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Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Page: 2725

Senator McEWEN (South Australia—Government Whip in the Senate) (14:06): 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.