How do you write the obituary for someone who should not have died? Certainly not so suddenly.

Rochelle Porteous fell sick on January 29, and not feeling any better the next day, went to hospital in the afternoon and was dead two hours later from a raging infection.

Sure, she had not enjoyed the best of health for the past decade and was wheelchair bound, but she was still active in the Greens.

In fact, she was co-convenor of the state campaign committee preparing for the federal elections.

She’d attended a meeting of that committee three days before she died. As usual, she had been a commanding presence. The news of her death stunned the party.

Our hearts immediately went out to her partner and husband for the past 40 plus years, Aurelio Spagnuolo.

In talking of Rochelle, it was always impossible not to include Aurelio: The other half of the complete couple. They were inseparable and Aurelio was her essential partner. In fact, they were one of the great love stories of the Greens movement.

Others who knew her better can talk of her emerging as a woman shaped by the 1970s, the age of women’s liberation, of second-wave feminism.

The patriarchy — in the world, in the Greens, or anywhere else — held no fears for her.

Rochelle was Newcastle born and raised, and after matriculating from Newcastle Girls High in 1977, shouldered her backpack and took off for Europe for the traditional gap year. She didn’t come back for another 20 years.

The reason was the Italian she met in Italy: Aurelio.

They travelled far and wide and settled in London in the late-1980s where, utilising Rochelle’s flair for organising and........

© Green Left Weekly