Max Chandler-Mather: "But I've seen the power of collective hope", First speech to parliament - 2022

2 August 2022, Canberra, Australia

Thanks, Deputy Speaker. Since the invasion of this continent, generations of First Nations warriors, organisers and leaders have fought, and continue to fight, to protect their lands, seas, air, people and culture against colonisation. I would like to pay homage to them, in particular the Yuggera and Turrbal peoples, who are the traditional owners of so-called Brisbane and my electorate of Griffith, and the traditional owners of this place, the Ngunnawal people.

As with so many issues in this place, there is often a deep hypocrisy when it comes to the way some politicians talk about First Nations people. How often are we told that governments support the rights of First Nations people but then fail to introduce the 339 recommendations of the Aboriginal deaths in custody royal commission, over 30 years after they were handed down? Or allow coal and gas mines to open up on land, often against the express wishes of traditional owners? While billions of dollars of mining revenue flow offshore into the coffers of billionaires, First Nations people too often lack basic health care, housing, education and incomes. Politicians make decisions that destroy First Nations land and then write laws that allow their corporate donors to rob their wealth and put it in the hands of people like Gina Rinehart.

It is abundantly clear to me that billionaires and big corporations run parliament. Indeed, when it comes to representation, I imagine that people like Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart must feel pretty good that sometimes it feels as though 89 per cent of this place ultimately represent their interests. The major parties have proved often willing to accept an enormous human and environmental cost in order to serve the interests of big corporations and billionaires, such is their power over this place. Three million Australians live in poverty, with millions more on the brink, while Australia's richest 200 people just ticked over half a trillion dollars worth of wealth. Our nurses, teachers and doctors are viciously overworked, just to make up for the chronic underfunding of our public hospitals and schools. Meanwhile, the next federal budget will include billions of dollars in subsidies for fossil fuel corporations that just happen to be making record profits.

In the middle of one of the worst housing affordability crises in our history, where single mums are forced to live on the street after massive rent hikes, the big four banks just announced $14 billion in after-tax profit. Close to a million people are on the waiting list for social housing, suffering severe private rental stress or homeless, but 89 per cent of this place would rather support billions of dollars in tax concessions for property investors than even contemplate capping rents or building enough public housing for those who need it.

Eighty-nine per cent of this parliament literally supports spending $224 billion giving every politician and billionaire an extra $9,000 a year in the form of the stage 3 tax cuts. But apparently bringing dental into Medicare is too expensive. Apparently scrapping crippling student debt and making uni and TAFE free is too expensive. Apparently building enough but beautifully designed public housing so everyone has a place to call home costs too much. Apparently raising JobSeeker and the pension above the poverty line so people don't have to live in abject poverty is too expensive. The top 10 per cent of Australians now hold over half the total wealth in this country, but apparently that 10 per cent need a massive tax cut. Truly, one of life's great mysteries is why people don't like politicians!

One of the worst things about Australian politics is the way it works to make some of the greatest injustices and outrages seem perfectly normal and reasonable. Like a sedative it dulls the senses, and it relies on a certain logic. What is considered possible isn't determined by what actually is possible with the resources our country has to hand, but instead the major parties, media and various public and private institutions work to constrain the scope of political debate into an ever-narrowing band—one determined not by what everyday people want, need or believe, but by the interests of the billionaires and multinational corporations that parliament ultimately serves.

This logic is perhaps best exemplified when it comes to climate change. The consequences of two degrees or more of global warming are so devastating it's actually quite hard to explain, but the recent devastating bushfires, floods, heatwaves, droughts and storms really are only a small preview—massive crop failures, sea level rises displacing hundreds of millions of people, 99 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef lost. A recent study found that in 30 years time my home town of Brisbane could be virtually unliveable in summer for those who can't afford air-conditioning. But over two degrees of warming is exactly what 89 per cent of this place supports. In fact, currently this place supports expanding coal and gas mining and using public money to do it.

Australia is the third-largest exporter of fossil fuels in the world behind, you know, two great countries it's really good to be a part of: Russia and Saudi Arabia—great company. The idea that the moderate position on climate change is 'Use public money to expand coal and gas mining and drive global warming beyond two degrees' only makes sense when you consider that the power holders in parliament are coal and gas corporations, not everyday people. It's like standing in front of a burning house and declaring that the moderate position is 'We only put the fire out in one room while we send someone out back with a can of petrol to pour fuel on the fire.'

The most insulting lie, I think, though, when it comes to climate change, is that Australia needs to expand coal and gas mining to protect workers. That would be more believable if the political establishment didn't also believe that workers should pay more tax than the multinational corporations they work for. But the reality is that over the next 10 years coal and gas corporations will export hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars of our wealth—our wealth. That's more than enough to guarantee the jobs and income of not just every coal and gas worker but ensure every regional mining community becomes a thriving hub of publicly owned manufacturing, renewable energy and new industries, with good hospitals, schools, public facilities and housing.

I would argue the political establishment doesn't give a toss about workers. What they're really worried about is the profits of their donors. The political system is so completely disconnected from the lives of everyday people. In fact, spending only a week in this place has been a stark lesson in how so much of the pomp, ceremony and rules of this place work to deepen and reinforce that disconnection.

Literally this same week that the Business Council was holding a special event in Parliament House with the Prime Minister—we walked past, and it was frankly bizarre—children peacefully calling for action on climate change were dragged out by police. Technically, I should be kicked out of parliament if I don't dress like a businessman, but you're more than welcome to vote for laws that materially benefit corporations that also happen to donate millions of dollars to your political party.

Every member of parliament was forced to pledge allegiance to the British monarch last week. One would think we should be swearing allegiance to the Australian people. Then there was the installing of massive security fences around the once publicly accessible lawns above Parliament House that were specifically designed to represent the democratically accessible nature of this place. As symbols go, I think that was probably a bit on the nose.

The sense that politics and politicians in general are completely disconnected from the lives of everyday people was a sentiment shared by almost everyone I spoke to during this campaign. Over 14 months, I personally knocked on almost 15,000 doors, or thereabouts, and time and again people told me they were fed up with politics. But what also became clear was just how low people's expectations are when it comes to politics.

It is this sense of low expectations which remains one of the political establishment's greatest assets. Deny people hope that things can get substantially better and you take their power, but I've seen the power of collective hope. Indeed, it really is the only reason I'm standing here. Over 14 months, over 1,000 Greens volunteers in Griffith knocked on almost 90,000 doors, hand-delivered hundreds of thousand of letters and flyers and gave up countless, evenings, mornings, rainy arvos and weekends to fight for something greater than themselves. We had tens of thousands of conversations with residents across Griffith where we actually took the time to listen and, often, learn about the issues that people faced in their daily lives. Together we built the single biggest single-seat campaign, I would argue, in the history of Australian politics and helped continue to build a movement inextricably linked to the communities from which it has emerged.

One of the questions I asked repeatedly on the Griffith campaign, borrowed from Bernie Sanders, was: are you willing to fight for someone you don't know as hard as you would fight for yourself? Time and again the answer was yes. We fought for each other not out of a sense of charity but out of a sense of solidarity, of righteous anger and, most importantly, of hope—hope not that we could defy virtually every political and media expert and win in Griffith but that we could collectively build a movement that would fundamentally transform Australian politics in favour of everyday people.

The philosophy of organisation of our movement was perhaps best represented by the response to the Brisbane floods. The floods of this year were a harsh, brutal and unjust symbol of the consequences of a political system stacked in favour of fossil fuel corporations. This apparent one-in-500-year event occurred just 10 years after another one-in-100-year flood—an alarming demonstration of the corporate and political grip on climate change. The slow response from emergency services and government was a consequence of decades of the hollowing out and underfunding of our public services and institutions. The disproportionate number of low-income and middle-income renters and homeowners badly affected by the floods were a reminder that, while this housing crisis is caused by a system treats housing as a commodity first and a home last, climate change will make it worse. But, as in Lismore, where incredible resident self-organisation drove a collective clean-up, in Griffith we proved that, where a broken system fails, ordinary people step in to fill the breach.

Over the course of those weeks, we suspended our campaign and, along with the brilliant member for South Brisbane, Amy MacMahon; Councillor Jonathan Sri; and their brilliant teams and officers, we used our organisational and logistical capacity to coordinate hundreds of volunteers in delivering free food, ice and eskies for those who had lost power. We taxied residents to crucial services. We cleaned up entire neighbourhood blocks, hauling flood damaged furniture, cleaning houses and sometimes just providing a shoulder to cry on. But it wasn't just the floods. We coordinated protests against worsening flight noise pollution, planted community gardens and used the produce to provide free food to those trapped in COVID isolation.

Ultimately, I believe, you build power by acting collectively as a community. If we want to take on the power of billionaires and big corporations then we must build a party and a movement that is capable of improving people's lives outside the cycle of electoral politics.

Of course, when it comes to this movement and, in particular, to our success in Griffith, there are some people who need thanking. To the thousands of volunteers, donors and supporters: I was constantly inspired by your drive, commitment and perseverance. Indeed, in many a dark moment on that campaign, the only thing that got me up in the morning was imagining one of you rocking up with a smile on your face to the fifth door-knock of that weekend, not demonstrating one ounce of fatigue. Frankly, I don't know how they did it. My brilliant campaign team is, I would argue, the best campaign to member country. Liam Flannerty, Mal McAuliffe, Nat Baker, Lachlan Morris, Claire Hudson, Louisa Randall, Eva Tollo, Josh Saunders-Mills, James Cummins, Kelsey Waller, Paul Rees, Zoe Lawrence, Heather Bennett, and Hannah Wright.

To Kitty Carra, the often unacknowledged director of the Queensland Greens, who has overseen the most successful period in the history of our party. She both procreated the space for and led many of transformations in the Queensland Greens that have led to so much success.

To Adam Bandt and his chief of staff Damien Lawson: thanks for believing in and supporting our little movement in Queensland years before any other southerner gave us a shot!

Thanks to my parents, Kim and Tim, for giving me many of the principles of right and wrong that I still hold today while providing the space to develop my own politics with guidance and the odd radical book recommendation.

To my partner, Joanna, without whom there's no way I could have survived this campaign: I love you and I can't imagine life without you.

Finally, to the people of Griffith, thank you for your trust not just in me but in our broader Greens' movement. To you I give you this commitment: whether you're struggling to put food on the table or pay the rent, whether you're a refugee in hotel detention in Kangaroo Point or you're facing eviction from your public housing, whether you're fighting against a profit-hungry airport corporation or a dodgy developer, whether you want to help plant a community garden or just fix up your local school, whether you have been abandoned by state authorities as another climate fuelled flood disaster hits your neighbourhood or you are just in need of a friendly chat, we will have your back

Really, at the end of the day what we are fighting for is a future where we everyone has what they need to live a good life. Perhaps the greatest injustice of all is that in such a wealthy country our system denies so many people the chance to fully enjoy their one short life on this earth. Health care; education; housing; a good, well-paying job and a beautiful home are the foundation to do what makes life truly meaningful: time with family and friends, footy in the park, painting a picture, reading a book, a day at the beach, a hike through the wilderness, a beer at the pub. I so strongly believe in a four-day work week with no loss of pay, because it would do so much to give people that most precious of resources: time.

Beyond all the specifics it can sometimes be hard to describe what exactly we mean by a good life. Funnily enough, the great feminist writer Virginia Woolf's writing in A room of one's own, for me, comes close to describing what I mean. Woolf reflects on the instinct for possession; the rage for acquisition, which keeps, 'the stockbroker and the great barrister going indoors to make money and more money and more money when it is a fact that 500 pounds a year will keep one alive in the sunshine'. With that 500 pounds, she wrote, came the freedom to think and write as she pleased.

So often in political debates we reduce people to numbers, but what value do you put on a family no longer having to worry about paying the rent and finally having the money to spend the summer at the beach? What value do you put on an afternoon playing footy in the park with your kids rather than working a sixth day of work? How much human enjoyment, creativity, new loves and friendships are denied by a political and an economic system that too often prioritises the profit of multinational corporations over the happiness of everyday people?

What has given me so much hope is that the vast majority of everyday people across Australia share this vision that we should tax billionaires and big corporations to fund things like dental into Medicare and free child care, and build one million public and affordable homes. It is a view that I believe is shared by the vast majority of people across this country. What's more, it is a truly universal vision.

That a small town in regional Queensland, Biloela, demonstrated a greater level of kindness and solidarity towards refugees than this place has done in decades is a reminder that while the decisions this place makes often impose unimaginable cruelty on people fleeing persecution, war and famine—often created by the foreign policy decisions of our government—those decisions don't reflect the will of the people. After all, what sort of good life is it when our country demonises and mandatorily imprisons our brothers and sisters for the crime of seeking that same good life?

This is why I have so much hope that ultimately we can win, because no matter what the political establishment throws at us, no matter how many times they tell us not to hope for anything better, no matter how me times they try to divide us up, no matter how many millions of corporate dollars they spend trying to stop us, we'll keep fighting, because we recognise that we all have more in common with a refugee in detention than a billionaire like Clive Palmer. We don't fight for self-interest; we fight for each other. And we won't stop until everyone—everyone—has what they need to live a good life, to be alive in the sunshine.

For those watching at home who despair at the state of our world but feel powerless to change it, I understand. After all, how often are we browbeaten and lectured about expecting anything but the bare minimum from politics? Often by self-proclaimed experts. But here's the thing, I've lost count of the number of times political and media experts said we had absolutely no chance of winning Griffith. And the thing is that they were wrong and people like you were right: the cleaners, paramedics, nurses, students, tradies, retirees, refugees. Ordinary, everyday people who fought every day for a better future on the Griffith campaign were right, and the representatives of the political establishment were wrong. Believe me that knowledge terrifies them. So next time an expert or politician tells you that it's unrealistic to expect that in a wealthy country like Australia no-one should go hungry or without a home, know that we were right and they were wrong. Know that when they tell you that tax cuts for billionaires, more coal and gas, and mandatory detention of refugees is the best you can hope for, they were wrong. If the Greens' wins in Brisbane, Ryan and Griffith prove one thing, it is that the only barrier—the only barrier—to change is our capacity to organise campaigns like this around the country. Our collective power terrifies the major parties and corporate donors but it should give you hope, because the Griffith campaign wasn't the end of something but the start. And if our political establishment thinks that this is our movement at our biggest, that somehow this is the best that we can do, then, oh boy, do they have another think coming! We really are just getting started.

So if, like me, you think that we should use $224 billion providing free breakfast in every school so no kid goes hungry rather than dishing out $9,000 to a federal politician; if you think everyone deserves a good home; if you think we shouldn't divide people up by the colour of their skin, gender, sexuality or the way they talk, but rather find common cause with everyone in this country who has been screwed over by the political system; and if you think that tackling climate change is more important than the share price of BHP, then join our movement, because I have seen the power of collective hope and I know what it can achieve. Thank you.

Michelle Ananda Rajah: 'It is an electorate beating with a lion heart,' First speech - 2022

1 August 2022, Canberra, Australia

In 2022 the Australian people showed us the way. Self-interest is out and the national interest is in, but it's planetary and interspecies interests that are trending. Our First Nations people have known this for eons. I am looking forward to enshrining their voice in our constitution and embedding their wisdom into our ways. I am honoured to stand on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people and I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging.

I am the unlikeliest of politicians: no political experience in the conventional sense, no history with the Labor Party and no political pedigree. People ask: 'How did this happen? How did you make history? How did lifelong conservatives vote Labor?' In no other country nor electorate would my story even be possible.

It was the pandemic that led to my political awakening. In the first half of 2020 I stopped sleeping as I watched healthcare workers in Italy die. Hospitals resembled war zones. Patients lined corridors. Death was everywhere. At my hospital, colleagues in hushed tones disclosed to me concerns about their safety at work. They felt powerless against a medical establishment that steadfastly held that COVID was spread by droplets and surgical masks were fine. At that time vaccines were a pipedream and we were going into battle with sticks rather than lightsabres.

I had to act. I tried corridor diplomacy, but hit brick walls. Aerosol scientists were shouting from the rooftops that COVID was airborne, floating in the air like smoke, slipping through the gaps in our masks and around the perspex screens that had sprung up like weeds. At the time, I would have been safer cracking rocks underground than working on a hospital ward. Miners had access to the best respiratory equipment, like machines that kept deadly particles out of their lungs, and they had the licence of their CEO and board, who were liable if things went wrong. It's a credit to our mining industry and unions that they have these standards.

Meanwhile, nurses and doctors were having the right masks ripped out of their hands due to PPE shortages. Staff infections spread to the community, triggering an extension of lockdowns while we waited for the vaccines to arrive. And we waited—while people got sick or got sick of lockdowns. It was cold comfort to my doctor husband and me that we had sorted out our wills. At least my children would be fine if their parents died. As it transpired, the cure for my insomnia was activism. Speaking truth to power brought a psychic peace. It was my political awakening that helped me sleep.

With like-minded colleagues, I co-founded Health Care Workers Australia and advocated for better: for masks that fit your face; for transparent reporting of healthcare worker infections, because you can't improve what you can't measure; for recognition that COVID is spread through the air; and for better national guidelines, because they determine our safety in hospitals, aged care, schools and businesses. I urged the then government to broaden our limited vaccine repertoire, because I could see variants coming.

One of my proudest works was the first Australian study documenting the experiences of healthcare workers. 'Hearing the voices of Australian healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic' says it all. Their stories were the reason for the season.

What I've learnt, I now bring to parliament—that is, the need to listen to the front line. Whether it's health care, business or the environment, those at the coalface know the problems and will proffer solutions before they become crises. That is the wisdom of the edge. National leadership that prioritises work health and safety is essential. Healthy, happy workers make the economy hum, especially in mission-critical industries like health care, aged care, education or business. This much we owe to our nurses, doctors, allied health professionals, paramedics, support staff and educators, whose deep wells of altruism are nearly dry. A future CDC must prioritise the welfare of our first responders, because there is no pandemic response without them. Today I pay tribute to my friend Millie, a nurse, and my friends Marco and Sarah, doctors, who are in the gallery.

Watch out for the tail. It has a sting. For COVID, it will be chronic disease and mass illness disrupting lives and constraining our productivity for years to come. This is not inevitable but depends on what we do next. Cleaning the air is one important but neglected lever that will help apply downward pressure. National guidelines on ventilation will empower our people and businesses to stay safe and live more freely. It will spawn a new industry in air safety, making us more resilient against respiratory viruses and a future disease X.

Diversity is the antidote to groupthink, so welcome those contrarian voices. The discomfort leaders like us feel when hearing what we don't like from people with skin in the game is usually a good thing. They are often the truth-tellers.

Finally, be aware that the four most dangerous words in science are, 'there is no evidence'. These four words have shut the gate on life- and economy-saving measures. When there is no evidence, then default to common sense and err on the side of caution until daylight emerges.

After experiencing the powerlessness of not being listened to, I understand the profound power of being heard. It's a lesson I carried with me to the streets and the homes of Higgins. I had thousands of conversations, walking up and down our electorate in my gold runners. It was a real grassroots campaign, powered by the greatest force for good—people.

Higgins is 39 square kilometres—a little bit smaller than Lingiari—and encompasses South Yarra with its famous Chapel Street, the iconic Prahran market, the stately homes of Toorak, the leafy streets of Malvern and Armadale with their vibrant small businesses, south to the multicultural foodie hub of Koornang Road, Carnegie, bordered by the wide, quiet streets of Murumbeena, Glen Iris and Ashburton. Dog walkers abound, parents grab coffees between pick-ups, young people jog the streets, school kids jumble into trams. Since its inception in 1949, Higgins has been a Liberal stronghold, until now. It has produced two prime ministers, Gorton and Holt, four if you include Menzies and Fraser, who lived there. I take this opportunity to acknowledge the former member for Higgins Dr Katie Allen for her contribution to public life.

Higgins is a high-performance electorate where people are self-made or well on the way but disadvantage hides in plain sight. I observed too many young adults in full-time work still tethered to their parents, unable to buy a home. I met a young mum unable to return to full-time work because she could not afford $200 a day on child care. Marion, an educator who had been on a casual contract for over a decade, was now facing the prospect of losing her home because her hours had been cut. A small-business owner cried every night because she is exhausted by the pressures of the past two years. And I lost count of the number of male retirees, and they were always men, who demanded I tax them more because they were appalled at the level of inequality in our society and didn't need the 'welfare'—their words not mine.

People from every background and belief were inspired to make a change at that election because they understood what it meant for our nation.

It is an electorate beating with a lion heart.

Dr Ennis, an endocrinologist and Higgins resident of 50 years, sums it up. As a child he asked his father who he should vote for. His father replied, 'Families like ours always do well when the Liberal Party are in government but sometimes you have to do what is best for everyone and what is best for the community. That's why I always vote Labor.' Three days after Dr Ennis died, Higgins returned its first Labor member. Dr Ennis did his bit; now will I do mine.

The people of Higgins will judge us by the force of our actions rather than the froth of our words, as Churchill said. But listening to locals, hearing their stories on front steps and on the end of the phone became for me the reason for the season.

To the people of Higgins: I carry with me your wishes and your worries into government. It is a humbling and heavy responsibility, and I thank you for it.

I could not have climbed this mountain without the support of my incredible volunteer army, the Labor branches who came and gave; my friend the member for Macnamara, who reached out and mentored me; my campaign team, Michael, Josh, Jet; and all of my Labor colleagues here, including the frontbench, pretty much the whole frontbench; and the Prime Minister for their generous support. Prime Minister, you're calm, considered approach imbued with wisdom and kindness is just the medicine our country needs. To my husband, you are a tower of strength. To my teenagers Annika and Ash, you are far more accomplished than I was at your age. Look outwards always and make a positive contribution to this world.

Today is bittersweet because not everyone could make it. My sister is caring for a child with COVID and my brilliant colleague Nada is laid low with long COVID after two bouts of illness, but she is watching. Such is the pandemic's long reaching shadow. But we can and must push back against this shadow because our party, after all, is the light on this hill.

Nothing is built without a foundation, and mine was laid by my parents Robert and Vimala. My father came from a village in northern Sri Lanka, the middle of seven children to a single mother, having lost his own father when he was 12. That he rose to become an accountant and small-business owner raising three professional children is nothing short of a miracle. My mother juggled full-time work and running a home, turning out delicious meals to the strains of Elvis and Abba. As Tamils, my parents left Sri Lanka in the 1960s due to ethnic tensions. I was born in the UK then moved to Zambia where I lived for 12 years before coming to Australia on the skilled migration program in 1984 when I was 11. In Zambia, I went on safari in the way my kids go to the beach: gripping on for dear life in the back of a Land Rover, awestruck as a little kid in front of Victoria Falls—a torrent of water known as Mosi-oa-Tunya, 'the smoke that thunders'. But it was Australia that made me an infectious diseases and general medicine physician, an academic, activist and now a parliamentarian. What a country! My story is one of intergenerational upward mobility, where education and hard work bent the arc of our lives. But that wasn't all. A person like me, who has experienced more headwinds than tailwinds, benefited from the Hawke and Keating economic legacy, a Catholic education and a cohesive society that welcomed a stranger.

We have a lexicon for economic progress, ranging from GDP to unemployment figures, but we lack the language for social cohesion. And yet it is like money in the bank: social capital put away in good times to be drawn down in bad. As a migrant, I have watched with alarm as words used in this chamber ricochet around the country, tearing at our social fabric. Spillover effects are acts of hate on our streets against Asians, Jews, Muslims, people of colour, the gender diverse. And the gun gets fired here. We have a choice. We can accept the politics of division or devalue that currency to junk. I am proud that the Australian people and the people of Higgins did just that. 'Do better,' they cried. The triumph of modern Australia—a diverse multicultural nation—is worth celebrating every single day. Social capital is our true sovereign wealth fund, that, if managed well, will pay a dividend to us, its shareholders, forever.

Standing in this chamber, I still feel the pull of medicine: a rewarding career of service and advocacy that will be extended here. I saw, for 25 years, the sins of society wash up in our public hospital system: homelessness, poor education, childhood trauma, social isolation, poverty, racism, unemployment and climate change. According to the WHO, these so-called social determinants of health can account for over half of all health outcomes, where one problem reinforces another. Health is all about context. For example, diabetes clusters with poor nutrition and poverty. The Lancet describes syndemics, the synergistic interaction of social, economic and environmental factors. It's a framework relevant to our future CDC, but just as pertinent to this place too. I prescribe pills for problems rooted in disadvantage, but these are problems that need a parliament, not a prescription pad.

As a doctor, I saw things as they were. Now, as a parliamentarian, I see things as they could be. The venerated fair go, much like our safety at work, does not happen by luck. Barriers must be identified and dismantled, like inequality and unconscious bias so that, as Kennedy said, man has the freedom to grow to his full stature. Structural reforms must be introduced and embedded until they become part of the furniture, like Labor's Medicare. For women, the motherhood penalty clips our wings just as we unfurl them after years of slog and study. In the blur of home and work, years slip by, and ambition is dimmed until it snuffs out altogether. That double shift nearly broke me, which is why I am delighted that child care has been elevated in the economic agenda. With mountains of work to do, who can afford to leave the talent of women on the table? It makes me proud that the Labor caucus is now 52 per cent women—and they are fierce. And 50 per cent of our new Labor members are from culturally diverse backgrounds, including First Nations. It makes me even prouder that Higgins had something to do with this high watermark.

Within the seams of the bedrock of our ancient land, like precious ores, lie new ways of thinking. The One Health model encompassing human, animal and environmental health immediately elevates stewardship. Our First Nations have known this all along. We cannot privilege one above the other, because we are nourished both physically and spiritually by the natural world.

Climate change is the threat multiplier, adding pressure to every system and every sector in society, but its effects will be unequally felt, so ironing out inequality now is a matter of urgency. Obama said:

We are the first generation to feel the effect of climate change and the last generation who can do something about it.

Our journey to a low emission future will be contingent on taking our coal and gas communities along. We owe them much, and we are, after all, the party of the Hunter and Higgins—a broad church indeed! A land crisscrossed by zero emission high-speed rail will bring our regions closer to us and us to them, triggering a regional boom. On intergenerational justice, the cries are only getting louder. An affordable home backed by secure work is like the warmth of a million suns. It should be the norm, not the exception.

Innovation will be key to solving many of these challenges. For that, we must again embrace the power of listening. As a nation we produce excellent research but need to do better at commercialising it. Our PhDs want to be CEOs of their own start-ups. I was a Research Australia finalist last year for my work on artificial intelligence but had been underfunded for years. It shouldn't be this hard. Unless things change, and fast, we will continue to lose our best young minds in The Hunger Games of funding.

In Higgins I met John, a postdoc. who was taking up a biomedical fellowship in the US because he felt like Australia had given up on him. To get great research into the market requires the science of implementation, but implementation science withers on the vine if we devalue the humanities, our creatives and social sciences. There is a big difference between inventing vaccines in the lab and getting them into arms—one is a science, the other an art. Different but complementary skills are needed, so let's usher in a flourishing of enterprise, embracing the diversity that makes us stronger than the sum of our parts.

It is said that the people perish when there is no vision. Mine is for an inclusive, sustainable and competitive Australia. As a nation, we have an embarrassment of riches, hearts bursting with aspirations, bodies alive with animal spirits, brains fizzing with ideas. Our task as leaders is to listen to our frontline and knock down their barriers, reject short-termism in favour of generational investment—raising, not dimming, ambition so that our people take flight and soar. Because only by unifying, empowering and electrifying our people can we reach that cleaner, greener, fairer future. I thank the House.

Andrew Leigh: 'The Labor Party today stands at the confluence of two powerful rivers', maiden speech - 2010

18 October 2010, Canberra, Australia

It is hard to imagine a greater honour than to represent your friends and neighbours in our national parliament. Each of us brings to this place the hopes and dreams of the people who chose us. I am keenly aware both of the incredible opportunity the people of Fraser have bestowed on me, and the very great responsibility to them which that opportunity entails.

Let me begin, then, by telling you about my electorate of Fraser, and the city of Canberra in which it lies.

Fraser rests on the right bank of the Molonglo River, stretching north from the office blocks of Civic to the young suburbs of Bonner and Forde on the ACT’s northernmost tip. Because the leaders of the time decided that a capital city must have its own port, the electorate of Fraser also includes the Jervis Bay Territory, home to a diverse community, and a school where kangaroos graze on an oval overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

In the electorate of Fraser, some locations carry the names given to them by the traditional Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, who used what is now modern-day Canberra to hold their corroborees and feast on Bogong moths. Other suburbs are named after Australia’s great political leaders. For the people of Canberra, a nation’s proud history is embodied in our local geography.

Thanks to far-sighted decisions by generations of planners, Canberra’s hills are largely undeveloped. This means that many residents have the pleasure of looking up from a suburban street to see a hill covered in gum trees. From the Pinnacles to Mount Majura, the Aranda Bushlands to Black Mountain, our city’s natural environment offers ample opportunities to exercise the body and soothe the soul.

Economists like me are trained to believe in markets as the best route to environmental protection. And I do. But I also know that smart policy will only succeed if there is a will for action – if we believe in our hearts that we cannot enjoy the good life without a healthy planet.

As vital as our natural environment are the social ties that bind us together. In an era when Australians are becoming disconnected from one another, Canberra has some of the highest rates of civic engagement in the nation. Canberrans are more generous with our time and money, more likely to play sport with our mates, and more inclined to participate in cultural activities. Part of the reason for this is that we spend less time in the car than most other Australians, but I suspect it also has something to do with the design of Canberra’s suburbs.

During my time in this parliament, I will strive to strengthen community life not only in Canberra, but across Australia. In doing so, I hope to follow in the footsteps of my grandparents – people of modest means who believed that a life of serving others was a life well lived. My paternal grandfather, Keith Leigh, was a Methodist Minister who died of hypothermia while running up Mount Wellington in Hobart. It was October, and the mountain was covered in snow – as it is today. Keith was 59 years old, and was doing the run to raise money for overseas aid.

My mother’s parents were a boilermaker and a teacher who lived by the credo that if there was a spare room in their house, it should be used by someone who needed the space. As a child, I remember eating at their home with Indigenous families and new migrants from Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, Chile, Cambodia and Sri Lanka.

That early experience informs my lifelong passion for Australia’s multiculturalism. With a quarter of our population born overseas, Australia has a long tradition of welcoming new migrants into our midst. Earlier this year, I attended a prize-giving ceremony for an art competition run as part of Refugee Week. First prize went to a Karen Burmese woman who had woven a traditional crimson tunic. Because she didn’t have a proper loom, the woman had taken the mattress off her bed, and fashioned a loom from her pine bed base. It is hard not to be overwhelmed by the courage and spirit of Australia’s migrants.

Near my home in Hackett, the local café is run by the three sons of James Savoulidis, a Greek entrepreneur who opened the first pizzeria in Canberra in 1966, and taught Gough Whitlam to dance the Zorba a few years later. Elsewhere in the Fraser electorate, you can enjoy Ethiopian in Dickson, Indian in Gungahlin, Chinese in Campbell, Vietnamese in O’Connor, or Turkish in Jamison. Canberrans who are called to worship can choose among their local church, temple, synagogue, or mosque. And yet I’ve never heard a murmur from my religious friends about the fact that the local ABC radio station broadcasts on the frequency 666.

My views on diversity and difference were also shaped by spending several years of my childhood in Malaysia and Indonesia. Sitting in my primary school in Banda Aceh, I learned what it feels like to be the only person in the room with white skin. And as I moved through seven different primary schools, I got a sense of how it feels to be an outsider, and the importance of making our institutions as inclusive as possible.

But clearly the experience didn’t scar me too much – because at 38, I’ve spent more than half my life in formal education. Sitting in Judith Anderson’s high school English class, I learned to treasure the insights into the human condition that come from the great storytellers – the works of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, George Orwell and Les Murray, Leo Tolstoy and Tim Winton. Studying law, I learned that open government, judicial independence, and equal justice are principles worth fighting for. And picking my way through the snow drifts to attend Harvard seminars with Christopher Jencks, I came to appreciate the importance of rigorously testing your ideas, and the power of tools such as randomised policy trials (a topic about which members can be assured I will speak more during my time in this place).

In the decades ahead, education will be the mainspring of Australia’s economic success. Great childcare, schools, technical colleges and universities are the most effective way to raise productivity and living standards.

Improving education is also smart social policy. First-rate schooling is the best antipoverty vaccine we’ve yet invented. Great teachers can light a spark of vitality in children, a self-belief and passion for hard work, that will burn bright for the rest of their lives.

As an economist, much of my research has been devoted to the vast challenges of reducing poverty and disadvantage. I believe that rising inequality strains the social fabric. Too much inequality cleaves us one from another: occupying different suburbs, using different services, and losing our sense of shared purpose. Anyone who believes in egalitarianism as the animating spirit of the Australian settlement should recoil at this vision of our future.

But my research has also taught me that good intentions aren’t enough. As a professor-turned-politician, one of my role models is the late great US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Moynihan was innately sceptical about every social policy solution presented to him. Indeed, his starting point was to expect that any given social policy would have no measureable effect. But these high standards didn’t make him any less of an idealist, and Moynihan never lost his optimism and passion. What we need in Australian policy today is not more ideologues, convinced that their prescriptions are the answer, but modest reformers willing to try new solutions, and discover whether they actually deliver results.

This spirit of optimistic experimentation has deep roots in our nation. Manning Clark once said that Australia was an experiment for the multiple faiths of the Holy Spirit, the Enlightenment and a New Britannia. So you get the sense that in these early days, the Australian project was one of expansiveness, enlargement and possibility, where people were prepared to take risks and try new ideas in an effort to show that in Australia we did things differently, and better, than elsewhere around the world.

This Australian project is not finished. It’s not something that stopped with the end of the First World War or with the death of Ben Chifley. And all of us, as today’s Australians, are the custodians of this project, a project that stretches back over generations and centuries, and binds all Australians, past, present and future, together in this greater cause. It is like the red sand that Gough Whitlam poured into the hands of the great Gurindji elder Vincent Lingiari, who declared ‘we are all mates now’. We have a responsibility to make sure that the Australian project, for the time that it rests in our hands, is advanced and continued.

To me, the Australian project is about encouraging economic growth, while ensuring that its benefits are shared across the community. It is about making sure that all Australians have great public services, regardless of ethnicity, income or postcode. And it is about recognising that governments have a role in expanding opportunities, because no child gets to choose the circumstances of their birth.

Internationally, the Australian project should be one of principled engagement. Australia’s influence overseas will always rely on the power of our values. A respect for universal human rights and a passion for raising living standards should always guide the work of our military and our diplomats, our aid workers and our trade negotiators. In the shadows of World War II, Australia helped create the United Nations – guided by a belief that all countries must be involved if we were to create a more peaceful and prosperous world. That ideal must continue to inform how we engage with the rest of the world.

Another important part of the Australian project has been democratic innovation. What we call the secret ballot is elsewhere termed ‘the Australian ballot’. We introduced female suffrage a generation before many other nations. We made voting compulsory, recognising that with rights come responsibilities.

Yet for all this innovation, Australians have increasingly become disenchanted with their elected representatives. The problem has many sources: the rowdiness of Question Time, too much focus by the commentariat on tactics rather than ideas, and a tendency to oversimplify problems and oversell solutions. I hope to help rebuild a sense of trust between citizens and politicians.

It starts with respect, and a recognition that we can disagree without being disagreeable. Working as associate to Justice Michael Kirby taught me that intellect and compassion together are a powerful force for change. Admit that most choices are tough. Listen to others. Be flexible. And remember that the fire in your belly doesn’t prevent you from wearing a smile on your face.

Australian politics isn’t a war between good parties and evil parties. At its best, it is a contest of ideas between decent people who are committed to representing their local communities. I am happy to count among my friends people on both sides of this house – and I am sure some of those friends will be happy to know that I don’t plan to name them today.

That said, choosing between the parties has never been an issue for me. I was born in the year that Gough Whitlam won office, and when my mother’s pregnancy reached the nine month mark, she pinned an ‘It’s Time’ badge onto the part of her shirt that covered her belly.

It is a true honour to serve as a Labor representative today, alongside so many capable and talented individuals. Thank you to those who have given me advice already. There is much more I have to learn from each of you.

In the Labor pantheon, the parliamentarians I most admire are those who have recognised that new challenges demand fresh responses. Among these I count John Curtin and Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Button, Lindsay Tanner and Gareth Evans. For each of these men, their ideals and values were their guiding light; yet their proposals were as flexible and innovative as the situation demanded.

I also had the privilege to work briefly as trade adviser to the late Senator Peter Cook. Peter was an instinctive internationalist, as keen to chat with a visiting Chinese delegation as to swap stories with the Argentinean ambassador. He believed in ideas, enthusiastically working to persuade colleagues that anyone who cared about poverty should believe in free trade. Peter passed away in 2005, far too early. I wish he were with us today.

I also count among my role models two former members for Fraser. As a 16 year-old, I came to Canberra to volunteer for John Langmore, and was struck by the depth of his principles and the breadth of his knowledge. Never did I imagine that one day I would succeed him.

My immediate predecessor is Bob McMullan. Over two decades in federal politics, the people of the ACT supported Bob for being a superb parliamentarian, and because they were proud to have, on their home turf, a true statesman, who embodied every day the best of what politics can be. I acknowledge Bob, and all those elected by the people of Fraser before him. Their service has set a high bar.

As elected representatives, one of our most important jobs is to speak out on behalf of those who struggle to have their voices heard. The Labor Party has a proud tradition of defending individual liberties. Past Labor governments outlawed discrimination on the basis of gender or race. This Labor government has removed from the statute books much of the explicit discrimination against same-sex couples, and strengthened disability discrimination laws. And all Labor governments strive to protect the right of workers to bargain collectively for better pay and conditions. Our party also stands firmly committed to democratic reform, including the simple yet powerful notion that every Australian child should be able to aspire to be our head of state.

The Labor Party today stands at the confluence of two powerful rivers in Australian politics. We are the party that believes in egalitarianism – that a child from Aurukun can become a High Court Justice, and that a mine worker should get the same medical treatment as the bloke who owns the mine.

But what is sometimes overlooked is that we are also the party that believes in liberalism – that governments have a role in protecting the rights of minorities, that freedom of speech applies for unpopular ideas as for popular ones, and that all of us stand equal beneath the Southern Cross. The modern Labor Party is the true heir to the small-L liberal tradition in Australia.

Alfred Deakin was one of the earliest Australian leaders to make the distinction between liberals and conservatives. Deakin argued that liberalism meant the destruction of class privileges, equality of political rights without reference to creed, and equality of legal rights without reference to wealth. Liberalism, Deakin said, meant a government that acted in the interests of the majority, with particular regard to the poorest in the community.

As for conservatives, to quote Deakin’s description of his opponents, they are:

‘a party less easy to describe or define, because, as a rule it has no positive programme of its own, adopting instead an attitude of denial and negation. This mixed body, which may fairly be termed the party of anti-liberalism, justifies its existence, not by proposing its own solution of problems, but by politically blocking all proposals of a progressive character, and putting the brakes on those it cannot block.’

A century on, it is hard to escape the conclusion that if Deakin were in this parliament today, he and his brand of progressive liberalism would find a natural home in the Australian Labor Party. (And given the numbers in today’s parliament, I am sure my colleagues would welcome his vote.)

For my own part, I would not be here without the support of the Australian Labor Party – Australia’s oldest and greatest political party – and the broader trade union movement. Ours is a party that believes in the power of collective action. When the goal is just and we are one, our movement and our party are unstoppable.

On a more personal level, I would also not be here without the bevy of volunteers who doorknocked, staffed street stalls, and handed out on polling day. Let me thank all of those who worked with me on this campaign, and gave up vast amounts of their time for a cause greater than any of us. Thank you also to my staff, who make me proud to walk into the office each day. I am deeply touched that so many friends, staff and supporters are here in the galleries to share this special day with me.

Let me also acknowledge and express my love for my parents Barbara and Michael, who instilled in my brother Timothy and me the simple values that guide us today: Be curious. Help others. Laugh often.

I hope that I can be as good a parent to my two sons – Sebastian and Theodore – as you have been to me.

To my extraordinary wife Gweneth, who left her home state of Pennsylvania for the unknowns of Australia. No matter how chaotic our lives become, you will always be the fixed point that puts everything else into perspective. In the words of John Donne, writing four hundred years ago to the love of his life: ‘Thy firmness makes my circle just, and makes me end where I begun.’

Finally, to the people who sent me here, the voters of Fraser. With the exception only of the neighbouring federal seat of Canberra, more votes were cast in Fraser than in any other electorate in Australia, and I am keenly aware both of the deep and diverse needs of our seat, and of the great trust and confidence Fraser’s voters have placed in me.

To them, I express my enormous gratitude for the honour they’ve given me of representing them in our nation’s Parliament. And to them I make this pledge – to do my utmost always: to represent their interests to the very best of my abilities, to remember always that their support for me is not my entitlement but their precious gift, and to ensure that, in their name, I make Fraser’s contribution to securing a better, fairer, more prosperous and more just future for our great nation.