Page 928 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 May 2020
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She put forward legislation on a wide range of issues, including calling for a ban on caged egg production in the ACT, calling for a container deposit scheme, and successfully calling for a ban on SLAPP suits: strategic lawsuits against public participation. She pushed for triple bottom line analysis, for better annual reporting on ecologically sustainable development indicators, and for improved democratic processes. Importantly, she campaigned against unilateral decisions by the majority government on key issues like the mass school closures.
Her staff from the time proudly recall how resilient and persistent Deb was. No matter how hard the odds, no matter how many challenges and how seemingly insurmountable, she just kept going. She had great strength, motivation and integrity, and a commitment to doing things a better way and showing us a practical, viable alternative way of doing politics. Her intelligence, humour and doggedness got the Greens team through a period of majority government and her momentum took the Greens into an unprecedented balance of power.
Beyond the passion and policy intellect that most people saw, Deb was a good role model. Life threw many unfair events at her, like the death of her son, but she never used those events to explain why her life was the way it was or why she was in public housing, despite being hounded to leave. Deb held her head high and tried to fight the good fight for older women who find themselves, post-children, having given their all but without a solid base or a place of their own. In the face of threats and taunts, Deb felt she was fighting for so many other women out there who needed public housing.
She truly believed in a fair, just and better world and stood up for it, despite the personal costs. She performed her role as an MLA, on behalf of so many other women, with conviction, integrity and generosity, and for that you will see deep loyalty and respect from her Assembly staff: Roland, Clare, Sam, Indra, Andrew, Fiona and Kate.
Deb was a very modest, unassuming and down-to-earth person. After leaving the Assembly she was happy and content, settling back into her hand-built A-frame house in East Gippsland in late 2008, and she became more self-sufficient than ever, living simply, mostly from her productive garden, and involved in giving back to her local community. She worked as coordinator of far East Gippsland’s country education project, taught, and again campaigned to get woodchipping out of the south-east forests, becoming an office bearer for the Friends of Errinundra National Park and Environment East Gippsland until the end.
While having enjoyed the role and privilege of being an MLA, she noted that governments move too grindingly slow to make the necessary changes for a sustainable future, preferring grassroots politics to make the region more lively and sustainable.
Deb was diagnosed with cancer just under a year ago, just after her run for the seat of Gippsland in the federal election in late May last year. However, she kept up her community work, becoming the chair of the Orbost Exhibition Centre and the independent chair of the headspace Bairnsdale consortium just late last year. She continued to be an inspiration for how to survive when life got unfair, making her
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