Community Independent candidate Penny Ackery loses husband to cancer

In his last days John Steel encouraged his wife - Independent candidate for Hume Penny Ackery - to continue her campaign.

After recently losing her husband John Steel to cancer, the community Independent candidate for Hume Penny Ackery reminisced about what a force he was in encouraging her political career.

Ms Ackery said that Mr Steel was in remission and that “everything was going beautifully” when in December of last year he became very ill and the type of cancer meant he could no longer do dialysis.

While she and her son knew they had little time left with Mr Steel, the passing came unexpectedly.

“It was something that by about January we knew was going to be not very long with John, but it came a bit quicker than what we wanted – a lot quicker – and quicker than we thought too,” Ms Ackery said.

They were able to spend some time with him at home but mostly in hospital, which she was grateful for.

“The hospital system is amazing, particularly in the palliative care unit where he was. Both Canberra and Goulburn hospitals were amazing,” Ms Ackery said.

“My son and I were able to spend nights with him towards the end in the last week, and as many hours as we wanted, because while he was very weak, he was very strong in his head and more than able to chat and laugh.

“We spent the last couple of weeks reminiscing and talking about all the things we’ll need to do without him there.

“Talking about things that my son and I would be carrying on because John felt it was important that we kept our lives going, so there was something for us afterwards.”

Ms Ackery said that one of the things he “made plain” for her to continue was running in the election.

Speaking of how they met, Ms Ackery shared it was a “love of bushwalking that first got (them) together.”

“We were both extreme bushwalkers one might say,” Ms Ackery said.

“We met through that and founded the South Coast Bushwalking Club along with some other people down in Wollongong, and it sort of went from there.

Both Ms Ackery and Mr Steel were also “both extremely politically aware in (their) upbringings”, which was one of the other things that brought them together.

“He was very strident in his views, and we would have many discussions about how things could be done better and what was happening,” Ms Ackery said.

So when it came to Ms Ackery pursuing her campaign, Mr Steel was “very encouraging.”

Penny Ackery, who is based in Goulburn, was greatly supported by her husband, John Steel, to pursue her candidacy for Hume.

“When I was asked if I’d like to be one of the nominees to stand with the community, he was supportive, was able to cook the meals and would make sure I was up with the news.

“He really felt that we need to change how we run our democracy in Australia and to get back to sort of having people on the ground, the voters being able to have a say and to really be the ones to guide the country.

Inbetween being an electrician and manager, Mr Steel was a teacher, which was just another thing that he and Ms Ackery – who was a high school teacher – had in common.

“Fifteen years ago he retrained to be a Design and Technology teacher and it was the best thing for the education system, because he was just the best teacher,” Ms Ackery said.

“A lot of students really valued how he worked with them and the way he taught. Huge amount of respect from students and teachers alike.”