CONDOLENCES

Dr HAINES (Indi) (19:05): It is a privilege and an honour to stand here today and make some remarks about the incredible Justice Mary Gaudron. One of the things I love about being a parliamentarian is coming to these debates, these condolence motions, where I hear from my colleagues and learn so much about the people that we're honouring with a motion such as this.

I thank the member for Fenner for his extraordinary remarks and the detail around Justice Gaudron's extraordinary contribution to the law. He was able to speak with such eloquence about matters of law, logic and legacy not only from a legal professional perspective but from a human perspective. I won't speak so much of the detail of that, although I'm sure there'll be much repetition in what I have to say and what others have documented.

I'll speak more plainly, really, of Justice Gaudron's humanity and her characteristic rural style, which certainly appealed to me as a rural woman. So it is that today I rise to acknowledge the passing and indeed the most extraordinary life of the Hon. Mary Gaudron KC.

Much has been made of Justice Gaudron's status as a pioneer, and rightly so. While I don't want to repeat my colleagues, it's impossible not to acknowledge some of her many firsts, and we must not ever forget the firsts that this woman forged. She was the first woman appointed Queen's Counsel in New South Wales.

She was the first female solicitor-general in that state or anywhere in Australia, and both the first female and the youngest person to become a federal judge. Then, of course, in 1987, which is really not very long ago, she became the first woman appointed to the High Court of Australia, and she certainly was not the last woman appointed. Justice Gaudron was acutely aware that she would pave the way or not for other women to come, later saying she didn't want to be the first and the last, or to give anyone cause to say, 'We tried a woman and it didn't work.' Well, they tried it, and it did work.

Justice Gaudron has been followed in her firsts by scores of talented and capable women—so many, in fact, that it's easy to forget that it wasn't always this way. Justice Gaudron was forced to resign her part-time job at the Crown Solicitor's Office after getting married because—yes, it's hard to believe, but it's true—at the time, married women weren't permitted to work in the Public Service.

She was the first woman to ever speak at a High Court swearing-in ceremony, and it was her own—extraordinary. Justice Gaudron's groundbreaking career began not in the well-appointed suburbs of large cities like Melbourne or Sydney but at a local convent school—so familiar to us in rural and regional Australia—in north-western New South Wales. I think in the past few days we've all heard that fabulous story of young Mary from Moree receiving a copy of the Constitution from a visiting Doc Evatt.

She was determined to be a barrister—again, incredible for a young girl in a country town, who I'm sure wouldn't have met too many barristers and obviously hadn't met any women barristers. She was determined to become one, and so she did. She ignored the advice of a local solicitor who suggested perhaps she should consider a job at the telephone exchange instead.

It's a classic story of the grit and the persistence of Mary Gaudron and, more broadly, the grit and persistence of many rural women who've had to break through such barriers. Justice Gaudron's ferocious intellect was matched by her equally ferocious commitment to social justice, something she acknowledged was shaped by her working-class upbringing in regional Australia—not that she thought her background was or should be remarkable on the High Court, because to her it was self-evident that the judiciary should reflect the whole of Australian society.

She was known as fiery and quick witted but always plain spoken. On hearing that the vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney had wanted to award the university law medal to the male student who came second to her, Justice Gaudron is said to have observed, 'The only difference between us is that I sit down to pee.' I had the honour of working with Justice Gaudron on the development of legislation for a federal anticorruption commission, something she'd been advocating for since 2017.

When Justice Gaudron first came to my office with a team of other extraordinary and experienced judges, one of my staff, a young woman and a law graduate, told me that meeting Mary Gaudron was a dream come true. She could barely speak when Mary Gaudron walked into the room. Of course, as we've heard, there was no-one kinder to young professional women and young lawyers—and young women anywhere, actually—than Mary Gaudron.

Indeed, it really is one of the greatest privileges of serving in this parliament to meet and work with people of the stature of Justice Gaudron. For someone of such huge stature, she actually wasn't very big; she was quite small. One of my fond memories of that time of developing that legislation for an anticorruption commission was doing a press conference with a whole range of retired judges.

Justice Gaudron came along, but she said, 'I don't do press conferences; I'm not going to do a press conference.' I managed to persuade her, and she said, 'I'll do it, but I do need to have a cigarette first.' So here she was, this amazing, courageous woman who I had the great, great pleasure—I don't generally like being around when someone's smoking a cigarette, but, by golly, you wouldn't get me between her and the outside garden.

So out we went. We had a chat about what we'd talk about in this press conference. She had a cigarette.

She came out, and the press were waiting for her. You could have heard a pin drop. They wanted to hear what Justice Gaudron had to say.

We all did. Justice Gaudron's legacy will persist in all for whom she paved the way, and her legacy will also persist for a just and equal Australia. I offer my heartfelt condolences to her family, her friends and her associates, all of whom I know are so proud to have been associated with Justice Mary Gaudron.

Vale. May she rest in peace.