton, in New Zealand. Imagine, as a young woman, suddenly being a scrub nurse in a surgical team in Vietnam in 1967. That sort of experience is obviously something that Judith was about. In many of our conversations in committee hearings she would share little titbits. Again, as Senator Nash indicated, sometimes it is only with someone's passing that you realise the depth of that experience. She shared with me her time in Vietnam. We had both worked inside theatre in previous lives. She was able to give such an insight into what it was like then and how much it had changed. We talked about how strange it is that you can be out of the health system only for a blink and you are out of date because technology changes so fast. We had a conversation about how we can ensure that particularly women who leave to have children, to look after a family or to enter another workforce can better gain access back into a system that is so valuable and is a function of their participation. Such a practical approach by Judith came from such deep experience. Being a nurse in regional and rural Australia, being married to a Royal Flying Doctor Service pilot, bringing up a couple of kids in regional Australia, working off the land in a small business, in a sheep farm in Kojonup—all these vast experiences brought everything that was Judith to this place. I spent a lot of time with Judith, particularly over a six-month period on the Senate Select Committee on Regional and Remote Indigenous Communities. I know many of us here spent time together on that committee. Whilst it has been touched on before, I have to reflect for a moment on Judith's ability to be pretty seriously robust. Without mention­ing the place, there was an individual who effectively tried to slander a number of other people in his community. It was pretty ugly. We were all looking at each other, not knowing what to do. But, of course, Judith was the first to say: 'Excuse me, Chair. Look, mate, this is not the place for this. If you have evidence about these things then you can tell us.' She was there to protect the process. She knew what was right instinctively and did not need reminding.

All of that experience that Judith brought with her here she also used outside in the community. She was always off somewhere. She would say: 'You are going to have to talk to this other group of people. I have spoken to this family.' You would say, 'But the schedule is full.' She would say: 'We'll be right. We'll fit them in. It's going to be really important evidence.' In those times she would wander away and seemed to have the capacity to connect so quickly with people that they had the confidence to speak to her. In Indigenous communities it can be very difficult to have the confidence to say to someone: 'I would really like to say something. I have something important to say, but I am not sure how to do it.' They always saw Judith as that lodestone. They would go to that beacon, and she would make sure that we had the capacity to listen to the remarks of those individuals. On her passing, we have heard this reported from so many different sides of the political divide, from pretty much anyone, across the political divide, who has given evidence to the committees. I think that really is a reflection that whilst she was on the right side of parliament—she would expect me to say that—she genuinely had a bipartisan approach to these matters. While she was a very strong Liberal, and politics was something she played hard, her first concern was the interests of her community, her constituency and her country.

I can recall very clearly the incident in the party room with John Howard when we were all getting a bit of a sense that, as Senator Brandis indicated, there were no baubles that could be hung before her—'Perhaps we can do this for your community or that.' There was none of that. But it was interesting to see the other side of Judith. She would say, 'I am here to be persuaded, but you have not done it so far; you have a day to convince me,' or 'I have a day to get back to them, and what you have said is not enough.' But she was genuinely there to be persuaded and, if you could give a significant argument that filled the gaps that she required be filled—and she was quite happy to articulate them—then she would take that on board and she would change her mind on some issues.

I know the people who operate the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program will miss her dearly. She was a great ambassador for all parliamentarians. So many of the people in my garrison town of Darwin in the Northern Territory say: 'When we met Judith it was fantastic. We now know politicians are real people. Isn't that amazing?' As a parliamentarian she was a great ambassador for how good we can be in this place. She certainly was in every aspect of her life. If you seek public life, and certainly if you come here as a senator, she would be the ideal model.

We have heard that she fought a long battle with cancer. She did that with rare dignity and courage. I can recall an interview she gave with Breast Cancer Network Australia. When asked how cancer had affected her work, she said: 'My term expires in June 2011. I am honoured to be preselected to contest the next election.' She was basically saying: 'What is your point? What is your issue? This is my work. I am continuing in my work. Just because I have had cancer does not mean I should possibly think about—if this is what you are alluding to in the question—giving up. That is certainly not what I am going to do.' It was a very fierce answer from someone who really believed that she should lead by example.

I can recall just before we came in here one day when she was in the wheelchair I said, 'How's it going?' and I put my arm around her. She said, 'Oh, this bloody thing, Nigel, is just so annoying.' If anybody did not know Judith they would have said, 'I understand.' Then she went on to say: 'The bloody doctors gave me the wrong chemo. But it's all right; we've got the right one now. But my feet are bugging me.' It was just such an annoyance. It was getting in the way of the work and that was a complete annoyance. It was not a frustration about her own level of amenity. That was absolutely classic Judith. I think she was just such an example to us all.

In terms of the politics in the Liberal Party, Senator Dean Smith, I understand that you are automatically election ready, mate. She made sure everything right up to the last minute in a political sense was all in order. That again was classic Judith. A wife, midwife, nurse, soldier, farmer, mother and senator—there were few tougher than Judith Adams. I would like to put on record my admiration for my mate and colleague and pass on my sincere condolences to her sons, Stuart and Robbie, her extended family, staff and friends.

2:21 pm

Photo of Louise PrattLouise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to pay tribute to someone who I believe was a fine Western Australian and someone I greatly admired and respected. Western Australia has lost a true friend and advocate. I knew Judith as someone who concentrated much of her time on issues affecting rural and regional Western Australia. Indeed, my last interaction with Judith was something along these lines. She was expressing her concern to me that she may not make it to the Liberal council meeting being held somewhere in country Western Australia. My colleagues opposite will be able to tell me where. She was expressing her distress that she might be too unwell to go. I do not know if she made it to that meeting or not, but I did encourage her to take some time to look after herself.

But, as we have all paid tribute to today, she always portrayed amazing resilience in her cancer treatment, and no more so than when she was diagnosed with secondary cancer within weeks of her husband dying. Her resilience as a person was quite extraordinary. When she spoke of how she coped with that situation, she spoke about how she focused on her treatment and on her work. So I would like to pay tribute to the many important issues that Senator Adams pursued in her career—things that are not necessarily the cut and thrust of day to day partisan politics but the kinds of issues that we as senators all like to get into the nitty-gritty of and make progress on through things like parliamentary committees. These include everything from gene patents to petrol sniffing, as we have heard today, and access to quality midwifery services. She also focused on hearing services, rural and remote communities and the situation of Indigenous communities. There were so many really important issues that she was deeply involved in.

I have to say that it is really important in public life to have people who are prepared to share their personal journeys with others, particularly others who are in the same boat. Judith certainly had a lot to share in terms of her very interesting and diverse life. Importantly, she also did this with her experience of breast cancer. I know she undertook the Breast Cancer Network Australia's Advocacy and Science Training course, and I think that is a tribute to her dedication to doing public advocacy around an issue that had also affected her so personally. She spoke about the importance of talking to people in the same boat as her. She also spoke of the incredible importance of women living with breast cancer being able to continue to work. That was an important way of managing the disease. I think this is an important lesson for everyone as we deal with adversity in life. Judith said, and I think these are words that truly deserve to be on the record in this chamber and that served as an inspiration to people with cancer and served as an inspiration to people I know who have also lived with cancer:

I live with cancer but I do not let it control my life.

2:25 pm

Photo of Concetta Fierravanti-WellsConcetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | | Hansard source

I too rise to pay tribute to our late colleague, Senator Judith Adams. I was part of the class of 2004, which various colleagues have spoken about today. Whilst most of my colleagues of the class of 2004 started on 1 July 2005, I filled a vacancy earlier than that and so it fell to me to convene the gatherings of the class of 2004. I must say that we had some very good gatherings. We have lost some along the way to preselection and there have been various losses at election, but Judith's passing remains our saddest loss.

In her maiden speech, as colleagues have referred to, she spoke about the challenge of the Howard government's workforce participation policy to keep mature age, experienced people in the workplace. Of course, she proudly spoke as the second oldest woman to have entered the Senate. The oldest woman to have entered the Senate was also a Western Australian, and Judith reminded us of that. As shadow minister for ageing, can I pay tribute to a senior Australian who, as Senator Johnston said, packed a lot into a lifetime.

As Senator Milne and other colleagues have mentioned, she talked about life experience and the fact that it cannot be bought or traded. She certainly did use her life experiences very well. When one looks at the diversity of that—general nursing, maternity and midwifery, certificates, post-basic diploma in operating theatre nursing, being a justice of the peace, a farmer and a rural health consultant—she certainly used her life experience. Her life experience gave her a great grounding for her work in this place and most especially in the community affairs committee. I think Senator Moore mentioned comments about nurses. Some of the stories Judith told us about life in the operating theatre and some of the things that happened in operating theatres she had been in certainly raised a few eyebrows, but we will not go there. Her passion for rural health mattered especially at estimates. Senator Moore, maybe they will give the PATS memorial award through community affairs. I think I will leave it to you to raise that at our next estimates.

Can I place on record my deep appreci­ation for her efforts in the Health and Ageing portfolio. As the shadow responsible for that portfolio here in the Senate, I know that Judith was invaluable in her contribution, in the work that she did and the various tasks that she willingly took up, particularly her work on the Senate committees. I know that I speak for the other shadows in this portfolio—Mr Dutton, Mr Laming and Dr Southcott—in placing our appreciation for her efforts on the record. At the February estimates we missed her and we will miss her very, very much in the future.

On a personal note, I want to place on record how grateful I and most especially my husband, John, were and are to Judith for her guidance and support when in 2009 my husband was diagnosed with cancer. I remember one night, sitting at Leigh's, she sat with John and explained what was to come. She shared with him how she had dealt with the challenges in her battle with cancer. I know how valuable this was to my husband. During his radiotherapy she wrote to him. She always asked me about him. Maybe she had a soft spot because he was a former naval officer. I think that is probably what it was. She always took the opportunity to take him aside. In the gatherings when my husband on various occasions has come down to Canberra she always took him aside and wanted to know how he was and how he was coping and offered him words of comfort despite her own ongoing battle with demon cancer. This was so typical of Judith's stoic character, her determination to take adversity within her stride.

Senator Parry spoke of her sense of humour. An example of this was her wearing olive green on the day we debated the tobacco legislation. Of course, colleagues would recall that the olive industry was up in arms against Minister Roxon's use of olive green as the colour for the plain packaging. This was Judith's silent defiance on that day, but it did not go unnoticed. I conclude by offering my condolences to Stuart and Robert and the family. For John and me it was a real honour to be present at the wonderful celebration of her life in Kojonup. Rest in peace, Judith.

2:31 pm

Photo of Helen PolleyHelen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I too rise this afternoon to speak in support of this condolence motion for Senator Adams. There is still some debate as to whether we are the class of 2004 or the class of 2005, which is pretty typical of the class of 2005. I say that, because Judith left an instant impression when I first turned up to Senate school. She was forthright, had an opinion and was not backwards in coming forward. At the same time she was friendly. When she came to this place she broke the mould. It has been touched on by other senators this afternoon that she was a mature woman when she came here. With that came an enormous amount of determination. She was here to prove wrong those who were concerned about her being too old. She was going to represent her state and make sure they all knew she could do the job. From the contributions around the chamber thus far—I am sure there are more to come—it seems she has left a mark on all of us and set a benchmark for us to aspire to achieve as senators.

Some of the words that come to my mind when I think of Judith, and I think most people would agree, are that she was known not only in this chamber but in her community as being determined, strong, courageous, hardworking, forthright, outspoken when necessary, loyal, passionate, warm, friendly and engaging. One could also say that she was a communicator. I admired her work not only on the committee on which I served with her—the Standing Committee on Community Affairs—but also as a deputy whip. But it reminds me that being a whip is a dangerous occupation. Unfortunately, since I came to this place with Judith we have lost two sitting senators: Jeannie Ferris and now Judith. Both were remarkable women in their own right.

We have heard about Judith's contribu­tions through the committee system. I respect that contribution, but I have also been on the receiving end of Judith's passion when we held opposing positions on some contentious issues. They have already been highlighted in the chamber, but they included the debates over RU486 and stem cell research, to name a couple. As an advocate on the side opposing Judith's, I can say she was always compelling with her argument, but most of all she respected that each and every one of us could have a view, even though we might differ. There were times when she was very forthright in her views on those issues. I was in the minority as far as women on that committee, but I respected the fact that she respected me for having a different view and she ensured that those who had a different view always had the right to have a voice.

I always felt that Judith was approachable. It did not matter what the issues were—I travelled with her when we had community affairs committee inquiries into petrol sniffing, disability and ageing—she was always there to listen. The public, or in that case the media, do not always respect that in this chamber we work together very closely across and around the chamber. We spend a lot of time travelling and, as others have said, dining together. You really do get to know each other. You have enormous respect and, I would go so far as to say, have some very good friendships. In some ways, the friendships across the chamber can be stronger than some of those we have within our own parties.

I remember that when Judith first came in she would tell me how she was representing then Prime Minister John Howard and that she was going here and there. I said, 'Judith, you are going to have to pace yourself.' She said, 'Helen, someone has to do it.' I think that sums her up. She was one of those in this place who always put their hand up. She was always the first to say yes; I do not think she actually knew the word no.

She was a passionate advocate for health, particularly on issues affecting rural and regional areas of Australia. We know the work she did on ovarian cancer and breast cancer. These are just a few of the issues that she was passionate about. With her background in health, there is no reason she would not be a strong advocate. She knew what she was talking about. She was able to cut through a lot of the nonsense and get to the core of the issue.

Talking about the whips' duties—my whip is a very important person; what she says goes—you do spend a lot of time in the chamber. Late at night you wander across and chat with whoever is on duty on the other side. I have to say that it did not matter whether we were sitting late into the night or how contentious were the issues and legislation we were debating, she always had a good sense of humour—you could always approach her. I admired and respected her for that. When it comes to her life's achievements, there is no doubt that she had the love of her husband, her two wonderful sons and her extended family. Judith has left her mark—one that we, as I said before, could all aspire to as senators. But I think she will be remembered most, both by me and by everyone in this chamber and beyond, because she was not only a good senator but a good person—a caring and compassionate Australian. I even forgave her for being a New Zealander originally!

We often say in this place, particularly at a time like this, that we must make the most of every day. As those who were able to attend the memorial service would know, and as we have heard in the contributions this afternoon, Judith Adams lived and made the most of every single day, and with that life experience she enriched this chamber. I would like to place on record my deep respect for her and my condolences to her family. I appreciate that everyone here has made a contribution. I think that says a lot about Judith as an individual. Forget about the tag of Labor or Liberal; she was a member of this chamber whom we could all go to and who was compassionate and caring towards each and every one of us. I think we can all take a leaf out of her book. It is a chapter that is now closed but one that will live on.

2:38 pm

Photo of Simon BirminghamSimon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | | Hansard source

As I rise in my place the air around my desk here is rich with the smell of the fresh flowers that Senator Kroger has so thoughtfully placed on the desk of the late Senator Judith Anne Adams. It has been my pleasure since the time of the 2010 election to have this seat next to Judith. It is a shame that on so many occasions, especially this year, Judith has not been here for us all to enjoy the great camaraderie that I have shared, especially during many a question time, as we would exchange comments across the aisle and exchange our thoughts on how the politics of the day were proceeding, what was happening in the west and, of course—as we have heard from so many people—the issues Judith was so passionate about and so committed to.

I first really got to know Judith when I came to this place. I cannot speak to a condolence motion on a budget day without reflecting on the fact that it was five years ago—five budgets ago—that I entered this place. I was the Senator Dean Smith of the day, and it was a day very reminiscent of this one. Tributes flowed to my predecessor in this place, the late Jeannie Ferris. I know that Judith admired Jeannie, and I know that Jeannie admired Judith and that she would have been saddened by the fact that Judith went in such similar circumstances to those of Jeannie herself.

Getting to know Judith over those five years has been an absolute pleasure. She was, as we have heard, a direct person, a forthright person, a very matter-of-fact person. There was no messing about with Judith; you knew where you stood and you knew what the issues were, and she made sure that everybody was very clear in that sense. She was also the epitome of the adage that if you want a job done you should find a busy person to do it. Judith was a busy person and she was always getting the job done. I and everyone in this place know all too well just how busy a senator she was, how busy she was in her work in this place. As many have said, she gave so much of her time to the community affairs committee and the rural affairs committee, crisscrossing the country and listening to so many people, engaging with their issues and championing their causes. More recently when we would catch up, her work from those committees on the issue of wind farms would often become a topic of conversation relevant to my portfolio responsibilities. Judith saw that as an issue that joined her passions—her passion to ensure that issues of health care and preventive health were taken seriously and that very passionate representation she brought to regional and rural communities, as well as her desire to make sure that those communities were not adversely affected by any developments related to wind farms. She was driven by a desire to ensure that the science was applied appropriately—was developed if need be—but that those community concerns were put first and foremost.

It was not just as a senator that Judith was busy. I, like so many others, from all parties, discovered just what a busy and full life she had led when we travelled to Kojonup for her funeral service. That was where it really came through that Judith's passion in this place—her style of never stopping—was something she had every day of her life, in every act and in every step she took. We heard about Judith the horse rider and the trainer. We heard about Judith the community organiser who, if she wanted a sporting event or training activities for her two boys and they were not available in Kojonup, set about making them available—setting up the relevant organisations and ensuring that those facilities were there, not just for her two boys but for all the other children in that part of Western Australia.

Judith's was a life full of service, both to the parliament and to the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party has lost a very valued member, someone who made a tangible difference. She made a difference not just in this place and not just through her fundraising activities, hard work and service but in terms of others who have come to this place—none more so than Ken Wyatt, the member for Hasluck and the first Indigenous member of the House of Representatives, who in many ways is here thanks to the work of Judith Adams. She worked tirelessly in that electorate to ensure Ken was elected. I recall many occasions in the run-up to the 2010 election—in party room meetings, in the chamber and elsewhere—when Judith would provide, either one-on-one to me or to the entire party room, updates on how the campaign was going. Those updates would always be littered with stories of what she had picked up on the campaign trail, knocking on doors throughout the electorate of Hasluck. Judith was renowned for her service to rural communities and to health care, as I touched on earlier. We learnt that that was how she and Gordon, her late husband, came to be connected—Gordon served as a pilot for the Royal Flying Doctor Service and Judith was working as a nurse in rural health care. The passion that they both shared was obvious. And she faced her loss, in only the last couple of years, with Gordon's passing. And there was her service to the military and her commitment to service personnel that she shared, as one who had worn the uniform of the New Zealand territorial army—and she served in Vietnam in that role.

Judith was a tough character and a real fighter. She was stoic and one never to complain, even with the challenges that she faced in her latter years. She was principled and would always stick to her guns and fight for the issues that she believed in, especially those related to rural Australia. She was a real fighter in the spirit of ANZAC—and a fighter in the spirit of rural Australia, especially for those many women in rural Australia who work and fight so hard for their communities. She was, as we have heard, a nurse, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a farmer, a horse trainer—so many things: a senator, yes, but perhaps, as her boys Stuart and Robbie put it best at her funeral, 'Senator Mum' always. I extend my condolences to them, to her grandchildren and to her entire family. As I think fitting for a woman who gave so much in service: Judith Adams, lest we forget.

2:46 pm

Photo of Nick XenophonNick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise of course to support the condolence motion and to add my comments to those of my colleagues. I will be brief because so much of what needs to be said has been said today. Judith Adams was an incredible woman. It saddens me that she is no longer with us, but it warms the heart to hear the tributes made to her today in this chamber. I only hope that her sons, Stuart and Robbie, her grandchildren, her family and her friends may take some comfort from the words genuinely and sincerely expressed in her honour in this chamber today.

I think Australians learnt a lot about Judith from her time in this chamber. Through her dedication and her hard work she epitomised what it was to be a good legislator, particularly through her participation in Senate committees.

So many of us today have spoken about her stoicism. I wonder whether 'stoic' is the right word for Judith, because stoicism is about being indifferent or ignoring the pain that you have and your condition. I think Judith went beyond stoicism. Not only did she ignore the pain but, in a sense, she transcended it by her sheer dedication, her hard work, her commitment and her selflessness.

The last conversation I had with Judith was on the day that President Obama was here in Canberra. There was a Senate committee hearing, chaired by Senator Heffernan, held at Old Parliament House because this building was in lock-down. It was apparent to all that Judith was in enormous pain; she was really struggling. We walked slowly and gingerly downstairs to the dining room to have a bite to eat and had a good chat, but not once did she complain. And if you read the Hansard from that day you would not know—the questions she asked and her contribution to that Senate committee that day, were, as always, first class.

I just want to reflect and wonder whether her nursing days explain her temperament—somehow direct and warm both at the same time. It was this temperament that gained her great respect from her colleagues in this chamber over a number of years.

I also want to mention that, at her funeral, I did feel privileged—as I think Senator McEwen felt privileged—to be there and to see how much she was loved and respected not just by her colleagues but by her community and her family. There were people who travelled across the country to be a part of it—ordinary citizens who had participated in a Senate inquiry. The inquiry itself is not as important so much as the fact that they were there because they appreciated what she did. Charlie Arnott was there, as were Dr Sarah Laurie and Sam McGuinness. Charlie said this about her: 'Judith was an amazing woman who stood up for what she believed in to the very end. She put her constituents and friends ahead of her health.'

I just want to finish off by saying that Judith's incredible work ethic, her ferocious tenacity, her relentless questioning and advocacy for issues and for her constituents, and her sheer dedication to public service are an inspiration to us all.

2:49 pm

Photo of Michaelia CashMichaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | | Hansard source

I, too, rise to support the condolence motion moved by my leader, Senator Abetz, and celebrate the life of Senator Judith Adams and the contribution that Judith made, not only to the people of Western Australia but to the Australian parliament.

Listening to everybody's tributes today, I am humbled to have served with Judith as a senator for Western Australia. It is apparent that, even though Judith is no longer here with us in body, she will live long in this place through the memories of her and her dedication to her work and, in particular, her service to the committee process—something we are going to remember in this place for a very long time.

Without a doubt those people who knew Judith, both here and in Western Australia, recognised that she was a strong and determined lady. It did not matter what God threw at her in life, she was someone who grabbed it with both hands and then she threw it back. She once said to me, 'Michaelia, not even the big C is going to stop me from achieving what I want to achieve in my life.' In fact, in one of the chats that I had with Judith—I often relate this story when I go to divisional functions, because I think it is an example of the type of person that Judith was, and it complements all of the stories we have heard today—she said to me: 'Michaelia, you will never believe what the doctor has gone and done—he has changed my chemo appointment to Monday. I said to him, "Look, that's fine, but you've got to understand this: the parliament is sitting and I've got to be on the 3.30pm direct flight back to Canberra because I need to be in Canberra to ensure I'm making a contribution."' The doctor would say, 'That's okay, Judith; we can do your chemo in the morning'—and that was it: Judith would be back here on the Tuesday morning. You would bump into her at 7 am on Tuesday walking through the Senate doors. And how many of us, especially the wider public, would have known that she had been in hospital in Perth on Monday having chemo? Such was her determination that she ensured that she was on that 3.30 pm direct flight back to Canberra on the Monday afternoon.

Listening to the wonderful tributes and anecdotes people have shared with us today, there is no doubt that Judith was an inspiration to all sides of politics. It was wonderful to see so many senators and members from the other political parties attend Judith's funeral. I thank you all. When we saw each of you walk in we were humbled to know that one of our WA senators had meant so much to you. In fact, a number of people at the funeral asked me, 'Who is that person, Michaelia?' to which I replied, 'Oh, that is Senator Rachel Siewert,' or, 'That is Senator Moore,' or, 'That is Senator McEwen,' or, 'That is Senator Xenophon.' They were so touched that you came along to pay respects to someone they in Kojonup considered to be one of their own.

I went through Judith's maiden speech in preparing my condolence. In her maiden speech in 2004, she said:

Having travelled extensively throughout rural Western Australia, I understand the problems and issues confronting such a diverse state.

And there is no doubt that she did understand them. When it came to representing the needs of rural and regional Western Australia, Judith's voice could be heard across Western Australia and, of course, it could be well and truly heard here in the national parliament.

As someone who lived in rural Western Australia, and as a former nurse, Judith was very aware of the increased burden and other challenges that faced country people who are coping with debilitating illnesses. As a committed campaigner for improved services for rural people, Judith demonstrated that she was a true advocate and champion on behalf of the disadvantaged and of those living in rural and remote Western Australia.

As we have heard, Judith and her husband, Gordon, farmed for 36 years at Kojonup, in the Great Southern region of WA. I loved that the number plates on her little Gopher read 'KO', which was a tribute to Kojonup. Judith and Gordon's two sons, Stuart and Robert, were with them on the farm. The family was very involved in the community, Judith in particular through the Country Women's Association and other local and regional clubs and associations. In fact, Judith's work was so well known in Kojonup that she was recognised as the Kojonup Lions Citizen of the Year in 1995.

It was very fitting that her memorial service was held in the Kojonup town hall. The memorial service was a typical country service, right down to the fact that there was an announcement that the organ was playing up on the day and if it blew up could we all just remain seated, and also for the fact that the hall was so hot that you sat there the whole time fanning yourself! I was laughing to myself through the funeral that it is exactly what Judith would have wanted it to be. She would have been humbled by the many senators and members who attended the service, and in particular those who came in from the eastern states.

Without a doubt, Judith was a tireless advocate for those who had suffered from breast cancer. Whenever the need arose or the opportunity presented itself, she put her efforts into improving awareness of and the services for women experiencing not only this type of cancer but also ovarian cancer and bowel cancer. Her experiences both as a nurse and as a breast cancer sufferer gave her a real understanding of the challenges that cancer sufferers face. This was one of the factors that motivated her in all of her work.

Judith had a very long history in the Liberal Party in Western Australia, including being president of the O'Connor division. Senator Pratt referred to the fact that Judith had wanted to attend the O'Connor division conference, which was being held in Albany on 31 March. It was slightly ironic that that was the day of her passing. But what was so beautiful about that morning was that we were all gathered there in Albany when the President of the Liberal Party stood and made the announcement that Judith had passed away earlier that morning. It was beautiful because the O'Connor division was Judith's family. It was almost like she knew. She was giving them a message that everything would be okay. They were all together on that morning and were able to provide themselves and her Senate colleagues, and Dean Smith as well, with the comfort that we all needed.

Today in the Senate we recognise that Judith achieved much in her lifetime. For that, we celebrate her life. May she rest in peace.

2:57 pm

Photo of Alan EgglestonAlan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Judith Adams. The images that spring to my mind when I think of Judith are a hard worker, a person who was enthusiastic about all she did, a good colleague and friend and a very determined person who would see things through to the end no matter what adversities or difficulties she faced.

Judith had some north-west connections, which I learnt about only recently. She had worked as an emergency nursing service nurse in the north-west of WA. In fact she met her husband, who was an RFDS pilot at Meekatharra, in the north-west. Meekatharra is in the mid-west and was an RFDS patient transfer point for patients coming down from places like Broome, Port Hedland and Karratha. A crew would come up to Perth and swap aircraft and take the patient on to Perth while the north-west crews went back to their home bases.

Her husband, Gordon, was a farmer from Kojonup. He had leased out his farm while he spent some time as an RFDS pilot in the north-west. After they were married they went back to the Great Southern wheat belt town of Kojonup, where, as we all know, Judith became very heavily involved in community affairs. As we heard at her funeral, her many interests—I thought rather surprisingly—included horseracing, which is one that I would not have picked for Judith. But nevertheless, she was a horse breeder and spent a lot of time in that endeavour. Health services were a very important focus of Judith's life. She was for several years on the Perth metropolitan hospitals board and she quite frequently came to my office to discuss health issues, especially regional health services as well as women's health issues. As has been said by others today, it was an important interest to her.

Judith was active in the Liberal Party and was president of the O'Connor division. In due course she became a senator for Western Australia, fulfilling two roles: that of a farming senator on our Senate team and also representing women's interests. Her bravery in facing up to difficult issues was demonstrated when as divisional president of O'Connor she suggested to Wilson Tuckey that perhaps he should consider a succession plan. I am not sure that Wilson was very amenable to that but nevertheless Judith had the courage to raise it with him. One would have hoped it made him think that perhaps it was time for him to look at a successor, but as we all know he soldiered on to the end and in fact lost his seat, which was probably the best way for Wilson to end his term in parliament, dying in the trenches fighting for his beliefs.

As has been said, Judith was a tireless worker on the many committees she was involved in, travelling all over Australia. Her connection with and respect for the military surprised me. It has been said already that she had served in the New Zealand territorial army in Vietnam and she retained the greatest respect for the military, not only the Army but also the Navy, in her years since she was in Vietnam.

Her strength in the great debate over the single-desk issue very much contributed to the changes which occurred and which were alluded to by Wilson Tuckey in his funeral eulogy. Changing from a single desk for wheat marketing was a major issue in rural politics, farming politics, in Western Austra­lia and Judith was one of the leaders of the push to change from that system. Now with a different system I think most wheat farmers would agree that it was a good thing to have done.

I believe Judith showed great strength and fortitude in facing the challenges of her illness and I greatly admired her for this. I visited her in Royal Perth Hospital and I was deeply touched by her great determination to fight on and overcome her illness even though as a medical professional and sometime horseracer she must have known that the odds were not good. Judith rang me a week before she died, which I thought was a privileged call. At that time I think she knew that her time was short, and she faced her last week with the stoicism and bravery with which she had faced her whole illness.

Judith was an extraordinary person and she will be remembered not only in Western Australia but, as we have heard today, across Australia for the great work she has done in the committee system in the Senate. For her sons, Stuart and Robbie, her passing must leave a big space in their lives. And it is not only in their lives that a great space has been left, because she leaves a great space in the life of the Senate as well. May she rest in peace.

3:04 pm

Photo of John FaulknerJohn Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I too speak in support of this motion of condolence on the death of Senator Judith Adams. A condolence motion for a serving senator is, thankfully, a rare event in this chamber. I certainly understand that for those who shared a friendship or party allegiance or worked closely with Judith Adams this debate is a particularly difficult one. But this afternoon, as a former Minister for Defence, I wanted to acknowledge, as many speakers have in this condolence debate, Judith Adams's genuine interest in defence issues and her strong support for Australian Defence Force personnel.

One example I recall of Judith's involvement with Defence was the warm friendship she developed with the officers and crew of HMAS Arunta which stemmed from an official visit to the ship at Albany on Anzac Day 2009. A few months later Judith was a guest on board Arunta while the ship was conducting trials in Cockburn Sound. Judith had embarked on the ship's rigid hull inflatable boat—inevitably in Defence there is an acronym for that, and it is RHIB—and she had done so to witness the operations at closer hand. This was by no means her first experience on one of the Navy's RHIBs but on this occasion while the RHIB was operating in the vicinity of Arunta Judith fell heavily on the deck and hurt her arm. By the time as defence minister I was formally briefed about the incident it was clear in fact that Judith had broken her arm and was having a short stay in Rockingham Hospital. I gave her a call just to see how she was going, and I must say that she seemed very, very perplexed, if not amazed, that the minister would have been told about something she thought was such a minor mishap. But I was able to inform her that this was standard operating procedure in Defence and that of course defence people were all concerned about her wellbeing.

Needless to say, Judith was undeterred by all that. I am very pleased to say, as I think senators are well aware, that for the remainder of her life she maintained a close and genuine relationship with Defence and its people, and was actively involved in defence issues. It also goes without saying that Defence finds such interest and commit­ment from parliamentarians gratifying.

All this and so many more of Judith's Senate responsibilities were being fulfilled as she fought a very personal battle against cancer. We have heard today how she fought that battle with dignity and courage to the end. I join with other colleagues in express­ing my sincere condolences to Judith Adams's family, her friends and her colleagues. The Senate is poorer for her passing.

3:09 pm

Photo of Christopher BackChristopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

It is my privilege to rise to join in support of the motion by my leader, Senator Abetz, in honouring the life of Senator Judith Adams and to celebrate that life. I first came into serious contact with Senator Adams when I had the opportunity to put my name forward when then Senator Chris Ellison decided that he would retire from the Senate. I went to see Judith, and it was like going to see the headmistress. She was quizzing me on what sorts of attributes I had. When she learned I was a veterinarian she was fairly happy with that, and then when she learnt that I had a fairly strong rural background she was all right. It was really only at her funeral, when I learnt that she had been a racehorse trainer, that I came to understand why she was so intensely interested in the fact that I had been the WA Turf Club's veterinary consultant. In provincial racing days I had known Judith as an administrator in the racing industry in that way; I never knew that she in fact had been a trainer.

One of the interesting things, Mr President—and I can say this to you because you are not one—is that she said to me, 'What are people saying to you?' and I said, 'Well, because Senator Ellison is a lawyer, there's a perception that he has to be replaced by a lawyer,' which caused her, of course, to get one of her staff members in and to go through the list of Senate colleagues who were lawyers. Learning that particular number, she said to me, 'Chris, I actually don't believe that we do need yet another lawyer.' To this day, I have no knowledge of whether she supported me or she did not.

It was also on that occasion that she informed me so warmly of the role of the relationship between the Australian Defence Force and the parliament, and I think almost on day one I was signed up to a parliament­ary program to go to NORFORCE. She remained, as we all know, very, very keen on that relationship.

It is unfortunate that you have to go to somebody's funeral to learn more about a person with whom you have spent so much time, but all of us I think were enriched by the stories of her brother-in-law, Gordon's brother; of her two sons; and, of course, of Wilson Tuckey. It is a shame—no, Senator Nash is back here now. At one stage in his proceedings, Wilson was reflecting on some of Judith's passions and one of them, of course, was the abolition of the single desk. I felt compelled to lean forward to Senator Nash and tell her that she actually did not have a right of reply at Judith's service to rebut whatever Wilson was saying! But, as others have said, it was a day of great celebration in a town that she called her own.

We all know her background from New Zealand in the territorial army of New Zealand, meeting Gordon. When Gordon passed away, as others have said, she was not with him. The circumstances were, as somebody has already mentioned, that it was the day that they were to move into their new home in Gidgegannup, having sold the farm in Kojonup. She was not able to contact Gordon. She got one of her staff to pop around to her home to see that he was okay, and of course he had passed away. I did not know Ruth Webber, but Judith was overcome by the number of people who travelled to WA and down to Kojonup on that occasion for Gordon's funeral, and she mentioned then Senator Webber for her courtesy in so doing. I will come back in a few moments to reflect on others who came to Judith's funeral.

I happened to be sitting with Judith on a Senate inquiry relating to aircraft noise. We were all there in Perth, and there was great discussion about noise to the east of the city. Judith was absolutely giving it—as Senator Siewert has said she did, on matters about which she was passionate—to the chief executive of Airservices Australia, whereupon they brought out a great big map. On the map, as Senator Fawcett would understand far better than I, were all the trajectories of the arrivals and departures of aircraft coming into Perth Airport. For those of you non-Western Australians, you need to know that Gidgegannup is just to the north-east of the airport. There were three intersecting lines upon which aircraft could either arrive or depart, and you would not believe it: the Airservices chief executive looked at me, and I said, 'Yes, you've managed to get the spot directly above Senator Adams's home,' which gave him that opportunity.

I wish to reflect finally, if I may, on two areas: that of Judith's passion as the divisional president for O'Connor and for her role in the Senate, and her great capacity for and interest in doorknocking. Judith always said that doorknocking is what gets you across the line. I know one of her moments of great pride. She was asked to assist Ken Wyatt in his quest for the seat of Hasluck, which the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senate Evans, has already referred to. Ken learnt what it was to doorknock with Judith. I do not know how many pairs of shoes she must have worn out but those of us who knew her know that this was at a time when she actually could not feel her feet as a result of the treatment she was receiving.

It was a moment of enormous pride for all of us when we attended in the other place the first speech of Ken Wyatt as the first Aboriginal man in the House of Representa­tives and, so proudly, as the member for Hasluck. I make the observation—and I believe he will because he is an outstanding person—that if he has a far vision into the future it will be because he stood on the shoulders of Senator Judith Adams. I take nothing away from him in that result. That stands as testament.

Mr President, I finish by acknowledging your presence, that of the leader Senator Evans, Senator McEwen, Senator Siewert, Senator Nash representing the Nationals, Senator Xenophon, so many from our side including our leader, and Senator Macdonald who came down from North Queensland. I think every state of Australia was represented and that gave those of us from Western Australia a great degree of pride. I know it would have given Stuart and Robert and Gordon's family a great degree of satisfaction that she was so highly regarded in this place. I join Senator Faulkner in his comment that this place is poorer for her leaving. May she rest in peace.

3:16 pm

Photo of Ron BoswellRon Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise today to pay my respects and to give tribute to Senator Judith Adams. Like all my colleagues, I watched her courageous struggle with admiration. To her Senate colleagues Judith was an absolute model of stoicism in the face of adversity and until the end of her brave battle with cancer, actively attended to her work as a senator for Western Australia following her election in 2004.

A trained nurse, midwife, health consult­ant, Judith was a passionate advocate for women's health, particularly in rural and remote areas. This is a subject that as a National Party senator I see as being of great importance and I applaud Senator Adams for pursuing this course. She also showed bravery and commitment to her country when she joined the nursing corps in the New Zealand army and served as a nurse in the Vietnam War. Her dedication to her country and caring instincts for people would later serve her well in her career as a senator.

Her service in the Senate could only be described as intensely dedicated and committed. Even in the last few weeks she was still ringing her staff and constituents, making sure that her office was election ready. This was the kind of dogged determination she showed as a senator. We should all aspire to have the same kind of drive and care for the people we represent. The Senate is a tough place at the best of times, however Senator Adams endured all the usual pressure that this office holds and still managed to cope with a destructive illness.

Her example should remind senators and members of parliament how seriously we must take our jobs, about how we can think we have done all that we can to look down and strive to do more. It is also a sobering reminder of how little time we have to achieve. She reminded us that as hard as we may think our job is, there are always people out there who have it tougher and need us to speak up on their behalf. Senator Adams knew this and never waivered in her service to the Australian people. If we give up when it gets a little too much for us then we are doing ourselves and our constituents a disservice and we are ignoring the legacy of the people such as Senator Adams, who endured so much and still gave more.

As tragic and as sad as Senator Adams's passing is, her family and friends and colleagues should be proud of the example she has set and the work she has done. She was an inspiration to all of us. I do not think there is anyone in this chamber who thinks she had anything left to prove or anything left to give. She has truly set the benchmark for us and all who follow her. I thank her for that and extend my condolences to her family and her extended family.

3:19 pm

Photo of Trish CrossinTrish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to also support the condolence motion moved by Senator Abetz and be part of this contribution today. People might notice that I do not often stand up in this chamber and speak about senators who have departed on their retirement or voluntarily left. I do not think I contributed either to the condolence motion when Jeannie Ferris died. But I do feel compelled to say a few words today.

I guess in my life there are Liberals and there are Liberals. I know the people opposite me will probably say there are Labor Party people and there are Labor Party people. For me, Judith was a colleague more than a political opponent. She was someone who truly commanded the respect of those who worked with her. I did not work with Judith as much as people like Senator Siewert of Senator Moore did. I was not a permanent member of the Standing Committee on Community Affairs but I did have occasion to work with her on some opportunities and on some inquiries—as Senator Scullion said, the Select Committee on Regional and Remote Indigenous Communities—as well as her participation in the petrol sniffing inquiry.

The thing that struck me about Judith was that when it came to Indigenous people, she got it. She understood and appreciated where they were at because she had worked in rural and remote communities and Indigenous communities. I think what people opposite have said about her nursing background is true. It gave her a different perspective about challenges facing Indigenous people. I was certainly convinced that she was passionate about rural and regional Western Australia; you could see that in all of the work that she did.

One of the reasons I wanted to stand up this afternoon was to relate to people what is perhaps a very rare and strange occurrence. Senator Moore, who is beside me, was at my place that afternoon, as was Mark Furner. Members of the community affairs committee were coming through Darwin, and I think you had been on the road for quite a while, although I do not quite remember which inquiry it was. As a warm and friendly gesture, I offered a home-cooked meal at my place on the Sunday night and extended that invitation to not only my Labor colleagues but also Judith Adams. She was a bit surprised, of course, when I rang her and said: 'You're pulling into Darwin at about four on Sunday. There are plenty of great restaurants in Darwin—or I'm offering a lamb roast.' She said, 'Well, there's no choice, really! What time?'

I do remember that evening. The four of us sat around and chatted about lots of things but not politics. I tell that story because, on the day that I heard of her passing, I remembered that night and how she just loved sitting around the kitchen table and how she had, I think, maybe three helpings of meat and vegies—and commented on my gravy! She actually said it was probably better than she made, which was astounding, because she was actually a farm woman and I thought they could cook everything. I also remember thinking to myself that Judith's first love was probably her family and that this was not the first or last time she would sit around the dining-room table having a lamb roast and chatting about everything under the sun except politics.

So what I saw that night was another woman politician who appreciated a home-cooked meal, a mother and someone who was passionate about Western Australia and rural and remote people; I did not see a Liberal political opponent at my kitchen table. That is what I remember about Judith, and that is what I want the people opposite to remember about Judith. I know, if this was being broadcast, some people would be listening to this thinking, 'How bizarre! Labor senators having a meal at home with Liberal senators?' But it was never like that. It was about Senate colleagues extending a friendly invitation to have a home-cooked meal when you very rarely get that chance. I think it was probably one of the most enjoyable nights a number of us have had, when I reflect on it.

The day she died, I thought of a number of things. I thought about the loss of Judith to Western Australia and to her constituents, but I also thought about you, my colleagues opposite, and what a tremendous loss it is to have one of your very close workers depart in such a sad way. I remember, Senator Kroger, us having a conversation in the sittings earlier this year, when a lot of us knew that Judith was very sick but hoped against hope that she would be back. So I was a bit shocked to hear the news.

I also want to pass on my condolences to her staff. How incredibly hard it must have been to keep her office going, knowing she was so sick, and how tragically sad it must have been to pack up her office after she departed. I never met her staff, I am not familiar with them, but I can certainly empathise with them about what they had to go through.

There are three other things I want to say in closing. The day she died, I tweeted the fact that I was sad that she had passed on. I want people in this chamber to know that quite a few people, a number of whom actually worked in this building, replied to my tweet and made comments about what a wonderful woman she was. Former senator Natasha Stott-Despoja emailed a number of us this afternoon—Carol Brown picked up her email in her contribution—and she wanted us to pass on her condolences too. I know she would want to be part of this contribution. So that is another contribution out there.

I have an email here from Jane Singleton, who is the former CEO of the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance. This is what she had to say, back on 3 April:

I wanted it to be known as a part of the remembrances of her, the brave and effective role she played in the ru486 campaign—

of which she was one of the leaders. She goes on:

You will remember that Get Up did a petition, but in fact it was a 'PR' petition, effective but not able to be tabled in the Parliament.

The family planning organisations in each state under the umbrella of SHFPA—

that is, the Sexual Health and Family Planning Association

did their own.

I was the one of those who worked with the organisations and coordinated the campaign for SHFPA whilst I was working for Family Planning NSW.

We created a web site all but overnight which met all the requirements of a petition to be tabled in the Australian Parliament

We got many thousands of signatories.

It was Judith who tabled it in the Senate.

This action greatly improved the lives of Australian women and their families. Importantly also it created a precedent.

It is a precedent that people may not remember, but it is important to remember it today. As Ms Singleton says:

It was the first electronic petition to be tabled in the Australian Parliament. and a great service to democratic process.

With that I say: vale, Judith. Lest we forget. You were a wonderful woman and a great colleague; thank you. My condolences to her family and her colleagues.

3:28 pm

Photo of Bridget McKenzieBridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I also rise to support the condolence motion to recognise the passing of an extraordinary Australian woman, Senator Judith Adams. Today we are celebrating the life of a woman whom I wish I had had more time to get to know. She was only 68. She was special and she is irreplaceable. I would have liked to have attended her funeral service in WA, where Senator Nash represented the Nationals. At this time of sorrow, our hearts go out to those who love her, particularly her family: her sons, Stuart and Robert, and their respective partners, Anne and Tammy; and her grandchildren, Taylor and Maelle, who have a great role model in this grandmother of theirs. I will remember her with fondness, respect and great admiration. Many fine sentiments have been expressed about Senator Adams today and I am sure more will follow my brief contribution.

I have known Judith only since July 2011 but she made a significant impact on me. As a way of demonstrating that, I will tell you a little story. As part of the Women in Federal Parliament initiative, a permanent exhibition near the entrance on the first floor, each female parliamentarian submits a photo of themselves to display there. As a newly elected senator, I was sent the information and a sample of relaxed natural photos, which is what they were looking for, and asked could I provide one. They sent a range of the photos of other female senators. Everyone was looking relaxed and natural, some a little more than others and some had clearly just pulled a photo out of their electorate portfolio. Flicking through them as I sat at my little kitchen table in Leongatha in South Gippsland, probably in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, the picture I liked the best was of a woman riding on a quad bike with her working dogs beside her. Her clothes were farm wear and she was smiling straight down the barrel of the camera. The bike was moving—it was an action shot. It really appealed to me. I thought, 'If there are people like this woman in this place, I think I'm going to be okay.' There was a steely determination behind that smile of somebody who knows the reality of living on the land with and against the environment and the elements. I was impressed with the authenticity of this woman senator in the photo. She was proud of being a country woman. She was happy for that photo to go up on permanent display in the Australian parliament. I did not know her name. It was not until a couple of months ago that I worked out that that woman was Senator Judith Adams.

Once I got here, I was appointed to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, where I met a lovely woman with beautiful suits, magnificent suits of such vibrant colours in a place where—let's face it—it is black or red, or grey if you are on the trend upward. She had fantastic and colourful suits. She was softly spoken and she had a fierce passion for regional Australia, particularly Western Australia. Obviously, as a National, that is a passion I share. She was also quietly furious about waste in spending. She was very concerned about Indigenous issues and she displayed an impressive and intricate knowledge of the health portfolio and which bureaucrat was which in Senate estimates processes.

Throughout all those hearings, I thought she was recovering; I did not know that she was so ill. She had asked me to assist with budget estimates—all she said was that she had been unable to organise it this time—and she gave me lots of gentle advice around the process. A meeting took place in her office. It was the first time I had been in her office but I remember it was just lovely—full of natural light and flowers. I really miss that, being inside so much these days. Her office really impressed me.

She was patient and kind at the same time as being strong and brave. The woman in the photo who so impressed me, the woman with a steely determination to fight injustice, was the same woman who tried to fight cancer—Judith Adams. I recently learnt that Judith had worked as a nursing sister in the New Zealand territorial army and, at the age of 23, during the Vietnam War she worked with the medical team other people have mentioned. That particular experience must have shaped her. It gave her the ability to deal with loss and to manage life, as it reveals itself, in a practical and matter of fact way. War in Vietnam would have influenced how she managed her own illness and dealt with her own loss. Judith chose to focus on her fierce and ferocious advocacy of rural Australia. She also chose to keep the focus on the government and keeping the bureaucracy accountable through estimates. She was always focused on the outcome and keen to find a bipartisan solution if one presented itself.

I did not know her for long but her contribution to the Senate, to the Standing Committee on Community Affairs and to my growing understanding of work here was significant. I shall miss her colour, her professionalism and her strength but most of all her reality checks in the middle of committee hearings. So very, very regional Australian—vale Judith.

3:35 pm

Photo of Mitch FifieldMitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | | Hansard source

Judith Adams was one of those people you appreciated more and more as time passed. There are many people for whom familiarity diminishes your view of them. Judith certainly was not one of those. She had a depth and a breadth and also an underappreciated mischievousness, and cheekiness as well. By the time she entered the Senate she already had a lifetime of achievement with the New Zealand territorial army, as a nurse, and as a mother, a pastoralist, a horse breeder and a horse trainer. Few have brought more life experience to this place than Judith, which is probably why she was such a great judge of character. She could sum up people pretty quickly and no-one could hide from Judith the stuff of which they were made.

She was possessed of a formidable work ethic, but she was also very wise. That wisdom found great expression through the Community Affairs Committee and through her role as whip. She could always be relied upon. That wisdom and the pastoral interest she took in others made her a favourite among coalition staff. Many of our staff were especially fond of her, and there is much sadness amongst the ranks of coalition staff about Judith's passing.

We are all aware of one of her great passions, which was the Australian Defence Force and its service personnel. This was brought home to me again on Anzac Day this year. I was attending a ceremony in Dandenong and a senior ADF officer came up to me and asked whether I served in the Senate. I said I did, and he said, 'You must know my great mate Judith Adams'. This was a couple of weeks after Judith's funeral, and so I said, 'I do, but I am sorry to tell you that Judith died very recently'. This Defence Force officer was genuinely taken aback. He had not heard the news. The first thing he said was, 'Please tell me that there was a formal ADF representation at the funeral', and I was able to assure him that there was and that the ADF was very well represented. That instance showed the impact that Judith had had on the ADF and its personnel. She was seen as one of them and she was held in very high regard by them.

It was a great privilege to attend Judith's memorial service. It was a terrific celebration of a great life. It is appropriate that we do pause for a moment to acknowledge Judith's staff, the most visible of whom in this place was Trish. All of our staff show to us a commitment, both personal and professional, that goes beyond that which you find in most other occupations. Judith's staff went even further—and they did so willingly. They too have lost a friend, and they have lost someone that they cared for very much. Those of us who have lost parents would all understand that, no matter what age our parents are, when they die it is always too early. Judith's sons, Stuart and Robert, are experiencing that at the moment, but they should be very proud of their mum. She was a great woman. I will miss her, as will all her colleagues.

3:40 pm

Photo of Mathias CormannMathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | | Hansard source

Judith Adams was a wonderful person who cared, who worked hard and who was always determined to change things for the better, particularly for people in rural and regional areas. Senator Judith Adams was a valued friend and respected colleague who is sadly missed by all of us who knew her. I first met Judith back in 2000 when she was a state candidate in Wagin. Wagin was then and still is deep inside National Party territory. It is fair to say that Judith engaged in the campaign with characteristic vigour, and she of course engaged then, as she did subsequently, in a battle of ideas with the National Party, with the Labor Party, with the Greens and of course on occasion inside the Liberal Party too. Judith had very strong and very clear views and she was never frightened to express them and pursue them. When she pursued an argument, when she pursued a policy issue or when she engaged in a battle of ideas she did it in a way that developed at the same time great friendships, great relationships. The presence of so many colleagues at her funeral in Kojonup was testament to the high regard in which she was held by her colleagues right across the Senate.

The last time I met Judith was just before Christmas, when she had a Christmas function in her office for her friends and supporters. She had already been in hospital for some time, and she came back that afternoon because she was not going to miss out on her Christmas function; she was not going to let down the people who had made the effort to attend. She came from her hospital bed to the function, and then she went straight back to hospital. That says something about her determination and about her endearing stubbornness in the face of adversity.

Many very kind and very appropriate words have been spoken about Judith by colleagues around the chamber—words like 'tenacious', 'hard-working' and 'courageous'. I certainly agree with all of them. 'Courageous' definitely sums up Judith. She never took the easy choices or the safest road; she never took a step back. She of course was courageous long before she joined us here in the Senate. She was courageous when, as a young woman, she served as a nurse in the New Zealand territorial army, with service in Vietnam in 1967, and then on coming to Western Australia she joined the Emergency Nursing Service, beginning a long association with the bush and healthcare needs of rural Western Australia—which of course is the role that brought her into contact with the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which is where she met her future husband, Gordon. Judith and Gordon took the decision to go farming in Kojonup in the Great Southern area of Western Australia, where they farmed for 40 years and raised two sons, Stuart and Robert.

As we all know, farming is a tough game and it is a great breeding ground for tenacious politicians. Judith was one of the most tenacious there was. Of course in recent times there have been a number of policy battles at a federal level and she has been right on the front line. When the Liberal Party had a discussion a few years ago about our position on emissions trading and carbon taxes, you name it, Judith Adams was at the forefront, taking a stand. In fact, she stepped down for a period as the senior Deputy Opposition Whip in the pursuit of her convictions on that issue. We all know how she pursued her view that all wheat farmers should be able to sell their wheat according to their own wishes rather than be forced by government regulation into a single-desk arrangement. She pursued that not just in opposition but as a relatively new senator in the Howard government. At some point, Wilson Tuckey and Senator Judith Adams in fact were putting together a private member's bill to deregulate wheat export marketing arrangements in Australia. That was part of a long campaign which ultimately led to the outcome that Judith and Wilson had been pursuing. It was a controversial issue inside and outside the coalition and it is to Judith's everlasting credit that, in the circumstances and in the context of a sometimes pretty robust campaign against her position, she stuck to her guns and ultimately achieved policy and political success.

However, for all her many political achievements, Judith was at her most courageous in her battle against breast cancer, particularly over the last 12 months. As a breast cancer survivor when she was elected to the Senate, Judith used that experience to inform her Senate committee work and to help groups like the BreastScreen WA advisory committee and various other associations. It was noticeable at Judith's memorial in Kojonup just how many groups and associations from the healthcare and aged-care sector were represented. Both before her election and as a senator she pursued a range of policy issues such as the Patient Assisted Travel Scheme, issues around the appropriate provision of aged-care services—in particular for people in rural and regional Australia—and so on.

It was heart-warming to see the number of colleagues who came all the way to Kojonup for her funeral. On our side, our leader, our deputy leader and our leader in the Senate, Senator Abetz, attended, but there were people there from all sides of parliament—the President and the Leader of the Government in the Senate, for example. It was really heart-warming to see how many people from right across the chamber and from right across the political divide made a very special effort to be there to celebrate Judith's life and to provide support and comfort to her family.

Judith was stoic and professional in the face of great personal hardship. She was a proud senator for Western Australia and a proud Liberal. If we look back at her maiden speech, we see the strong themes she carried with her throughout her time in the Senate—rural health and aged care, salinity, border control and biosecurity issues in the north-west of WA, Indigenous welfare and communications infrastructure in the bush. These issues are just as topical today across the wheat belt of WA and Australian rural communities more widely as they were when Judith raised them back in 2005.

We all miss Judith. My condolences go to her sons, Stuart and Robert, her grandchild­ren and her extended family. Rest in peace, Judith Adams.

3:48 pm

Photo of David BushbyDavid Bushby (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise also to support the motion of condolence regarding Senator Judith Adams. It was with great sadness that I read the text message I received just before Easter from Senator Mathias Cormann, whom I have the pleasure to follow on this motion, informing me that my good friend and colleague Senator Judith Adams had passed away.

Judith had been ill for many years. This was a fact that we all knew. But, because she had been fighting that illness so strongly, so stoically, so heroically, I and possibly many others had come to expect her by our side in this place, regardless of the illness she had been battling for so long. As such, when she took a turn for the worse before Christmas, I fully hoped that she would again soon be joining us back here just as she had when she had recovered from complications from her illness on earlier occasions. But, unfortu­nately for Judith, for her family, for the Liberal Party, for the people of Western Australia and for the people of Australia, this was not to be the case this time.

Judith and I worked most closely when I joined her as a deputy opposition whip in this place. Initially, I sat next to her in the chamber and we worked closely, helping manage the opposition in this place together with the then Chief Opposition Whip and Manager of Opposition Business, Senator Stephen Parry, who is here on my right, and later with the current Chief Opposition Whip, Senator Helen Kroger. Senator Adams was a delight to work with in that role and was a tower of strength to both chief whips. She taught me a lot about the role of a whip and the management of the chamber.

As important as the role we played as deputy whips was, however, working so closely with Judith exposed me to one key characteristic which I will forever admire and remember her for—and that is the manner in which she quietly and tenaciously bore the great discomfort and pain which was almost constantly with her as a result of her illness or from its treatment. Although on the whole she disguised this well, she at times let down her guard and the pain and discomfort were apparent. Sitting next to her, I probably had a better opportunity to witness that than most people. But not once did I hear a complaint and not once did she ask for special treatment or deference because of her illness. She just wanted to get on with the job for which she was elected, a job which I believe she did in an exemplary fashion. Others have spoken of her work ethic, her passion for health issues, particularly those affecting women and rural and regional Australians, and her great dedication to committee work. I echo those comments.

I was also, as many in this place have noted, fortunate enough to attend her memorial service in Western Australia and was heartened by the size of the crowd. The hall that it was held in was large and yet people were standing around the sides—all the seats were taken. I think there were even people outside the entrance who were trying to listen from there. The respect that was shown for Judith by the local community and by the people who had travelled from all across Western Australia and all across Australia to pay their respects to her was a real testament to the lady, to the woman, to her as a senator, to her as a local community leader and to her as a member of her family. The other key point that I would just like to remember and note here about Judith was this. We have heard today that she was a warrior for what she believed in. She certainly was. One of the key aspects on which I worked very closely with her was near the end of 2009 when the CPRS debate was occurring and a number of us in this place had determined that we were going to cross the floor and vote against the position that we as a party had taken, and Judith and I were two of those who had determined that we were going to do that, because Judith felt very strongly that that piece of legislation that was before this place then was not the right thing for the people that she represented. I know there are varying views on that, but it just highlights her strength of view: when she formed a view that is what she stuck to, and she went all out to actually put that into place.

She and I put together a joint media release and offered to the party room that we would resign our positions as the deputy opposition whips because, having had a discussion, we both felt that it was inappropriate for us to be responsible, as part of the leadership team, for delivering that which the party room had decided when we were going to be voting against that. So we both formed that view, and went to the party room and made that offer. As things transpired, that offer never needed to be acted upon, and we all know the events of those days. But that just highlights to me how she was a warrior for what she believed in. She had formed that view and very passionately then pursued the outcome that she thought was the right one.

She was also a true compassionate Liberal. She was totally trustworthy and loyal to those around her, and a perfect example to me of what a senator in this place should be. I will miss her company and her advice, and I wish the very best to her family. May she rest in peace.

3:54 pm

Photo of Ian MacdonaldIan Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | | Hansard source

It is difficult to add anything further to the very fine words that have been expressed today in this Senate by Senator Abetz and Senator Evans, Senator Siewert and Senator Joyce, and, indeed, by all of my Senate colleagues, about a very fine person, our dear friend and Senate colleague, Senator Judith Adams. I extend again my condolences to Stuart and Robert and to Judith's extended family on her passing.

It was an honour and, indeed, an uplifting experience for me to attend Judith's funeral service in Kojonup, along with most of her Senate colleagues, and anyone who was anyone in the Liberal Party, including the federal leader and deputy leader, the Western Australian Premier and the state president of the party. It was, as others have said, a magnificent show of respect for someone we all loved.

I want, in passing, to express my thanks to Judith's family, and to the Kojonup council and community for facilitating the attendance of so many friends and colleagues from all over Australia at her final farewell. I also want to mention in that regard David Johnston and his office for their help in getting many of us from afar from Perth to Kojonup—not an easy task. As others have so well recounted, you know the impact that Judith had on people when 'Ironbar' Wilson Tuckey was reduced to emotion in his wonderful eulogy to his friend and co-conspirator—and I emphasise 'co-conspirator'—in Western Australia.

My great admiration for Judith was earned by the character, determination and courage that others have so eloquently described. But my special association with Judith resulted from our shared passion for regional and remote communities and for the Liberal Party and its role in country Australia. Judith was living proof that the Liberals were the legitimate party of rural Australians. I might say, in that regard, that, curiously, the last funeral I attended in Western Australia—indeed, the only other funeral I have attended there—was that of Senator John Panizza. He was also, at the time, our whip, also a passionate advocate for rural and regional Australia, and, like Judith, a person who had not been born in Australia but who had come here and, through farming and other enterprises, had become a very successful Australian. That is rather coincidental, and at Judith's funeral I was reminded of Senator John Panizza.

It was one of Judith's great achievements, and one that she was very proud of, that the Liberal Party had achieved in rural Western Australia the success that it actually had over many years. Her work for people who do not live in the capital cities is legend for all of us who know, but I do not think it will ever be fully appreciated by the many country Australians who Judith had helped during her pre-Senate life and had continued to help since her time in the Senate.

Judith was a dear friend, a loyal colleague and a great help to me in many of the difficult issues that have come before this parliament. On anything to do with health or farming or rural matters I would always dutifully take the word of the relevant minister or shadow minister, but then I would go and check it with Judith for common sense and accuracy, and it was Judith who was able to explain to me and to guide me on the difficult issues of stem cell and RU486 matters that troubled this parliament and this chamber many years ago.

My small role in the Defence portfolio these days allows me to associate with many a senior and, indeed, junior Army, Navy and Air Force officers, and all of them you speak to knew and respected Judith. She was a great and learned supporter of the men and women who comprise Australia's Defence forces. I was delighted that the respect that Judith showed to them was reciprocated by the military with the last post and the ode at her farewell service. I know that our Defence personnel would want to be associated with the condolence motion before the chair. Before I conclude, I would also like to say that I know that Senator Sue Boyce, my Queensland colleague who unfortunately is not here today, would also want to be associated with all of the very fine words that have been spoken about Senator Judith Adams today. Sue and Judith shared many common issues and I know that Sue, along with the rest of us, will miss her greatly. Rest in peace, Judith Adams.

3:59 pm

Photo of Scott RyanScott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion moved by Senator Abetz which the government so graciously allowed him to move on behalf of the Senate today, and particularly on behalf of the members of the Liberal Party. It is often said that we learn too much about our friends, and even occasionally our family, at their funerals. Despite all the time that we spend together in this place, I fear it is even more true here because, as others have comment­ed, our experience at the magnificent service for Judith Adams did teach us a few things. But, as we learned from Judith, nothing should surprise us because of the incredible life experience that she brought to this place.

I do not plan to repeat the comments made by so many people before me in the chamber today, other than to stand behind them and state that I agree with them. I would like to outline what made Judith unique—unique to me in the service I have had with her in this place since July 2008 and, I think, to all of us. As others have commented, Judith was a person of extraordinary strength, courage, tenacity and determination. She was also a person of extraordinary compassion and, indeed in my experience, politeness at all times no matter what the pressure and no matter what the situation. For those who took Judith's politeness or good manner for a lack of determination, woe to them as they learnt very quickly that they should not make that mistake. They learnt very quickly that Judith was indeed a person who was here for a purpose and who would in no way pull back from fighting for the causes she believed in. She brought her life experience to this place and we, the people she represented and Australia are better for it. As we have heard, she was tireless in her political efforts for her community, for the Liberal Party and, as so many others have spoken about, particularly for the communities she represented directly and in which she lived.

I would like to talk about what I think made Judith uniquely effective as a politician, a senator and an advocate. As well as being a profoundly decent person in whom one could always trust, she had an extraordinary empathy with people. Judith had an extraordinary ability to connect with the people she was talking to and representing, as we have heard from so many stories and anecdotes today. She had an insight into what made people tick and what mattered to them and into why they were doing what they were doing. At a personal level, last year when I had a serious but temporary illness in my own family, Judith constantly checked in on me with the occasional phone call and email, and a note wishing me best wishes, for a number of weeks. Back in this place, she would pop round just to check up on how I was. Knowing that she was always thinking about someone else and the burdens that someone else was carrying was extraordinary, given what she was going through at that time. It was this very skill that Judith brought to her public life. We have heard about her passion for the members of the ADF and for the health system. It was not just about a budget, which we might hear about later tonight, or billions of dollars; it was actually about people, whether it was particularly cancer survivors, people needing cancer treatments or members of the Australian Defence Force. It was about the experiences that people were having with the government and their own communities.

Her life experience and her understanding of her own community, as well as her understanding of what made bureaucrats tick and what made government work, were what made her such a powerful advocate. Judith's insight into people opened our eyes. In my time with Judith she opened my eyes to the lives and challenges of those with whom I did not share experiences and, when we talk about those who do bring such a broad experience of life, I think that maintaining an open mind and allowing them to share their experiences is so important.

I am glad that Senator Johnson mentioned the patient assisted transport scheme because that was one of my first long discussions with Senator Adams at a Senate committee hearing, and I note that today there has been a bit of controversy about it in South Australia. I imagine that Judith would have been hoping that one of us follows that up with as much rigour as we can muster, as she undoubtedly would have done in a couple of weeks at Senate estimates. There were many issues where Judith brought her own experience, issues which we could so easily forget as we talk about billions of dollars of government programs in the abstract but which mean so much to individuals who need the assistance of government or who need a system to work for them. Judith made sure we did not forget the people when we talked about government policy and when we had our occasional arguments, as we may have over the next few weeks.

Judith did this on myriad issues but, as people have highlighted, also on that particular passion for the health system, which all of us interface with and all of us touch through ourselves, our families and friends. Judith was a friend, a profoundly decent person and a valued colleague. Her strength and determination is an inspiration for all of us. She also reminded us about the real and practical importance of what we do here and, importantly, that we should value every moment of our own lives and our own ability to make a contribution to our family, to our friends and to this place. Judith, you are sorely missed. My deepest condolences to your family, particularly to your sons, Stuart and Robert, who were so gracious to share you with us.

4:05 pm

Photo of Richard ColbeckRichard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise to lend support to this motion moved by Senator Abetz and to associate myself with the comments of other senators around the chamber who have paid tribute to Senator Judith Adams and her work here. Sometimes we think that the comments on or our contributions to these debates might not be adequate to actually provide a full and proper tribute to a colleague but I think that, as so often is the case in the committee work in particular, which Judith loved so much, the contribution of the whole actually does paint the picture that between us all we want to paint on behalf of a colleague like Judith, whom we have just lost.

It has been mentioned here today that Judith was not a high-profile senator, and that might be the case, but those that needed to know Judith did know Judith; they did know the work that she did and they knew that they could go to her to get the representation they wanted or needed in respect of a particular issue. She could often appear unassuming but, once you got to know her, you knew that to take that unassuming nature for granted was a sincere mistake, because she would pursue something with all her being until she got the result she was looking to achieve. Her interests were particularly around issues that involved people in rural and regional communities. Like others, I can recall being in estimates and committee inquiries while she discussed in deep detail the workings, failings or otherwise of the patient assisted transport system, or how better to operate it. I think that is one particular thing. Anything to do with rural health and with women's rural health was important to Judith—and rural education also, something that has not been mentioned here. I have been on backbench committees and heard her discuss quite passionately the requirements for people in regional and rural Australia to access the sort of education they need or the requirements for getting to centres for a high-quality education for their kids. She was really very passionate about that.

Judith's practical knowledge was one of the things that she brought to debate and discussion; she had a practical knowledge. Colleagues have talked about the experience she brought to her role. That practical experience allowed her to assess how things might work and to interrogate departmental officers on the practicalities of making a particular program work—or, as she would have liked to have seen it, work better—in the interests of her communities. It did not matter whether you were talking about health issues, education issues or issues of rural importance to her. There has been discussion about the single desk today, but she would talk about issues for wool growers, wheat growers and graziers generally; it really did not matter. She brought a strength of opinion when talking about those particular matters and also a practical understanding.

For Judith, the issue was important. She could play the politics as hard and as well as anybody, and examples of that have been demonstrated in comments that have been made about her love of campaigning and doorknocking in seats where she had particular responsibility. She did that in a way which I think is an example to any aspirant to politics. In fact, it is an example to anybody who is involved in politics and really wants to make sure that they cover all the bases and campaign to the nth degree, which is what Judith did. But she did that not only as a matter of course; she did that, as we have heard a number of times today, on the back of quite severe illness and without any comment or expression of concern. She saw that as her job and she was not going to let anything get in the way of her objectives, whether they be on policy or in the context of campaigning in a marginal seat to make sure that she got the result that she wanted.

Judith's unwillingness to allow her illness to impose on her work has been a theme of colleagues' comments today, which I think is more than appropriate because she was not going to allow that to occur. I do not think I need to repeat what has been said by other colleagues, but I want to add my weight to those comments because what gave us the perspective of Judith as a woman and as a Senate colleague is the fact that she was prepared to put herself behind the role that she had been given, and the responsibility and the privilege that she had been given, to serve in this place in the context of looking after her constituents and of her role within the Liberal Party. Judith was someone who was vitally connected to her constituency, and that is why I made the comment I made earlier: she might not have been high profile, but in the communities where she was working she was certainly very well known. Obviously, in her home community of Kojonup she was loved and respected, and I think that is a real measure of her and a demonstration of the way in which she was connected to her community. She knew them well, and that is why she was so good at doing what she was doing in her committee work in this place. Not only was she connected to her communities but she knew them. She knew what they needed, she knew what they wanted and she was able to represent those things in this place.

I do not think there is any fear in saying that Senator Judith Adams represented all of those communities and all of those interests in an absolutely exemplary fashion. She served her state, she served her party and she served this country with absolute distinction. In that context, I would like to associate myself with the remarks of my colleagues here today across the chamber, send my sincere condolences to Stuart, Robert and her extended family and say to Judith, 'Congratulations on your service to the country. You served this country and this place in an exemplary fashion. I hope sincerely that you rest in peace.'

4:12 pm

Photo of Mary FisherMary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise to pay tribute to our colleague and my friend Senator Judith Adams. Much of what I would say has already been said, so I shall not reput it, other than to say the following: thou shall not speak ill of the dead. When it comes to Judith Adams it is pretty easy to follow that, because there is no ill of which to speak other than, of course, the one which dogged her to her death—not that we or the outside world would know that from Judith herself. Here is another contradiction about Judith: whilst she pretty much wore her heart on her sleeve, when it came to her own physical illness we knew only that which Judith wanted us to know. In the end, the woman who had very little time for spin, in particular political spin, I suspect fed us a fair bit of spin about the truth of her own situation.

You would not say of Judith that she did not suffer fools gladly; in fact, Judith was pretty kind and very polite to fools. But Judith would not suffer pretenders gladly. She could spot one from about a hundred paces. Particularly if one of her colleagues was thinking of standing for something that she did not really think we stood for, she wasted very little time in putting her views directly to that person. There was no suffering pretenders gladly for our former senator Judith Adams. She pretty much put herself last. Her family knew very well what they had in their 'senator mum', as they put it at the funeral service. They knew what they had; they knew what they were letting Australian people share. I suspect even her husband, Gordon, not expecting that he would be taken first, knew that he was sharing Judith and the reduced time Judith had with the rest of the country. Her sons must have known that Judith was continuing to devote her diminishing time with the rest of the country instead of with them. The people of Kojonup in the south-west of WA—'Koji' as we called it when we were growing up in WA—knew exactly what they had in Senator Judith Adams and they knew exactly who was representing them in Canberra and across the country. My mum and I were speaking to the minister who conducted the service just before she started the service. I think she is from South Africa and had come to Australia three or five months prior. She said, in very polite terms, she had been waiting for someone to fall off the perch in Kojonup or Katanning—the two communities for which she was responsi­ble—and no-one had until Judith. Mum and I said: 'Well, this will be one out of the box. Koji probably hasn't seen one like it and probably will never see one like it again.'

Judith's influence in rural and regional Western Australia spread much further than the people of Kojonup and the south-west. It was my mum who first introduced me to Judith. My parents still farm at Beverley, where I grew up in the wheat belt, further north and more due east of Perth. Judith's influence spread far and wide, so much so that at the funeral service a family friend of mine and a good friend of Judith's, Lyn Hatherly, who farms at Arthur River, which forms a kind of border between the Great Southern region and the wheat belt, was at pains to call out: 'Mary, Mary'—as family friends call me—'can you introduce me to Tony Abbott? I've got something I want to say to him.' I thought now is not really the time at Judith's funeral, but I said, 'Sure, I'll get you introduced to Tony Abbott.' Of course, I dutifully did so just as Judith's hearse was going down the street. 'Tony, meet Lyn Hatherly, farmer from Arthur River.' She said, 'I just want to say one thing to you, Mr Abbott: Judith Adams was a fantastic advocate for country Western Australia.' That is all Lyn Hatherly had to say to Tony. Country Western Australia knew what they had and know what they have lost.

Judith was also very caring about individual people. Others have spoken about the importance of her undying love for estimates, even when she was crook. About a year or 1½ years ago, she tore herself away from estimates with me to help a mutual acquaintance whose mental health we had some concerns about. Judith spent so much time—time she did not have—speaking to the family and gave them news they probably did not want to hear. Judith managed to get professional help for this person—again, stepping outside herself when she could have been focusing on herself.

Judith set up an office in Albany, Western Australia, the Christmas before last—showing the great lengths to which she would go. Senator Back has an office in Esperance, but Senator Adams was prepared to do the hard yards to Albany, one of the more difficult and challenging metropolitan centres electorally for us. Senator Eggleston, Senator Back and I went to the opening. There, again, Judith thought totally outside the box. I got a phone call out of the blue: 'MJ, do you want to come to my opening?' She knew how much of my youth I had spent growing up in Albany and she thought to invite me along. Indeed, I did go along.

Thank you, Senator Judith. Thank you to her family, and in particular to Stuart and Robert, for having shared their 'senator mum' with us. We are, and the country is, all the richer for having been able to share her. Thank you.

4:20 pm

Photo of Michael RonaldsonMichael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise with regret at not being able to attend the funeral for Judith with colleagues from both sides and I was anxious to speak today. I just want to reinforce those messages previous people have said about Judith's passion, experience and pragmatism. It was quite a remarkable life.

I do want to talk about two other matters. Judith's experience in Vietnam had left her as a long-term and passionate supporter of our returned men and women. While she was not overt about it, she worked very strongly and was an enormous support to them. I only saw Judith emotional once and that was at the Mount Clarence Light Horse memorial in Albany. I was there with her back in November 2010. She related the story of her father, who had left from Albany. She was a fierce, fierce supporter of Anzac and she was a fierce supporter of the bonds that remain to this day between our country and her birthplace, New Zealand. She was proud of her father's endeavours, as she should have been. She was proud of Albany. I know that Alana Lacy, who was her staff member in Albany, and people like Tricia Matthews will miss her desperately. There was that enormous passion. I have never served on a committee with Judith, so it has been an enlightening experience for me today to hear others talk about their remarkable experiences with her. I suppose mine have been more in a portfolio sense. I saw Judith's passion for the centenary of Anzac in my visits to her. I saw the passion of her staff in the office in Albany. I saw her passion in providing support for our candidate in O'Connor, Rick Wilson, whom she was fighting tirelessly for, and for whom I am sure she would want us to continue fighting tirelessly in the run-up to the next election.

I feel an enormous degree of sadness for what has happened, but what a remarkable legacy she has left her children. They should look, through all their sadness, at what their mother has done and they should be quite rightly enormously proud of that.

There has been a lot of talk today about Judith's interest in women's health; I would remind everyone that she was on the men's health select committee as well. So it was not just about women's health—she was a passionate supporter of the health of all of us. I remember being chastised by Judith on a number of occasions when I was 'going out to get some fresh air' with some others around this place. I copped a beating from her. We did share some past experiences in that regard. There was always a knowing nod. You knew that she was in diabolical strife. I know that when we were at Mount Clarence she was a very sick woman, but there was no way known she was not going to participate in something so deeply personal for her. Rest in peace, Judith.

4:24 pm

Photo of Helen KrogerHelen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Saturday, 31 March 2012 is a day that has made an indelible mark on me. I was in my electorate office in Burwood East when I received a phone call shortly after 10 o'clock advising me that Judith had died. Whilst we all knew that she was very ill, it still came as a huge shock to me, largely because I had made a phone call to her at home only on the previous Tuesday night. She had moved out of hospital and had returned home after the doctors had organised what is called, in medical terms, as Judith advised me, a peg into her stomach so that she could be fed through that and would be able to go home. At that time I had visited her in hospital, following Senator Evans and Senator Parry, and she had been incredibly upbeat and looking forward to the opportunity of resuming her life, although she was going to have to conduct herself in a very different way. She was coming to terms with the fact that she was going to have to consider how she conducted a parliamentary life whilst being fed through a peg directly into her stomach. So it really did come as a great shock, having only called on the Tuesday night. I spoke to Robbie, who I have got to know very well since I have been in the position of chief whip, who told me that he had just driven his mother to hospital and that they were doing some tests to see why the intravenous feeding was not working as it should. But they were hopeful that she would return home. After I got the news on the Saturday morning, and being quite shocked and very upset, I did call Robbie, who then spoke of the fact that in the last couple of days his mother had decided that she had really given it her very best shot; she had no regrets and she felt that it was time to give way to nature, and that is what she did.

Having been counselled by Judith since being elected to the position of chief whip, I was very mindful today of what advice she would give me in conducting the way in which we honoured and paid tribute to her today. So it was with a great deal of trepidation that I considered something which she would have thought was highly unusual and out of the ordinary—organising a floral tribute. In my mind, that would clearly bring memories and recollections for us of what Judith was like and how she organised her office. Those of us who visited her in her office would know that when you walked in she always had a fresh, beautiful posy of Victorian style flowers in her little reception area and a great big bunch of beautiful flowers, including gorgeous Christmas lilies, the perfume of which would emanate, and I would be the recipient of that perfume in the whip's office. So it was with some trepidation—because we know that Judith was a no-nonsense, no-fuss person, someone who would preach moderation in everything—that I organised the tribute, because I could imagine Judith telling me that it was an excessive waste of money and that it was all unnecessary. But I did think that it was something that was very much Judith and something that was quite appropriate for today.

My colleagues have reflected at length about her enormous contribution to this place, so I will not traverse ground that they have already covered, except to acknowledge a couple of things. Having been in the Senate since 2008, I had worked particularly closely with Judith since being elected whip last year. The first thing that struck me in my time working closely with her was her enormous work ethic. There was no greater demonstration of that than during the parliamentary sitting period late last year when the hours of the business here in the Senate were changed to accommodate more sitting days so that the carbon tax could be passed. The person who was most impacted by that, even though that person did not discuss it or argue why it would not be appropriate, was Judith. What people did not know was that every Friday that we sat was a Friday that Judith actually chose not to fly back to Perth and go to Royal Perth Hospital to have her chemotherapy. Every Friday she would try to get out so that that Friday or the following Monday she would be able to have her chemotherapy. By sitting during those two weeks in which the carbon tax was passed she decided that she would put off the chemotherapy that was so critically important for her own health so that she could do her job and so that no-one could suggest that she was a slouch and not actually doing her work. People have talked about her being stoic and about her strength, but I suggest that she was totally selfless, because there she put her own life in jeopardy by being in the Senate chamber and not having the chemotherapy which was absolutely critical for her health.

The last sitting week that we were here—and, as everybody in the chamber knows, it was an extra sitting week—was a week when she could not get here because it literally would have been a life-and-death situation if she came back for that week. Amazingly, I have to say, she decided that she would stay in her home state and be hooked up to the drugs that she had to be in Royal Perth Hospital.

She was a woman of enormous integrity. Those of us who went to her memorial service saw that. She would have been delighted that she had provided an opportunity for the 200 or so locals who attended that service to meet with their representatives in parliament so they could chew our ears off on issues of particular interest to them. I was sitting there thinking that she would be looking down and smiling from above, which is unquestionably where she is, about having orchestrated for us to meet all these locals whom she had been very effective and tenacious in representing here in this place.

In closing, I would like to recognise, firstly, Judith's office staff. So many of us naturally think of family at such a time, but to her and to them her staff were extended family. They did not merely work for Judith; they were a part of her extended family. It was an incredibly difficult time for them. I acknowledge Harriet Bateman in my office, who flew over and assisted Judith's office. They were more than capable of organising things themselves. As you can imagine, if you were working for Judith you were very capable of organising an office. But Harriet gave tremendous personal support to Judith's staff members. I really would like to put on the record my thanks to her for doing that. She is a young woman and it takes a bit of courage to do that. From Judith's office, I want to pay special tribute to Alexandra Nicol, Alana Lacy and Cate Creedon.

I also want to make a special note of Tricia Matthews. Trish, we all know, came across to Canberra with Judith and worked with Judith here. They were really like sisters. They were sisters in arms, if you like. Trish was very close to Judith in all sorts of ways. In the time that Judith was in Royal Perth Hospital—which was essentially several weeks, except when she had an office function in December, before she passed away—Trish would visit her every day.

Judith's hospital room was like an office. I visited her there, with Senator Evans and Senator Parry, and we can attest that it was like an office. In some of the rooms that she was moved into she could not get internet access, which annoyed her no end, so Trish would print off emails. Judith was still working right through this time. She also did not shy away from giving me advice when I visited her. She asked me to let our colleagues on this side know that Radio National did record all the interjections and all the interjections could be heard during question time. Not only could they be heard but she could name the people making them. She gave me their names and she said, 'Helen, you've got to go back and tell them'—for the benefit of my colleagues here I will not name them today—'they've got to be more careful what they say. If I can hear them, everybody else can.' She was really on the job till the last.

Like my colleagues I would like to particularly pay tribute to her family, Stuart and Robbie, and to her extended family and Gordon's family in Western Australia. I had the benefit of sitting with them at the memorial service. They told some terrific stories. As my other colleagues have said, it is a shame that we are only able to get to know people more fully at such times. I think we should all learn some lessons from that and perhaps try to get to know each other a little better and more fully whilst we are in this place.

Judith was a great woman. She had a wonderful family. She has left a tremendous family. To Stuart and Robbie, their partners and their children also, I say that we continue to think of them but in particular we thank them for sharing their mother and grandmother with us for such a long period of time. She made such a contribution to this place, to Western Australia and, most of all, to all Australians.

Question agreed to, honourable senators standing in their places.