We have lost someone who’s a very good person. She’s a friend, first and foremost. She’s a very warm person. She could light up a room she could talk to anyone.
She represented health workers and that she could sit down and talk to anyone from any walk of life. And she had an enviable skill. Sometimes in politics, we can appear indirect or guarded, [but she] was never guarded. She was very open …
This means that her husband has lost his soulmate. They were two sides of the same coin. So that’s difficult. That’s very hard to imagine.
To my kids, she was the sort of veritable aunt and so you know, no parent wants to explain to their child that an adult in their life is just no longer there. How do you explain death and loss? It’s not an easy conversation. I’m not unique in that but it’s still not easy.
In the parliament. You know, I think one of the things which frustrate Australians … they feel that politicians aren’t saying what they think … but in Kimberley’s case, she would speak her mind.
She was a human rights advocate. She was fierce about dictatorships and autocracies around the world and sometimes that can ruffle feathers. And I think that, you know, she got a lot of stress … she wouldn’t cut the cloth of her views to suit the fashion of the day.
