If you want to know what politics should be, it’s there in the first speeches delivered by Australia’s new federal politicians.
Across parties, and outside them, this class of taxpayer-funded MPs and senators has painted a telling picture of the impetus behind their decisions to run, and how they want to make a difference.
MPs often open up during their first speech to Parliament. But this time, more than previously, these speeches reflect the change that many newcomers are demanding from the big party systems, providing a new and welcome diversity. Their political tenure will depend on how determinedly they stick by their reasons for upending their safe jobs and lives to travel to Canberra and advocate for those they serve.
Too often the promises in maiden speeches are compromised by the need to fit into large, unwieldy party plans, by growing personal ambition, or by the need to hang on to the job. Trust has been the victim.
Zoe Daniel, the MP for Goldstein, was almost turned off politics because of the “murky mess of factionalism and dark political tactics” she’d seen. Kylea Tink, the independent member for North Sydney, said the constitution did not even use the word “party”, and Kate Chaney, granddaughter to a former Menzies government minister and niece to a former deputy Liberal leader, said she never felt a sense of belonging with either political party. She felt “stranded in the middle”.
For all of them, with or without political pedigree, personal experience has shaped the journey to Canberra’s Parliament House.
For Elizabeth Watson-Brown, the Greens MP for Ryan in Brisbane, it was the arrival of grandchildren: “No longer content to yell at the television during the nightly news, I joined the Greens and took to the streets of Ryan.”
She was a young woman during Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s authoritarian state and found running a business in the 1980s entirely different for men and women. A bank once refused her a business account without her husband’s signature.
Her vow, after knocking on more than 10,000 doors and holding more than 3000 one-on-one conversations, is to continue to listen and hear what her constituents are telling her.
Seems simple. But too many MPs on the road to high office forget.
The Greens’ Stephen Bates is the unlikely winner in the inner-city seat of Brisbane, formerly held by the Liberals but which Labor believed was in the bag.
His first speech should resonate with young voters and families across the nation: “I spent much of my teenager years knowing I was gay and doing everything I could to hide it. I told myself I would force myself to get married to a woman, have kids and live in the suburbs.”
He made a promise that if he ever held a public position he would be “open and proud” of who he was. He kept that last week — but he went further, explaining the second reason he ran for Parliament.
The 29-year-old talked about earning $7.56 an hour working for a theme park in America. One day he found a colleague crying because she was unable to afford both her rent payments and insulin: “That was a choice. Life-saving medicine or a roof over your head.”
It’s a genuine understanding of those issues — from cost of living to identity — that can mould our nation, post-COVID.
Similarly, it was hard not to applaud as Sally Sitou, the Labor member for Reid, in Sydney, told our sons and daughters that they are not “defined by your postcode, the school you went to, or where your parents came from”. Character was what defined an individual, and how we made others’ lives better.
Marion Scrymgour, the Labor MP for Lingiari, talked about the scourge of domestic and family violence, and Northern Territory Indigenous Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price in the Country Liberal Party asked why alcohol abuse, domestic, family and sexual violence were being “normalised” for young people in her home territory.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wants politics to work a different way. So does Labor Senator-elect Fatima Payman, who made history as the first Muslim woman to address Parliament. She wants young girls who decide to wear the hijab to do so “with pride”.
Perhaps it’s naivety. Or perhaps it’s hope. But these maiden speeches showed the change politics can deliver. And if it can, in the way the class of ’22 promises, Albanese will not be the only victor — we’ll all win.
Good insight into the new cadre of politicians for whom I have high hopes. Thank you.
One note: I suspect Anne Aly might have been the first Muslim woman to address Parliament, Senator Fatima Payman might be the first Hijab-wearing Muslim woman to address Parliament.
You beat me to it. She used to be my MP until I was redistributed into Moore, held by an absolute idiot.
i still regard her to be my MP, and support her at elections.
Senator Payman has said that “she wants to make wearing the hijab normal”.
What is ‘normal’ about hijab?
Dont have high expectations of Jacinta Price. Jacinta is mainly about Jacinta. She is very aware of her value as an indigenous women in a conservative party and willing to profit from it. She will be well used by the libs to disrupt any progressive initiatives for indigenous Australians.
She speaks for no one but herself, true. An impediment to getting the Uluṟu Statement understood and welcomed as the first step on the road to reconciliation, justice and truth.
Think you have hit the nail on the head re- Jacinta -.Michael.
A genuinely Indigenous Pauline Hanson?
Pity you missed Michelle Ananda Rajah, which was politically and intellectually the stand-out.
…. Funny ’bout that….
Agree Michelle was excellent.
Yes, I really enjoyed that speech most of that I have listened to so far. This is the first time I’ve ever been motivated to track down each speech and listen to it.
Just wondering where you get the word “diversity” from in the first part of your article.
All women, all middle-aged (more or less), all middle class, all professional, all very comfortably (at least) well off. OK, Dai Lee was a refugee from Vietnam, daughter of a lawyer working for the Americans, but still fits very well with all the others.
They don’t seem like a very diverse lot to me. In fact quite the opposite.
Dai Le – 2016 – “suspended” from the Liberal Party because she didn’t accept the party’s choice of candidate for Fairfield mayor; she wanted it, so she ran as an “Independent” – a 10 year suspension, up in 4 years.
Married to local Liberal mover and shaker Markus Lambert.
In a voicemail in 2019 (3 years into that “suspension”) claimed she controlled the local Liberal (Cabramatta) branch.
Dai Le – 2016 – “suspended” from the Liberal Party because she didn’t accept the party’s choice of candidate for Fairfield mayor; she wanted it, so she ran as an “Independent” – a 10 year suspension, up in 4 years.
Married to local Liberal mover and shaker Markus Lambert.
In a voicemail in 2019 (3 years into that “suspension”) claimed she controlled the local Liberal (Cabramatta) branch.
Dai Le – 2016 – “suspended” from the Liberal Party because she didn’t accept the party’s choice of candidate for Fairfield mayor; she wanted it, so she ran as an “Independent” – a 10 year suspension, up in 4 years…..
… Married to local Liberal mover-and-shaker Markus Lambert.
….In a voicemail in 2019 (3 years into that “suspension”) claimed she controlled the local Liberal (Cabramatta) branch.
….In a v-o-i-c-e-m-a-i-l in 2019 (3 years into that “suspension”) claimed she c-o-n-t-r-o-l-l-e-d the local L-i-b-e-r-a-l (C-a-b-r-a-m-a-t-t-a) b-r-a-n-c-h.
.. so what was so wrong with that Mr Moderator?
That’s a bit “different”.
If a man had followed that path to parliament they’d be looked at askance.
I have to say I find that a very disappointing comment, Robin. They may indeed be “all women, all middle-age (more or less) etc.” but they have come from very diverse professions, Even the several doctors come from different branches of medicine. They are articulate – which is more trhan many of the previous and even some of the current members – modern, not beholden to any party (wow, now there’s a change!) And as one of our senior
citizens, I find there is nothing wrong with being more or less middle aged.
As for Dai Lee to have had the determination to get where she has, more power to her!
Good article Madonna. What a breath of fresh air these ladies we need to make sure these voices are heard.