Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to offer my condolences to the family of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Twenty-five years old—what a young age to step into public life, and Her Majesty did this day after day for 70 years. We live in a time when people typically change their career three times in their lifetime and retire in their 60s as opposed to their 90s. Queen Elizabeth's commitment to community service was clear.

I like to think that Her Majesty was ahead of her time. When she was 19 years old, she trained as a mechanic. I imagine she was part of a small but growing number of women who picked up a trade during wartime efforts. I hope that this little-known fact encourages girls to understand that you can both get on the tools and put on a dress and frock up—but perhaps not at the same time!

Her Majesty was no technophobe. The Queen stepped into a role at a time when television was brand new. For the Queen's coronation ceremony, the then UK Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, was horrified at the thought of using cameras inside the sacred Westminster Abbey. Meanwhile, Her Majesty arguably wanted to break down class barriers and televise the ceremony. For the first time in history, about 30 million people witnessed the coronation, and many more tuned in across the world.

The Queen was one of the first televised working mothers the public saw. Yes, she had support bringing up her children; however, I think that she understood what working women needed—that support. I was so pleased to learn that Queen Elizabeth II opened Lady Gowrie kindergarten in 1953 in East Victoria Park, my home suburb in the heart of Swan. Lady Gowrie—another woman ahead of her time—was passionate about the wellbeing of children and early childhood education, particularly for disadvantaged children. She achieved the extraordinary, which was that the Commonwealth government established Lady Gowrie childcare centres in 1939. Child care was critical due to skills shortages from the wartime effort, and, of course, child care allowed women to step up and participate in the paid workforce. Better access to child care was needed in the 1930s, and we still need it in the 2020s.

In my humble opinion, our Queen had the most genuine smiles and the twinkliest eyes when she interacted with children. Perhaps this was because of children's infectious joy and unfiltered enthusiasm. I love this story from her visit to Geraldton in 1988. Two sisters, Belinda de Corti and Jo Hawkins, had travelled with their parents from Mullewa. As free-spirited country girls do, they ran into the crowd, past the barricades, to present the Queen with some flowers. Quickly, security nabbed Belinda, and she immediately burst into tears. Prince Philip quickly intervened, and the girls were able to meet Her Majesty. The girls remember a gentle and kind lady. The Queen was in disbelief when the girls explained that they had a pet kangaroo and an emu back on the farm.

There's another story from 1988. In the Goldfields, a young 26-year-old woman, Kerry Pettit, got the gig of teaching 1,200 students from multiple schools to perform a dance for the Queen. She only had three months to prepare. She had to somehow take a gaggle of students from multiple schools in multiple towns and transform them into a unified dance troupe literally fit for a Queen. Students from Kambalda, Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie piled onto the oval draped in green and gold. I was lucky enough to be one of those students, so I got to rock out to Johnny Farnham's 'You're the Voice' and 'Celebration' for the Queen.

I would not have imagined that a little girl who danced for the Queen on the grass at the Kalgoorlie oval would, 36 years later, swear allegiance to the Queen as our head of state in this very place. Of course, Her Majesty opened this building, which she explained is the embodiment of the democratic principles of freedom, equality and justice, which I feel is the reason why I'm here. Following on from what our Prime Minister said yesterday, I agree that the biggest tribute that we can pay to the Queen is to have a sense of duty to each other and a renewed sense of service to our community.

See this speech in context