CONDOLENCES

Ms KEARNEY (Cooper—Assistant Minister for Social Services and Assistant Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence) (13:00): Vale, Mary Gaudron—a trailblazer; a feminist; a fierce advocate for workers, for women and for justice for First Nations people; and, for much of my life, a personal hero of mine. I am one of nine children—three boys and six girls. We were a political household, and my dad, Mick, loved nothing more than a good family discussion.

He would run them like debates in this chamber. He would be speaker, and we would all be allocated a seat and given five minutes to contribute. Everyone had to have a say—you couldn't get out of it—girls and boys alike.

Mum was exempt from this, because she was a bit like the Leader of the House, stepping in every now and then, when things went awry. Dad took it upon himself to keep us aware of the world around us, and he was determined that his daughters would be as involved as his boys. I was a bit shy for his liking and not so confident, and I remember, a few years before he died, he told me about Mary Gaudron—a wonderful woman, he said. 'Geddy, learn about her, and I think you'll learn from her.' Mary Gaudron had recently helped establish the right to unpaid maternity leave for Australian workers.

Dad told me about that and other things about her, and it sparked a lifelong admiration of mine for Mary Gaudron. Maternity leave, albeit unpaid, was a profound step towards women's economic equality and part of a long road that ultimately led to paid parental leave—a road we are still travelling as we continue to expand those rights to six months paid leave today—and that was just one chapter in an extraordinary life.

Mary Gaudron was born in Moree in 1943 into a working-class family. One of my favourite stories about her comes from when she was just eight years old. The legendary Doc Evatt was visiting Moree, campaigning against the Menzies government's attempt to ban the Communist Party.

When Evatt began talking about the Constitution, little Mary put up her hand and asked, 'Please, sir, what's a constitution?' Evatt explained that it contained the laws by which parliaments were governed. Gaudron asked if it was something like the Ten Commandments. Evatt later sent her a copy in the mail, and Mary Gaudron, who had been expecting two stone tablets, like the Ten Commandments, was apparently bitterly disappointed when a little pamphlet arrived instead.

I just love that story. Ultimately, it sparked her interest in the law, and she became a lawyer. The fact that women simply weren't expected to do that in those days did not concern her one bit.

Mary Gaudron grew up witnessing the appalling racism experienced by First Nations people in Moree. Years later, she recalled that Aboriginal people could not ride the bus across town, swim in the municipal pool or sit freely in the local cinema. Aboriginal children were denied the same education as white children, and Aboriginal people who needed hospital care were segregated.

She said it was absolutely impossible not to understand that some people were treated as though they were more equal than others. She carried that understanding of injustice throughout her whole life. Gaudron knew that discrimination personally—herself.

When she tried to obtain articles of clerkship, distinguished lawyers patiently explained that they simply did not employ women. After finally being admitted to the bar, she tried to buy a room in a barrister's chambers in Sydney and was repeatedly knocked back for the same reason. So Mary Gaudron did what she would do throughout her career.

She just kept going. In 1972, she became the first woman appointed to the Council of the New South Wales Bar. That same year, she argued one of the great industrial cases in Australian history: the equal pay case.

Gaudron helped establish a principle that generations of women have continued fighting to make real: women's work is not worth less simply because women do it. That principle has shaped my own life enormously. As a nurse and later as Federal Secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation and President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, I spent decades fighting not only for better wages and conditions but for care work and the care economy to be properly valued.

Nursing isn't worth less because it has historically been women's work. Neither is aged care and neither is early childhood education. Today, when I see women in those sectors winning significant pay rises after decades of undervaluation—well, I think about Mary Gaudron.

She went on to become the youngest ever deputy president of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, in 1974. There she helped establish the maternity leave standard that first brought her into my life. Then came more firsts: the first female solicitor-general in any Australian jurisdiction, the first female Queen's Counsel in New South Wales, and—in 1987, at just 44 years of age—the first woman appointed to the High Court of Australia.

But Mary's legacy cannot be measured simply by counting the doors she walked through. What mattered was what she did once she got inside—the landmark Mabo case. Mary joined Justice Deane in confronting the lie of terra nullius and described Australia's treatment of First Nations people as 'the darkest aspect of the history of this nation'.

They wrote that our nation would remain diminished until there was acknowledgement of, and retreat from, the injustices of the past. These words still carry enormous weight. Mary also understood something many trailblazing women know intimately: sometimes getting into institutions built by men requires women to suppress the very things that make them different.

In 1997, she reflected that women of her generation had learned to navigate rules and traditions created almost entirely by men for men. 'We became honorary men,' she said, 'and they thought that was equality.' Mary knew we should aspire to something much greater than that—not simply allowing women into institutions unchanged but changing the institutions themselves, something I'm proud to say the women of this and previous Labor governments have done with gusto.

After leaving the High Court, Mary took that lifelong commitment to workers' rights onto the international stage through the International Labour Organization. That chapter of her life meant a great deal to me too. I was incredibly proud to work with the ILO during my time as president of the ACTU, including as a member of the ILO's governing body.

Its mission—defending workers' rights, supporting trade unions and advancing dignity and safety at work across the world—reflects so much of what Mary stood for. When I look back over my own life, I can see Mary's influence woven through it. I was lucky enough to have women like Mary Gaudron ahead of me, women who walked into rooms where they were told they didn't belong, women who refused to accept that women's work was worth less, women who challenged racism and injustice, and women who proved that you could reach the highest institutions in this country without forgetting the people those institutions are there to serve.

The Prime Minister rightly said that Mary didn't just open doors for women; she tore them off their hinges, and generations of Australian women walked through the space she created. I am so lucky to be one of them. I hope that in some small way, through my own fights for workers' rights and women's equality, and by continuing to use my voice in great institutions like this parliament, I can do for the women coming behind me a tiny fraction of what Mary did for my generation, because that is the responsibility that comes with being given a path that someone else has fought to create.

You make it wider. You make it easier for the next woman to walk down. And where there are still doors closed to her, you help tear those hinges off too.

My dad was right all those years ago. Mary Gaudron was a wonderful woman worth looking up to and worth learning from. I did it then; I do it now.

And I always will. Vale, Mary Gaudron.