Comments on: A great woman

By: audrey apple

audrey apple — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 04:22:53 +0000

Thanks for posting about this Anna. Senator Ferris was indeed a wonderful politician - truly an example of not allowing politics to interfere with her humanity or morality.

I met Senator Ferris a couple of times while I was working for Senator Stott Despoja. She was always very polite - a very, very classy lady.

Best to her family at this sad time.

By: pablo

pablo — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 02:05:59 +0000

Listening to ABC Life Matters (Tues) I was intrigued to hear her recount a visit in 2005 to Canberra Hospital outpatients prior to her diagnosis of ovarian cancer. After a very lengthy wait she demanded a CAT scan over the advice of a medico who told her it was expensive and she really should just accept her symptoms of tiredness as nothing to worry about.
Full marks for her persistence but odd to think of a Lib senator getting into the queue at a public hospital. Maybe a mark of the woman.

By: Anna Winter

Anna Winter — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 10:37:14 +0000

Here is a speech she gave a few years ago that encouraged lots of other women Senators to speak about the issue.

She was also behind the letter signed by all the female senators to Abbott last year calling for the cervical cancer vaccine to be put on the PBS.

By: Pavlov's Cat

Pavlov's Cat — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 05:36:14 +0000

The world needs more of both of them.

Anna, thanks for posting about Senator Ferris’s death. I read about this earlier today and was going to send an email, and then realised that someone at LP would be bound to pick it up quickly.

By: Guise

Guise — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 05:03:33 +0000

Not wishing to detract from Senator Ferris’ efforts in the least, I’d also like to note the death of another great Australian woman, Professor Aileen Plant. Professor Plant led the WHO response to the SARS outbreak in Vietnam and several other countries a few years ago. She was a world-recognised epidemiologist who gracefully took on this and other roles, sometimes at substantial personal risk. In a rational universe, her passing would rate far more column inches that a sportsman’s drug test.

By: tigtog

tigtog — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 04:59:42 +0000

A great loss to our national public life. We need more leaders willing to look beyond the partisan and factional to actually serving the public interest.