CONDOLENCES
Senator McKENZIE (Victoria—Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) (15:52): As Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, I rise also to associate our party with the comments of Senator Cash and Senator Wong. Kay Denman represented Tasmania in this place for just under 12 years. She entered the Senate in August 1993, chosen by the Tasmanian parliament, to fill the casual vacancy left by the late Michael Tate, whose example taught all of us that there is indeed life after politics.
Senator Denman was re-elected in her own right in 1998 and retired with the expiration of her term in June 2005. In that time, she served as a whip on both sides of the chamber, and for almost nine years she chaired the Senate Standing Committee of Senators' Interests, as well as serving on many other committees including whistleblowing inquiries. Before she came to this place, Kay Denman was a loved teacher in Tasmanian schools for more than 20 years.
Her formative years were spent in Latrobe and Railton, in the state's north-west, before she went on to serve as a private secretary to Premier Michael Field and to manage the Devonport Community Legal Centre. In her valedictory speech, Senator Denman spoke about the cause she said she most regretted having to leave unfinished, and that was support for those affected by asbestos related disease.
There are always limits to what we can do for people as politicians regardless of our very best intentions. Senator Denman told the Senate about Railton, where asbestos sheeting was produced. Her own father had worked in that factory and both her brothers had worked there too during their university holidays.
Men she had gone to school with had died. In the year she gave that speech, Senator Denman said that she'd already been to three funerals. In that same speech, she also paid tribute to the Independent Tasmanian senator Brian Harradine, a man she agreed with on almost nothing.
She declared that she had never doubted his integrity or his commitment to a fair outcome for the people of Tasmania. Senator Denman's words to this place spoke about the Senate's uniqueness and the unique way we do business in this place, which the other place, in all fairness, will never understand. It also explains how, of all our states, Tasmania produces so many senators with the most varied perspectives and views.
It is in that spirit that I say, as Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, with our own deeply felt perspective on regional communities and on how distance from the powerful capital cities can empower us, we recognise another political life spent genuinely and sometimes stubbornly but always in the service of our regional community. On behalf of the Nationals, I extend our sympathy to Senator Denman's son, Paul; her daughter, Janet; her wider family; and all of her former Labor colleagues.
Vale, Senator Denman.