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.

Peta Murphy: 'Finally, I want to end with a quote from Pippi Longstocking', Maiden speech - 2019

24 July 2019, House of Representatives, Canberra, Australia

We meet today on the lands of the Ngunawal people. My electorate of Dunkley is on the lands of the Boonwurrung people of the Kulin nation. We recognise and support local Indigenous culture, history and people at the gathering place by the bay, Nairm Marr Djambana. I pay my respects to their elders, past and present, and to all traditional owners. I stand here today to pledge my support for the recognition of First Nations people in Australia’s Constitution and the establishment of an Indigenous voice to parliament based on the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

It’s been quite a journey to this place for a public-school girl from Wagga. I grew up during the Hawke and Keating years, benefitting from the long list of economic, social and environmental reforms their government introduced. Their government was a Labor government who, like all Labor governments before and since, took seriously their core business of enlarging opportunities for those without power or resources. But what really inspired teenage me was the way Hawke and Keating also enlarged our national imagination about who we could be and the place we could take in the world. They made me believe in our democratic system because they demonstrated how that system could deliver good government and how good government could deliver a better future. They, and the values my parents instilled in me, also made me Labor.

Recently I was asked to imagine what, at the end of my parliamentary career, I would like to be able to look back on and say I was proud to have been a part of—what I would like to have achieved. It’s a very long list, those who know me won’t be surprised to hear, only some of which, you’ll also be glad to hear, I’m going to have time to touch on today. But it does span initiatives in my local community, structural reforms to national systems and institutions, and, of course, Australia’s role as a leader in our region and in the world. But, above all else, I would like to be able to say that I left Australian politics—Australian democracy—in better shape than when I joined it, that I was part of a generation of Australian politicians who worked to recover the public’s faith in our democratic system and who strove to reharness politics as that vehicle for enlarging opportunities and enlarging our national imagination, and that we did so by rejecting politics based on fear and division, by refusing to see societal problems as weapons with which to wedge our political opponents and by choosing robust debates about ideas and solutions over personal attacks and petty judgements. It’s what my community wants me to do, and it’s what Australians want all of us here to do. And, be in no doubt, it’s what we have to do. At a time when less than half of all Australians are satisfied with the way democracy works and only one in five say they trust politicians, surely the alarm bells are ringing. There is too often a machismo about politics which mistakes aggressiveness for advocacy, which demands certainty and rejects reflection as weakness, and which is quick to judge and slow to forgive.

This parliament is the cauldron of Australia’s national conversation, and politicians are not just participants in it; we are its custodians, and we must do better. Of course, not everyone in this place shares the same political philosophy and we don’t always agree on the way forward. Politics is a place where ideas should be contested. They should be contested with a passion. They should be contested fiercely, robustly and forcefully, and there will be times when the behaviour, motivations and policies of our opponents should rightly be called out and criticised. But how we do that matters. When the participants in our body politic get so caught up in beating their opposition—in winning the daily argument at all costs—that they stop listening and striving to understand what others are saying, we are not just dumbed down; we are diminished. We are diminished in the eyes of the Australian people and we are diminished in our capacity to tackle the difficult challenges—challenges such as those posed to us by the Sustainable Development Goals, whose pin I’m wearing today, and the challenge of being the first generation to end poverty and the last generation to address climate change; challenges such as introducing a federal bill of rights so that complex, important national debates can occur within a comprehensive national human rights framework; and challenges that my community cares about, including preserving our environment, ensuring decent secure jobs for our children and protecting the egalitarian nature of our society. Meeting those challenges is going to take a willingness from all of us here to persist with complex debates over a sustained period—certainly longer than the 24-hour news cycle.

In the spirit of Louisa Dunkley, I am up for those debates. Although my electorate is named after her, Louisa Dunkley’s story is not widely known to people, apart from those who know me or in some way came across my campaign. As the first woman to represent Dunkley, it’s my responsibility and my pleasure to tell her story. It’s also my hope that other people—girls and boys, women and men—will also find inspiration in Louisa and her achievements. Louisa Dunkley didn’t come from particular wealth or privilege. After her father died someone had to provide for her family, so, in 1882, Louisa entered the Victorian Postmaster-General’s Department as a junior assistant. Over the next decade she worked her way up to become a telegraphist at the Chief Telegraph Office. As her career progressed, so did her indignation at the unfair pay and conditions of her female colleagues.

Louisa Dunkley was a worker, she was a feminist and, in 1895, she became a trade unionist. The Victorian telegraph union of the mid-1890s wouldn’t admit women as its members and it certainly wouldn’t advocate for their workplace rights, so Louisa and her female colleagues took the cause into their own hands and the Victorian Women’s Post and Telegraph Association was born. On behalf of that association, Louisa went before the Victorian colonial public service classification board and advocated for women to be paid the same as their male colleagues. Her advocacy was described at the time as brilliant, and she won pay increases for the women of that office. Meanwhile, the men, whose union had refused to make submissions for fear of putting the colonial government offside, received pay cuts. Of course, not everyone was so pleased with that outcome. In an attempt to isolate her from her female colleagues and supporters, the masters of the Post and Telegraph Office transferred Louisa to a more remote workplace, but they didn’t really think that through. She worked at the Post and Telegraph Office where the means of communication were pretty readily available. So, undaunted by opposition from those who resisted change and those who protected power, Louisa continued her campaign, attracting like-minded men and women alike to her cause.

In 1900, she gained endorsement at the first national congress of telegraph and post office associations to argue for equal pay in the soon-to-be formed federal Public Service. She also played an important role in uniting those associations into what later became Australia’s first national Public Service union. So there is some synchronicity that I stand here today, not just as the first woman to represent Dunkley in the federal parliament but also as a proud member of the Commonwealth Public Service union. Under Louisa’s leadership, two more years of letter writing, lobbying, pamphleteering and demonstrating—activities that many here will be familiar with—led to the inclusion of an equal pay provision in the Commonwealth Public Service Act 1902, which was a remarkable achievement at any time but particularly at that time. After securing that historic achievement, Louisa wrote these words:

… though at first we only asked for equal pay as an act of justice to those women … who had … been doing the same work as men, we now advocate it as the only solution … as to how to keep up the value of the work and provide fair opportunities for employment of both men and women in the future …

In 2019, living in that future, we still have some way to go to achieve Louisa’s aims. Across every occupation women are paid less than men, and the work which is predominantly done by women remains systemically undervalued. Just ask our early childhood educators and childcare workers what it’s like to have to value yourself against a male comparator. And women continue to be under-represented in positions of leadership across all workplaces, including this one, so I’m proud to be part of a political party which has taken real action towards rectifying that. Reforms that encourage sharing of parental leave, make child care more affordable and accessible and better integrate family and work life would also go a long way to redressing the imbalance. So, too, would properly valuing unpaid work—caring for family members, doing the housework—and making it perhaps a little less gender oriented. Louisa Dunkley understood it was work of real value. After both of their parents died, her sister took on responsibility for running the household—real work which Louisa believed deserved real pay, so every week, she split her pay packet with her sister. Louisa Dunkley lived and fought for her values, for fairness, for equality and for the power of collective action. We could all do much worse than follow in her footsteps.

I come to this parliament after a professional career that has spanned the law, public service and politics. As a solicitor, barrister and senior public defender, I have represented the damaged and the difficult, victims and perpetrators, the blameless and the blameworthy. At every turn, I have seen the corrosive effect that intergenerational disadvantage can have on people, families and communities. I have also seen the way the operation of the legal system can cause further distress and damage to people when they’re at their lowest. This is true no matter what socioeconomic background you come from, but it’s particularly true for those who already face other challenges in their lives. Last year, the Peninsula Community Legal Centre in my electorate provided over 9,000 legal services to people in need—people in my community struggling with mental illness, addiction, homelessness and family violence and breakdown.

There are too many people where poor educational and economic opportunities first put them at risk of becoming entangled in the justice system, and then enormous, insurmountable barriers to getting out are put up. Too often, before the kids with the fewest opportunities leave the tail end of our school system, they have already entered the front end of the justice system. Anyone who has worked in the justice system, criminal or civil, will viscerally understand when I say that justice cannot be left to the justice system alone. To really find justice in our society, to break the cycle of disadvantage and dysfunction, we need to take a holistic and long-term approach. We need to start by making sure our public education system and the educators who work in it have the resources and support they need to give every child the best start in life, no matter how much money their parents have. We need services—legal, social, health, employment and education—that are, to use a policy-boffin phrase, bottom up and joined up. We need a political climate and politicians who are prepared to champion the services and the needs of the people they serve. It’s that task that motivated me to move from the law into politics.

I want to now talk briefly about my community of Dunkley. We are wealthy and poor. We’re old and we’re young. We’re migrant and we’re First Peoples. We’re employers and employees. But we have a lot more that binds us than separates us. From the Pines to Mount Eliza, we are ambitious for our children. We are proud of where we live. We would like life to be just that little bit easier for us and for our neighbours. And we really, really love our dogs! We have a lot to be proud of, from our growing industrial and health and education precinct, a strong cultural sector based around the Frankston Arts Centre and the McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery in Langwarrin to a growing number of music and arts festivals, restaurant, cafe’s and craft breweries.

We boast the Dolphins in the VFL, the Waves in the VNL and the Blues in the VBL. We have athletes and clubs participating from grassroots to elite in every sporting code you can name. Sport is more than a game to us, and those who know me know it’s more than a game to me. One, I like to win, but it’s more than a game to me! When local clubs talk to me about why they need better facilities—a new clubhouse, lighting or change rooms for the women’s team—they never talk about winning premierships. They talk about building pride and expanding opportunities. They talk about giving people a sense of belonging. They talk about supporting girls and women to be strong, brave athletes and to have the same opportunities and respect as the men. I love it, and it’s why I’ll always back them.

While Dunkley is socioeconomically diverse, it’s perhaps not one of Melbourne’s most multicultural areas. However, if you wander down to the magnificent Frankston Foreshore on a summer weekend, you’ll find hundreds of people from dozens of cultures all with their picnics and barbecues. They have flocked to Frankston to share in a patch of our coastal paradise. It’s a site of pure joy and it’s a symbol of modern Australia.

We’re also a community that cares deeply about the environment—our beaches, our bushlands, our green wedges. The first member for Dunkley, Bob Chynoweth, was a champion of the environment in the Hawke government. I intend to uphold Bob’s legacy as we face up to the challenges of climate change and the loss of biodiversity. Chris Crewther represented Dunkley in the last term of this parliament and, before him, Bruce Billson was Dunkley’s main cheerleader and advocate for 20 years. I want to acknowledge their contributions to our community today.

For all of our strengths, Dunkley does face local education, health and social challenges, but we’re a community rich with talent and compassion and with people who are using those traits to drive initiatives for local and wider benefits. Hands On Learning, founded 20 years ago by Russ Kerr at Frankston High School and now in more than 100 schools across the state, has been recognised as one of the world’s top 100 innovations in education. It should be in every school in the country with disadvantaged or disengaged kids. Backing in the vision of local researchers and medical professionals, Peninsula Health and Monash University obtained bipartisan support at the last election to establish, in Frankston, a national centre for research and clinical trials to support positive ageing and rehabilitation, mental illness and addiction. I’m so excited to be a part of seeing that vision come to fruition.

Cam and James at Frankston Foundry have cultivated an exciting innovation ecosystem, and they have an ambition to make Frankston the nation’s leader in med tech innovation. I have no doubt that with the support of the community and their new federal member for Dunkley they will succeed. Project O and the Colour of Hope are programs working with schools, in Frankston North and Karingal, to give young women and men confidence and life skills through visual, digital and performing art.

The Women’s Spirit Project has empowered women from across the electorate to change their lives through exercise and self-awareness. Mums supporting families in need do exactly that, distributing donations stored in a warehouse in Carrum Downs to kids and parents across the Peninsula. Guru Glenn—self-named—and That’s The Thing About Fishing give disadvantaged and disabled kids the chance to experience fun and friendship. These initiatives and so many more reflect a community that is stepping up to take responsibility, and it’s my absolute privilege to walk alongside them, to be their voice in this parliament and to fight to get them the support and the recognition they deserve.

In 2011 Rod Glover, my husband, and I were sold up, packed up and moving to San Francisco with big plans for work, life and adventure. Just days before we were to board the plane, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. On one view: confirmation that Murphy’s law is real! But looking at it from another perspective, we were lucky. We had strong, loving families and friends. We had the resources that come with professional careers. We could afford and access the best quality health care. I am acutely aware that this is not everyone’s story and that it should be. I pay tribute to the team of dedicated healthcare professionals who looked after me then and the ones who look after people every day, day in, day out, when they need it the most.

Let’s be frank: cancer sucks. Don’t kick me out for unparliamentary language! It changes the way your body feels and it changes the way you feel about your body. The treatments can make you sick. Sometimes you’re scared. Sometimes you’re angry. In my experience, you’re often both at the same time. You worry about how your family and your friends are coping. You value their support but you resent the fact that you need it. And for too many people, on top of all of this, is the worry about how to pay the bills if you can’t work, about who’s going to look after the children while you’re getting treatment, how you’re going to get to and from your opponents—sorry, appointments; cancer is your opponent—and so it goes on.

For me, though, two good things came out of it all. The first was the decision to make Dunkley, where Rod grew up and his family lived, home. It was the best decision we ever made. The second was the reminder that life can be fragile and we’d better make the most of it. So when the opportunity arose I put myself forward as the ALP candidate for Dunkley for the 2016 election, notwithstanding it then had a margin of 5.6 per cent and had been held by the Liberal Party for 20 years.

As I now know, cancer is not just indiscriminate, it’s sneaky. Two weeks ago, a week after being sworn in as the member for Dunkley, I received the unexpected news that my cancer had returned. You might say, Murphy’s law strikes again. But my mother, Jan, who is a Murphy by marriage, not birth, and therefore able to adopt a less pessimistic personal motto, would say: everything happens for a reason. I am neither unique nor alone in the fight that I am about to take on. Cancer Australia estimates that in 2019 just over 19,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 145,000 Australians will be diagnosed with some form of cancer. I am neither unique nor alone, but I am someone who has a platform that can be used to benefit others. And as long as the people of Dunkley continue to vote for me to represent them in this place, I intend to use it.

I’m going to start by saying this today: ladies, check your breasts!

Men, stop ignoring what your body’s telling you. Fellow members of this parliament, listen to the experts who warn that the promise of universal health care is under threat. Commit to the reform and funding that our health system needs and do whatever is required to ensure that Australia trains, retains and invests in the healthcare professionals and researchers who make our system great. We owe it to our community to do that.

Many are here today to share this day with me—family, friends from university, from squash, from the law. I don’t know why everyone always laughs about squash. It is an amazing game. We boast the best female athlete in the world in Heather McKay, and there’s a world champion sitting up there, Vicki Cardwell, watching us today. So stop laughing at my sport!

I’m just going to start that bit again. Many are here today to share this day with me—family, friends from university, from squash, from the law and from the ALP, and I know many other people would be here if they could. I can’t name you all, but I know that you know who you are and I know that you know how much you mean to me and that my life would not have been, and will not continue to be, as rich and as fortunate if it wasn’t for all of you. I am going to say, though, that Clementine, Joss and Pippa: it’s so excellent you are here today.

I also want to single out my parents, Bob and Jan—they’re here with my sisters Jodi and Penni and my awesome niece Ambryia representing Oliver, Ingrid, Bridget, Saana and Kyomi. Mum and Dad, public school teachers, educators and sporting tragics taught us to make the most of every opportunity in life and they taught us about the unparalleled importance of education. My parents are the two most humble, principled and selfless people I have ever met, and anything I have ever achieved is because of them. Jodi and Penni, I love you and I’m proud of you.

I am very fortunate to have shared the last 20 years of my life with my husband, Rod. Together we’ve travelled, made good friends—great friends—spent endless amounts of time talking and arguing about ideas and have watched every single political drama and BBC police procedural ever made. He won’t let me tell the story about how we met. Rod is compassionate, he’s brilliant, he’s stubborn and he’s silly. He’s my most constructive critic, my most loyal supporter and my greatest friend. I wouldn’t be standing here without him and I wouldn’t want to.

I’m very grateful as well for the love and support of Rod’s mum, Betty, Gary, Donna and Debbie and our whole extended family clan. I’ve also been very fortunate in my life to have bosses who are also mentors and friends. Duncan Kerr and Robert Stary, who are both here in the gallery today, and Brendan O’Connor, who is seated behind me.

I’ve also had the support of Labor colleagues that I value deeply and admire—my great and awesome friend Melissa Horne, who’s now a cabinet minister in the Andrews government, Mark Dreyfus, Paul Edbrooke, Sonya Kilkenny, Julian Hill and so many other people that I would name if only time permitted. To everyone who worked on and supported the Dunkley campaign—particularly Sue Heath and Peachy—my local branch members, my volunteers, all of my union comrades, my friends, thank you so much.

Looking around this chamber, at the gallery, at the people I have the privilege to work with and beside, and knowing that there are people who are watching this at home, I am struck yet again by the awesome privilege and responsibility that has been bestowed upon me. I am humbled by the confidence that my community has shown in me. I will work for all of you each and every day, at home and in Canberra.

Finally, I want to end with a quote from Pippi Longstocking and thank my friend Lucy and her daughter Edie for recently reminding me of it. Pippi’s friend Annika had just told her that she couldn’t beat the strong man at the show because he’s the strongest man in the world.

‘Man, yes,’ said Pippi, ‘but I’m the strongest girl in the world, remember that.’

Thank you.

Lidia Thorpe: 'Being Aboriginal is not all I am, but it's the centre of who I am', maiden speech - 2017

29 November 2017, Victorian Parliament, Melbourne, Australia

Lidia Thorpe, MP Northcote, is the first aboriginal woman to be elected to a lower house seat in the Parliament of Victoria.

I would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri Willam and Yalukit Willam clans - two of 300 clans and 38 language groups in Victoria who have never ceded sovereignty. I stand before you today a proud Gunnai-Gunditjmara woman, living on Wurundjeri country. For an Aboriginal kid who grew up in public housing and left school at 14, taking my seat in this chamber is something I was told could never happen. Too many of our kids grow up believing this. Their lives are debated but not reflected in our political system. As long as those voices are missing from the heart of our democracy, we limit our children's potential. They cannot be what they cannot see. This is why today matters. It is a moment 161 years in the making, and it does not only belong to me. I have been inundated with messages from Aboriginal people across the country. I speak today on behalf of them. I am honoured to be the first Aboriginal woman elected to the Victorian Parliament. We have sustained and protected this land for thousands of years, and now in Victoria we finally have a say in how our land is governed.

I am also proud to embark on this journey as a Greens MP, a party that shares my passion for social justice, protecting country and giving voice to those who would otherwise not have one. And I am honoured to represent Northcote, a diverse and compassionate community of vibrant multiculturalism, youthful innovation and a real sense of optimism. From the peak of Ruckers Hill all the way to the waterways that surround us on three sides - the Darebin and Merri creeks to the east and west and the mighty Birrarung flowing to the south - Northcote is a place of natural beauty, and I am so proud to call it home. I want to take this opportunity to say to every resident of Northcote, Thornbury, Alphington, Fairfield, Preston South and West Preston: whether you voted for me or not, I promise I will not let you down.

I also want to acknowledge that the road to this moment came about in tragic circumstances after the untimely passing of Fiona Richardson. I extend my heartfelt condolences to her family, friends and colleagues. As a survivor of domestic violence I am personally grateful to Fiona for the work she has done in increasing protections for women.

The possum skin cloak I wore when I walked into Parliament today was made for me by the Loddon Campaspe Indigenous family violence action group and the Centre for Non-Violence. It was hand sewn by a community who share my country and presented to me this week by Aunty Beryl, a Gunnai-Gunditjmara elder from the Victorian Aboriginal embassy.

I stand here on the shoulders of my ancestors. None of this would have been possible without the strong line of Aboriginal women before me. They taught me resilience, self-determination and the importance of standing up against injustice. My nan, Alma Previous HitThorpeNext Hit, who is here today, has worked her whole life for grassroots community change. Raised in Fitzroy, she left school at 12 to work in a shoe factory and support her family. Her mum, my great-grandmother Edna, came to the area after being forced off the Framlingham Aboriginal reserve near Warrnambool as part of the White Australia assimilation policy during the Great Depression. The house Nan grew up in was run-down and often had no electricity. Everyone had to do their bit. But she never looked for pity.

Self-determination was at the heart of everything she taught me. Her motto has always been 'You get up and you have a go', and she did. After the 1967 referendum gave Aboriginal people the right to vote she applied for a loan that helped her and my nan Edna set up the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service. That service saved lives and helped hundreds of thousands of people across this country. To this day it continues to be a vital community hub.

Growing up, Nan's house was a magnet for political discussion. I would listen to the tough conversations our elders had about how they could improve the lives of Aboriginal people. It was not just talk; my family's activism started at home. Nan took in countless people and offered them a safe place to live - like Uncle Lou, a soldier who grew up on an Aboriginal mission where he contracted tuberculosis. If it was not for Nan, he would have had nowhere to go.

It was this upbringing that taught me community is everything. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and that is the life I have known. Growing up in a public housing estate I knew everyone. When mum was out working I would go downstairs to the homework club with the other kids and feel that sense of safety and belonging. Later in life as a young single mum, public housing gave my son and I stability and community. It helped shape the father he is today. From the Turkish neighbour who brought us homemade pizza to the elderly lollipop man who lived on the ground floor, people in public housing communities took care of each other. We cannot remove the only support and security these people have.

At Walker Street in Northcote, one of nine public housing sites across Melbourne being sold to developers, I recently met a family who came to Australia from Somalia. They were anxious that being forced from the community they love will make it harder for their young Muslim son to be accepted. One of the most important jobs in this Parliament is to look after the vulnerable in our community. We cannot marginalise these families. Everyone deserves a safe place to call home, and that is why we must do politics differently. The profits of developers cannot be put before people. Gambling companies must not be allowed to destroy our communities with pokie machines. The system is rigged against the little guy because of dodgy donations flowing into politics. It has to stop.

We need fairness and we need transparency. We need leaders who understand the importance of protecting country, have the guts to tackle climate change and will stand up to the mining companies poisoning our land. We need to protect our native forests from logging and create a great forest national park. As a young woman I led the protest to save the Nowa Nowa gorge from a pipeline that would have destroyed one of the most beautiful places in our state.

I have stood in front of bulldozers, and I will continue to stand up for our communities and our environment. There is a fire in my belly for justice, equality and protecting country. I will bring that to this Parliament. Nan always said politics was my destiny. I cannot separate my culture from my politics. When your people have fought for centuries to survive, it teaches you how to face up to those who hold power.

Being Aboriginal is not all I am, but it is the centre of who I am. My mother's family lived their lives as refugees in their own country on Gunnai land in Gippsland. They were poisoned, shot and herded off cliffs in one of the most ruthless and systematic attempted genocides the world has ever seen. The survivors were rounded up onto Lake Tyers mission and imprisoned on rations. Decisions made in this very chamber took our language away, removed children from our families and forced us from our land. Those scars run deep for all Aboriginal people.

But despite the deep sense of loss, I grew up surrounded by people who refused to give in to hopelessness. Nan Alma taught me to stand up for our community and always stay true to myself: 'Never forget where you come from. Never forget our people'. So I fought hard for my identity. At school, where my cousin and I were the only two black kids, I was picked on by students and teachers for being Aboriginal. It only made me more determined. I never felt for one moment that I could be beaten down. It does not matter where you come from or who you are, education should be accessible for everyone. Today we are joined by Aboriginal students from schools across the Northcote electorate and my daughter, who is going into year 12. I promise that I will fight for you to have the opportunities that I never had. And I look forward to seeing the school funding you have been promised delivered in full.

Although I left school early, I went to work straightaway. I have not stopped working since. Every job I have had, in health, housing, employment and land rights, has been about empowering those who have been denied opportunity. As Victorian NAIDOC chair, I was proud we delivered a calendar of inclusive events, including NAIDOC's first-ever Pride Awards.

Bringing community together is at the core of who I am. I have always been a fighter, but it breaks my heart to think of all the Aboriginal people who have lost that will to survive. There is trauma passed down through generations and entrenched by society that does not see our humanity and treats us only as a problem to be fixed. Many of the kids I grew up with are gone, lost to drugs and alcohol, chronic illness and suicide. I have been to too many funerals for someone my age and I do not want my nine-year-old daughter to have to go through the same. Something has to change.

In Victoria in 2017 Aboriginal children are still being removed from families, our literacy rates are amongst the lowest in the state and our people are locked up at a rate 11 times higher than the general population. This is not because of fundamental flaws in their character but because of a system that has written them off. For some of the elders in our community it has led to a sense of profound despair. They see the extreme poverty, the forced closures of Aboriginal communities and skyrocketing suicide rates, and they ask, 'Has anything really changed since our ancestors were wiped from this land?'.

Clinton Pryor, a young Aboriginal man, walked 6000 kilometres across the country out of a sense of desperation. He walked and gathered stories, many of them soul-destroying. It was a heavy burden for a young man, but he listened - and that is what politicians must do. Our First People must be at the centre of decision-making processes. We need a clan-based treaty to ensure self-determination is at the heart of our future. We are not a problem to be fixed. We are the custodians of this land and the oldest living culture in the world. We must be heard. For those who feel they are not being counted, for those who have lost the will to fight and for those who are no longer with us, I will be that voice. I will fight for you. You have my word, and I will never sell you out.

I extend this promise to all the people of Northcote. Whatever your heritage or cultural background, you are part of a community that I am so proud to call home. My commitment to you is to act with integrity. I will have the courage to put our community first, even when those decisions are tough. And I will respect and protect this land which we all share. Together we can walk forward to a more hopeful future for our kids and grandkids.

I am grateful to many people for getting me here today: firstly, to my ancestors, whose spirit of strength and guidance I feel with me every day of this journey; to my elders, my family and my friends; to the staunch black activists who paved the way for a kid from the commission flats to make it all the way to the Victorian Parliament; to the Greens, who had faith in me from the beginning; to my parliamentary colleagues, for their support; to my campaign team and my wonderful volunteers, I will never be able to thank you enough for you hard work, dedication and passion; and to my children and my grandchildren, I know the work I do has come at a cost to you.

I want to finish today with a story that sums up what this moment means. It is a story of a seven-year-old Aboriginal boy with autism called Eli from Penders Grove Primary School in Thornbury. After the by-election results came in, his mum sent me a video she had taken of his reaction when he found out I had won. It moved me to tears. 'What do you think of that?', she asked him. 'Well,' Eli said, 'Aunty Previous HitLidia'sNext Document got the key that's going to open the door to all Aboriginal people'.

I feel so very honoured to have been given that key. My job now is to keep the door open and to make sure it never closes again. Thank you.

Malarndirra McCarthy: 'Let the people of the Northern Territory have a say', maiden speech - 2016

15 September 2016, Parliament House, Canberra, Australia

Yuwu bajinda nya-wirdi kulu kirna-balirra yinda nyawirdi nyuwu-ja barrawu, bajirru yiurru wiji marnajingulaji ngathangka, bajirru yirru li-wirdiwalangu ji-awarawu li-Ngunawal Ngambri barra jina barra awara yirrunga, bajrru li-ngaha li-malarngu marnaji anka nya-ngathanya bii, li-ngatha kulhakulha, li-ngatha li-nganji karnirru-balirra.

Yes, let us begin. You are there, senior one—Mr President. We have no word for ‘President’ in Yanyuwa, so I refer to you as ‘senior one’. And I thank you for this place, and for all you others also here with me, and you, the traditional owners, the Ngunawal and Ngambri, for this country. This is your country.

To my family and friends who are here today: thank you. Thank you for making the journey. I especially acknowledge my father, John McCarthy, and my son Grayson, who are here with me. And I know my son CJ is watching from his university room in Dallas, Texas; a big hello to you, my son. And to Adam, sitting for his year 11 exam: good luck to you, my son.

I am here today starting off with Yanyuwa, the language of my mother’s families in Borroloola in the Gulf of Carpentaria, nearly 1,000 kilometres south-east of Darwin. My families, they gave me this language, the language of my country. I am a woman whose spirit has come from the salt water, and we are known as li-antha wirriyarra, which means our spiritual origin comes from the sea—from the sea country. And I welcome my Kuku, John Bradley and Nona. Thank you. Bauji barra.

The old people would sing the kujika, the songline. They would follow the path of many kujika, the songlines, like the brolga, the kurdarraku, of my grandmother’s country—the beautiful brolga country; the country where my spirit always returns to. They would sing of the shark dreaming, and how it travelled from Queensland all the way down the coast to the gulf country and out to the islands of my families. And we dance the dance of the mermaids, the ngardiji, the ngardiji kujika of the Gulf and Barkly country, linking so many of our first nations peoples.

I grew up with the old men and women, the marlbu and barrdi bardis, and I am here thinking about them now, and I am thinking about my own path. My road has been a long road like the song, the kujika, that belongs to the old people. And I am standing here in this place, the Australian Senate, in the place of the people, to represent not just my own people—the Yanyuwa, the Garrwa, the Mara and the Kudanji peoples—but to stand for all people of the Northern Territory: all clan groups, all families who call the Northern Territory home, whether they live on the vast cattle stations of the Northern Territory or whether they have travelled from countries like Asia, Africa or the Middle East to forge a new life for their families away from strife-torn lives that offered no future. I stand here for you, too.

In 1842, my McCarthy ancestor sailed the seas from Ireland aboard the ship Palestine to Australia. And he did not come as a convict like hundreds of others before him; instead, he came as a free man. He chose to come, to make this country his home, not just for him but for his young family, to live in Australia, to build his future, his dream, in the land of opportunity, an unknown land yet filled with much hope and prosperity.

It was on the north coast of New South Wales that he made his home as the local magistrate. In the years and decades that followed, his descendants would toil on the land as farmers and timber-getters before my grandad, Alf McCarthy, then moved to Sydney to work in a box factory at Chiswick and then became a tram conductor on the Sydney trams. Along with my grandmother, Mary, they would raise their three sons: my dad, John McCarthy, who is here today; my Uncle Ray, who is also here, with Aunt Angela, and their children and grandchildren; and my Uncle Kevin, along with his wife, Regina, who are sending all their love now as I speak. I am deeply thankful for the love, support and richness in wisdom of my McCarthy families, as I am of my Yanyuwa and Garrawa families. Yo yamalu bingi; it makes my spirit feel really good.

I share with you all my kujika, my songline that weaves its way from the gulf country across the first-nation’s lands of Aboriginal people in Australia. As a journalist, a storyteller for 20 years—for the ABC, for SBS and for the much-needed NITV—I was able to tell the stories of the lives of thousands and thousands of Australians, and even internationally, with the World Indigenous Television Broadcasters Network, trying to improve the lives of Indigenous people the world over through Indigenous media. I commend wholeheartedly the work of Indigenous media in Australia. Our country needs you. I especially want to acknowledge amazing women journalists, like those in the gallery today: the ABC’s Lindy Kerin, NITV’s Natalie Ahmat and the awesome, inspiring Caroline Jones.

I am honoured to be elected to represent all people of the Northern Territory in this chamber—to the Australian Senate—and to do so as a member of the Australian Labor Party.

As my McCarthy ancestor sailed his way across the seas to Australia, my Yanyuw ancestors sailed their way across the northern seas from the gulf country, to the land of the Macassan, Sulawesi, to the Torres Strait through to Papua New Guinea. The Macassans traded with the Yanyuwa, as they did with the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land and the Anindilyakwa people of Groote Eylandt and the Nungubuyu people of Numbulwar. All of us are interconnected through kujika, through songline. For example, the brolga kujika connects the families of Numbulwar and Groote Eylandt with our families in the gulf country. That is the law of the first-nation’s peoples that defines our connection to country and culture and kin.

In the eyes of first-nation’s people, cultural exchange both amongst clan groups within Australia and with people outside Australia was a natural part of life well before Captain Cook arrived in 1788. There was already a thriving economic foreign trade occurring between Australia and with countries to our north. It is Aboriginal people who were the diplomats with foreign countries, the trading partners who shared knowledge and exchanged agriculture and marine sources of food and tools in the form of harpoons for hunting and knowledge of carving canoes to set sail in the unpredictable wet season seas. Only last month, in the landmark native title hearing in Borroloola, this diplomatic mission between the Yanyuwa and the Macassans was formally recognised in the Western system of law. The Federal Court recognised this relationship. Yet Aboriginal people have always had a system of governance here, and in Yanyuw we refer to it through the kujika.

In 1966, when Vincent Lingiari led the Wave Hill Walk-Off, demanding equal pay and equal rights for his country men and women, my families in the gulf country supported his fight for justice and that of the Gurindji people. So too did thousands of other Australians across the country who believed in a fair go for all. In recent weeks the Gurindji commemorated 50 years since the walk-off and recognised the important role Australian unions played in the late sixties supporting those Australians who could not win their battle for equal pay alone.

Still today the union movement stands beside those who push for a better way of life. I acknowledge in particular the support of those in the gallery today, such as Kay Densley, with the CPSU NT, and her team. Special thanks to Joseph Scales of the Australian Services Union, the MUA and, yes, the CFMEU, as well as United Voice, the ETU, the AMWU and the ACTU. The Turnbull government’s decision to go to an early election in the hope of diminishing the role of unions in this country spectacularly backfired when the Australian people moved away from his vision in their thousands. They recognise that trade unions continue to play a vital role in ensuring justice and equity for all Australians, for we all know that pay equity is not fully enjoyed by all Australians, and homelessness has a human face, and sometimes it is much of my family’s.

In the kinship way, it is my brother, who prefers to sleep in the long grass in Darwin city because it all becomes too hard. At other times the human face is one of someone who has just given up trying to exist between dispassionate laws and the high expectations of those whose job it is to carry them out. The town of Katherine in the Northern Territory has the highest rate of homelessness in the Territory, while Alice Springs is in desperate need of a visionary future that inspires our youth and lightens the load on families. It is a vision I so much want to work on with my fellow federal colleagues: the member for Lingiari, Warren Snowdon, and the member for Solomon, Luke Gosling, in paving a future for the Northern Territory filled with much hope and opportunity, and my fellow Indigenous colleagues, Senator Pat Dodson and Linda Burney.

I congratulate Chief Minister Michael Gunner and his NT Labor caucus on their recent victory in the Territory, and I certainly look very much forward to working closely with his team. I thank all the NT Labor branches and party members for your overwhelming support in my election to the Senate. Your faith in me helped to also restore my faith that serving the people of the Territory, and indeed Australia, is an honourable path and one that has ignited my spirit once again after the loss of my seat in Arnhem in the 2012 Territory election.

I sincerely congratulate the new member for Arnhem, Selena Uibo, for restoring this beautiful bush seat back to Labor. I acknowledge most sincerely, too, former senator Nova Peris and, before her, former senator Trish Crossin. Both women have supported me in my road to the Senate here today. For their graciousness, patient advice and respect for the challenges I have had to face to get here, I say a heartfelt thank you. To my staff, Mandy Taylor and Charlie Powling, thank you for joining me on this journey.

When the Commonwealth parliament passed the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act in 1976, it was the Yanyuwa people who stepped up to claim back our land. As a young girl, I watched my grandparents, my elders, as they prepared to give evidence about how the Yanyuwa cared for country, especially the islands north of Borroloola. They gave evidence in an old police station, and they could pretty much only speak in Yanyuwa. They were difficult times, and trying to give evidence was something that we had to continuously learn from. In that time, we found that we could not explain things as well as we would have liked to the Western understanding of Aboriginal culture.

It was to be another four decades of litigation—in Borroloola, in Darwin and in Melbourne. It was litigation that passed on to us, the Yanyuwa descendants, to continue to fight for recognition of who we are, li-antha wirriyarra, a people whose spiritual origin comes from the sea. But we did not walk that journey alone. It was only possible with the steadfast support of the Northern Land Council, and I acknowledge all those staff and council members over those 40 years who walked with my families.

We talk about recognition of Australia’s First Peoples in the Constitution, and I pay tribute to all those in the campaign to support recognition. It is most certainly way overdue, and I say these next sentences without any disrespect to those of you. I urge parliamentarians in both houses to understand this: the Yanyuwa are a people whose struggle for country and recognition took nearly 40 years, and so many elders died well before such recognition and, most importantly, any respect ever took place. Such long, drawn-out legal battles have wearied many families of so many first nation peoples, constantly trying to defend their sense of self, identity and country, who have fought for land rights. Maybe that was the intention; I do not know. Battle fatigued, perhaps we are better to acquiesce. But we are still here, and we are not going to go away.

So I understand fully the impatience and, in some cases, total rejection felt by so many first nation peoples towards the Australian parliament’s push for recognition. It is a difficult pill to swallow, as first peoples, to yet again have to ask others to respect us—our place, our culture and our families—in this country, when we know we have been here well over 60,000 years.

With nearly 30 per cent of the Territory population Indigenous, we will only have half a vote in any referendum, let alone a referendum on recognition, because we are not a state. Is it not time to consider seriously a vision for the north and a vision for the future of all our territories such as Christmas and Cocos Islands? We need a vision that unites over 100 Aboriginal language groups just in the Northern Territory alone, the multicultural communities who have made it home and the descendants of the Afghan cameleers and early pioneers.

It is time the Commonwealth encouraged more seriously the growth of the Northern Territory as perhaps the seventh state in the Australian Federation. Allow the people of the Northern Territory to fully make our own decisions, determine our own future, by engaging in a fair partnership so that we, who have won our lands back—nearly 50 per cent of the landmass—and the young people of the Territory feel they have solid employment, a future filled with shared prosperity and hope.

The Commonwealth must prepare a way for the inclusion of more senators and more members of the House of Representatives so that the people of the Territory can become not just a state but an equal state here in the Australian parliament. It might be 10 or 20 years, but let there be a vision that at least starts.

The Mabo court ruling in 1992 overturned terra nullius. Let the people of the Northern Territory overturn the disbelief that even treaties are unattainable in Australia. Let the people of the Northern Territory have a say. In the year of the Mabo decision, I was questioned over my identity as a Yanyuwa Garrawa woman in the Borroloola land claim process. I found the interrogation focused more on how it could be that an educated Aboriginal woman must somehow not be quite real as a traditional owner of country. How could it be possible to be highly educated in the Western world and still live with a deep sense of cultural understanding in a culture thousands of years old?

It was thanks to the firm belief of my father, a school teacher from Sydney who inspired my educational upbringing, both in the Western ways and in maintaining a strong understanding of Borroloola families, kinship and culture shared by my mother—bless her soul—and shared by my maternal grandparents. I was educated in Borroloola, in Alice Springs and in Sydney, and all the while travelling backwards and forwards to the families in the Gulf Country. It was as a little girl in primary school in Alice Springs that I first saw the man who I would one day sit here in the Senate with—Senator Pat Dodson—when he worked with the Catholic Church in Alice Springs.

I would like to acknowledge the staff and students of St Scholastica’s College, my former high school, who are present in the gallery today. In 1988, I became the first Aboriginal student to become college captain, and I acknowledge my schoolmates who are here, in particular Yvonne Weldon of the Wiradjuri people of New South Wales and her family, Aunty Ann and the Coe families of Cowra. I pay my respects to the memory of the late great Mum Shirl, who was witness to ensuring that both Yvonne and I would finish well with the Good Sams. Today, another Indigenous student sits in the gallery who will be the 2017 college captain: Alice Dennison. I sincerely wish you all the best. I also acknowledge the students and staff of Saint Ignatius’ College, in particular the first nation’s students who danced Senator Dodson and I into the Senate on our first day with our fellow senators.

I now ask Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull: please reconsider your plebiscite bill. Please pull back from this brink of public vitriol and make marriage equality a reality in this parliament. We need only be reminded of the hateful and hurtful commentary on race that ended the career of an AFL hero in Swans legend Adam Goodes—do not let that happen here to any of these families in Australia.

My kujika has allowed me to see both worlds—that of the Western world view and that of the Yanyuwa/Garrawa world view. I am at home in both. I am neither one, without the other. But what of those who cannot balance the two and what of those who do not have the same?

I think of the women in my life struggling still just to survive—I call them my mothers, sisters, my friends—who endured tremendous acts of violence against them, with broken limbs, busted faces, amputations and sexual assaults. I stand here with you. My aunt who lost her job that she had had for 10 years without warning simply because she spoke out about the lack of housing for her families, I stand here with you. To the descendants of the stolen generation still seeking closure, I stand with you. To the people with disabilities forever striving for better access to the most basic things in life, I am with you.

And then there is my young cousin-sister who struggled with her identity as a lesbian in a strong traditional Aboriginal culture. Her outward spirit was full of fun and laughter, yet inside she was suffocating from the inability to find balance in her cultural world view and that of the expectations of the broader Australian society around her. So one night she left this world, just gave up, at the age of 23.

To the sista girls and brutha boys who struggle with their sexual identity, I say to you: stay strong, I stand here with you. To the people of the Northern Territory and the Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands, I stand here with you.

Bauji Barra. Thank you.

Julian Leeser: 'It said simply - "I am sorry Sylvia, I just can't cope, love, John", maiden speech - 2016

14 September 2016, Parliament House, Canberra, Australia

As a child the sound of my mother's footsteps coming towards my bedroom to wake me in the morning was a reassuring feature of daily life.

Inevitably I was awake before she made the door; but the rhythm, the sound, and the intensity of her walk were unmistakable.

Each morning the moment would arrive when she'd fling the door open with that effervescent greeting "time to rise and shine".

Twenty years ago this month my mother approached my room to wake me, but it was with a very different sound, pace and tempo.

Seared on my mind from that night was the speed of her approach and her scream as she flung open the door of my bedroom, sobbing, "Dad's gone, Dad's gone."

I got up from my bed to comfort my mum, trying to calm her. I went down the hall to my father's office, where he worked late into the night for his clients.

There I found his pyjamas in a pile and on the glass-topped table in the hall, was a note, like so many of the notes from my father, written in red pen on the back of a used envelope.

It said simply -"I am sorry Sylvia, I just can't cope, love, John".

I felt a great emptiness ripping at my stomach. I went to the garage and saw the car was missing.

We called the Police and later they came round to tell us that they'd found my father's body at the bottom of The Gap at Watsons Bay.

There is a point in life when you are supposed to become a man.

As I stood on the veranda and watched the sun come up that morning, I knew my day had come.

My father loved music.

He played 2CH on the radio from the moment he woke up to the moment he went to bed. Easy listening music was the sound-track of my childhood.

But the day he died the music died with him, and it was years before I could listen to his music again without tearing up.

Over the past twenty years I have gone back over the week leading up to my father's death too many times - and I keep thinking back to the signs he was giving us.

Although we had always been a family that hugged each other, my father had started giving us all very long hugs.

My father prided himself on being a great car parker and yet the week before he died he didn't seem to care how he parked. In hindsight it's clear that something had changed.

I knew it but didn't say anything.

You ask yourself, what could I have done?

What should I have said? Could I have reached out in a way that I didn't? Could I have said, as we say now, "Are you OK?"

I reflect on my own conduct the night before my father died, when he asked if I could help him polish his shoes before he left for a dinner at my brother's school.

I remember as a self-absorbed 20 year old the petulance and rudeness with which I waived away the opportunity to help my father, a man who so often helped me, and not a day goes by that I don't regret it.

Suicide, they used to say, is a victimless crime, but they never count the loved ones left behind.

In the past 20 years we have changed our approach to suicide, depression and mental health.

 And while there has rightly been a focus on the mental health of adolescents and young people, we must remember that people suffering at other stages in their lives are equally important.

And sadly the number of older people taking their own lives is increasing - my own father was fifty five.

In these past 20 years, we have spent millions on mental health and suicide prevention. Every government has tried - but despite all the good will, it is a fight we are losing.

In my own electorate we have had more than 100 people take their own lives in the last eight years. And across Australia eight people die by suicide every day.

All this shows that government money alone will not solve this epidemic. Treating depression as purely a medical issue is not working.

Rather we need to rebuild caring communities where people know and notice the signs and acknowledge the people around them.

Where we ask "Are you OK?", or more directly "Are you contemplating suicide?"

And we need to create the conditions where those who are thinking about suicide feel comfortable enough to ask for help.

Through my work in this place, I want to help empower Australians to build a greater sense of community.

I have seen active engagement in community combat loneliness and enable people to see a world outside themselves.

In a society where people are more pressured and more isolated than ever before, active engagement in community fosters civility, courtesy and understanding, virtues that are too often undervalued and supplanted by anger.

There is a role for government in supporting organisations and individuals that reach out to the socially isolated in our community, even in the face of continued rejection.

And there is a role for government in fostering innovative solutions that address suicide prevention, depression and mental health – enabling communities to learn from what has worked and connecting those efforts across our country.

I want to acknowledge the Prime Minister's personal interest in suicide prevention and the leadership he and the Health Minister took in devising the National Suicide Prevention Strategy.

As a member of this House I want to do what I can to help pierce the loneliness, the desperation and the blackness that people who suffer depression feel.

During my time here I will always be an advocate for better mental health policy.

Dad

When I think of my father, mostly though I think not of the way that he died, but rather of the example set by the way that he lived.

My father John was an only child. His father was a pharmacist.

His mother and her family escaped Nazi Germany in 1936 for the freedom and sanctuary of Australia. My father was an accountant; he had his own practice at Parramatta.

As I child I would go with him to the office or visit clients in their homes, businesses and factories.

He knew their lives, their families and their ups and downs: when they succeeded and when they struggled, when they were failing, and when they were flourishing.

He was a friend they saw once a year to help them get their affairs in order and comply with the law.

But even more than that he was an advisor on how they could get on with and grow their businesses.

To the extent that I become an effective local member for Berowra, it will be because of dad's example of professionalism, trust and care in working for his clients - and the personal touch they loved him for. Dad was a man much involved in his community.

He sat on the board of our local Synagogue. He sat on a theatre board. He was involved in the school my brother and I attended.

Dad was hard working, diligent and prided himself on doing things properly, and by the book. He was quiet, unassuming, patient and slow to anger.

He had a husky voice that made him sound like Louis Armstrong.

He and my mother Sylvia gave me three great gifts: my life, my faith and my education.

My father instilled in my brother Lindsay and me an important set of values:

· Courtesy, civility and fair dealing with everyone with whom he interacted.

· The need to give back to the community and get involved; and

· A deep sense of faith and love of the joys of Judaism.

He gave us a strong sense, shared by all Jews, that our own story is part of a much larger story.

That we should be, in Jonathan Sacks' words, "true to our faith while being a blessing to others regardless of their faith".

While I don't always live up to my father's ideals, his are the fundamental values which have shaped my life.

There is a Jewish idea that one should bring joy or naches to one's parents. I hope that my election to this place would have brought as much naches to him as it does to my mother and the rest of my family.

Mum

It is to my mother Sylvia that I owe the greatest thanks for being here today. Her courage and her unconditional love for my brother Lindsay and me has sustained our family through celebrations and sorrows.

With her unshakable belief that anything was possible for her boys, she created a home filled with love, stability and opportunity.

Nothing has ever been - or will ever be - too much for her.

But of all her gifts to us, the enthusiasm for active citizenship, the patriotism she instilled in my brother and me, the fact that hopefully, we are happy, well rounded and grateful Australians, is her greatest contribution.

My mother Sylvia is a fifth generation Australian.

Her grandfather was a Gallipoli Anzac and rode in the charge of the Light Horse at Be'er Sheva.

Her mother, Barbara, who passed away last week aged 95, served as a nurse in the Australian Army during the Second World War.

Mum's father Sam served in the ill-fated 8th Division, was taken prisoner in Changi and survived the horrors of the Burma Railway.

The war left my grandfather with a stammer and a steely determination.

What kept him alive in those dark days was a dream to come home and start his own hardware business which he did after the war, employing many of his fellow former POWs too.

The prosperity that my grandfather created was due to his hard work and ingenuity in predicting the need for building supplies to meet a post-war building boom.

My mother's Anglo-Jewry gave her a particular take on being an Australian.

Fiercely patriotic about Australia and loyal to the Crown, she realised the historical peculiarity to be both Jewish and free.

And that had such an impact on me.

As I grew up towards the end of the Cold War, with its threat to freedom everywhere, my mother would constantly remind me of the responsibility that comes with the freedom we enjoy in Australia - to be thankful for it, and to preserve it whenever it's threatened here - because, as she would teach me, most people at most times in most places are not free.

As a child my mother read to me about Australia's history and explained how our own family's story fit into the broader Australian story.

A story of explorers, soldiers, farmers, shopkeepers and professionals, people willing to chance their arm, who carved out a nation in this physically isolated but socially tolerant land.

My contribution to this story will be influenced by the combination of my father's quiet virtues, and my mother's perhaps slightly less quiet, but always deeply patriotic, civic, virtues.

Constitution

It was that instilled sense of history and an early interest in politics, that prompted me to want to serve in this place.

And so around the time of my tenth birthday I asked my parents not for a BMX bike or a cricket bat but for a copy of the Australian Constitution.

I think the Latin term for such behaviour is Nerdus Maximus.

Our Constitution is unique and worthy of celebration.

It belongs to everyone. It was written and debated all over the country, led by that great generation of liberal and conservative barrister-parliamentarians.

 Americans and Canadians wrote their constitutions in secret. Modern constitutions tend to be written by legal academics.

But the Australian Constitution was written in the open across Australia, by Australians for Australian conditions: from the School of Arts at Tenterfield, to the Court House at Corowa; from the drawing rooms of Adelaide to the libraries of Hobart; in parliamentary chambers in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne; and of special significance for me, on the Hawkesbury River, in the Berowra electorate, on a paddle-steamer called the Lucinda where our first Prime Minister Sir Edmund Barton and our first Chief Justice Sir Samuel Griffith, drafted the judicial power of the Commonwealth.

The Australian Constitution has provided the basis for stable government and economic prosperity for over a century.

At a time when constitutional structures and political systems around the world are breaking down, Australia's constitutional achievement should be a source of enormous pride.

Our Constitution establishes our unique Australian democracy.

The Constitution matters as much for what it doesn't say as for what it does.

Our Constitution contains no symbolic language and no bill of rights. Its sparse legal language is its strength.

It has meant that only the most creative judges have been able to invent implied rights to frustrate the democratic will.

The Constitution has figured prominently in my career and contributions to the public debate.

As the youngest elected delegate at the 1998 Constitutional Convention, I remain a committed constitutional monarchist, like my friend and former employer the Member for Warringah, I see it as the best system of government of all the available alternatives.

In 2009 I worked with a broad cross-section of Australians to ensure the defeat of an Australian Bill of Rights because I believe in the capacity of the political process, to solve problems, and I'm against an American style judiciary which makes political rather than legal decisions because of their Bill of Rights.

In 2013, with the members for Goldstein and Mitchell and some senators from the other place I led a scrappy but successful insurgency against Labor's plans to have the Commonwealth intervene in local government.

In important public debates, in a time of increasing polarization of views we need people who can build consensus and find the middle ground.

And so in more recent times, I have worked with Indigenous leaders and constitutional conservatives to find a constitutional way to make better policy about, and due recognition of Indigenous Australians, while avoiding the downsides of inserting symbolic language into a technical document, which requires interpretation by judges.

Today the Constitution has an important role to play in the next chapter of Australia's unfinished economic reforms.

The next item on the reform agenda must be to address the inefficiencies in our federation.

The States and the Commonwealth should have more clearly delineated responsibilities and the finances to deliver them.

Instead, today we have a system of buck passing, duplication and inefficiency: a lopsided federation that the framers would not recognise.

Canberra should not have a monopoly on finance and policy.

It has become fashionable to think that whenever the states fail, Canberra will do a better job.

Pink bats, school halls and The Mersey Hospital demonstrate that service delivery is not always Canberra's forte.

Canberra collects too much tax, while every year the States come begging because they don't raise enough money to finance their own services.

Addressing this dissonance in our federation should deliver less red tape, less duplication, better roads, better schools and better hospitals designed and run to meet local needs.

It should also lead to greater policy innovation as competition between the States drives excellence.

I have had the privilege of working for two of Australia's great federalists High Court Justice Ian Callinan, who honours me with his presence today, and Professor Greg Craven.

I have 6 also spent several years thinking about federalism as the Vice President of the Samuel Griffith Society.

I am not the first person to seek to propose reform of the federation on a federalist model.

Coalition and Labor Politicians have pursued this option before.

But every time such solutions have been proposed, they have been undermined by short-term politicking.

Previous economic reforms had a greater chance of success when there was a cross-party consensus.

The same approach is needed to reform our federation today. We know the task is to deliver the States more of their own source revenue and to lighten Canberra's footprint in areas of policy for which it has little expertise.

What has been lacking is the political cooperation to make it happen.

I therefore propose to look for reform partners in all parties in this Parliament to establish a group to build consensus for reform of fiscal federalism.

Reform of this scale can be daunting and while we may not complete the task while we are in this place, nor are we free to desist from it.

Berowra

But by far my most important task is to serve the people of Berowra with the full measure of my devotion.

The electorate of Berowra was created in 1969. Running from the banks of the Hawkesbury River to the M2 motorway, the people of Berowra are community minded and self-reliant.

That is why there is a greater number of volunteers, people of faith and small business owners than in many other communities.

Despite its strengths, the Berowra community is one that faces major infrastructure challenges. Pennant Hills Road is one of the worst roads in Australia.

But now Liberal State and Federal governments are working with the private sector to deliver Northconnex, which will remove 5000 trucks from Pennant Hills Rd every day, improving air quality and reducing noise while completing the missing national transport link between the M1 and the M2.

It is not the only infrastructure issue we face. Other roads like New Line Rd need widening to take into account the growing population in the electorate and in surrounding areas.

And the undulating hills and the sparse population in the rural areas make mobile connectivity difficult.

But the Coalition's mobile blackspot program is starting to address this infrastructure challenge.

I wish to thank the people of Berowra for giving me the extraordinary opportunity to serve them. My first duty will always be to them.

I would like to thank the members of the Liberal Party in Berowra, and my friends and supporters beyond that organisation, for all their work to see me come into this place.

Many have travelled vast distances to be here today. The best way I can demonstrate my gratitude to them is through the quality of my service here.

In that, I hope to emulate the style of my three predecessors Philip Ruddock, who throughout his record term helped build an ethnically diverse country with strong secure borders; Harry Edwards, who was a leading economic thinker on microfinancing; and one of Australia's most distinguished lawyers, the first member for Berowra, Tom Hughes QC, who is here today.

I am also honoured that my friend Heather Henderson, the daughter of Sir Robert Menzies, is here today.

For six and a half years I had the privilege of running the Centre named after her father.

I acknowledge Tom Harley my Chairman at the Menzies Research Centre who is also here.

Sir Robert Menzies was a poor country boy from a one horse town, who by dint of his own hard work and intellect rose to lead his profession, his party and his nation.

Our task as Liberals is to create the conditions so the next generation's Sir Robert Menzies can rise and thrive.

I am conscious of the huge responsibility involved in being the Liberal Member for Berowra.

I will seek to carry on Sir Robert Menzies' traditions of policy and principle in all I do in this place.

Finally I wish to thank my wife Joanna.

If my parents gave me the foundations for a good and worthwhile life in years past, it's Joanna who anchors me in the present, and always points me forward with optimism to the future.

She is the reason more than any other than I am here. Joanna introduced me to Berowra. It was her home before it was mine. I could not have embarked on this journey without her.

She is smart, accomplished, beautiful and challenging and she has never lost faith in me.

She is, in fact, perfect in every way, except for that occasion 11 years ago, when her judgment clearly failed her and she decided to marry me. Joanna - I love you with all my heart.

Every new member comes into this place with life experiences from which they can draw strength.

I come here with the certain knowledge that no one lives a perfect life, that we all need help and community in good times and hard times.

But I draw strength from the example of my family.

I draw strength from my faith. I draw strength from Australia's traditions of service.

And I draw strength from our unique Australian story of progress – epitomized by the story of the individuals who persevered and wrote our Constitution.

Reform is never easy but the opportunity to participate in the public debate and be an advocate for the cause I believe in: a strong, free, confident and prosperous Australia is something that fills me with the greatest enthusiasm.

Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Julian Leeser was a guest on episode 25 of the podcast

Peter Khalil: 'To those religious and ethnic groups being used as political footballs: ‘I will stand by you, with you and for you'', maiden speech - 2016

12 September 2016, Parliament House, Canberra, Australia

Mr Speaker, I congratulate you on your election to the chair and I begin my first speech by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land we meet on, the Ngunnawal people, and their elders past and present. I do so because it is a profound mark of respect for the peoples and cultures that have been present on this land from the beginning of time.

I stand in this place because I was elected by the people of Wills to serve them and to make a difference to their lives. I am conscious of being charged with an enormous responsibility bestowed with great honour. Even though it is somewhat improbable that I stand here, I am living proof that in this country politics matters, that it can make a profound difference to people’s lives.

My parents, Fayek and Georgette Khalil, are here with us in the gallery today. They came to Australia from Egypt 47 years ago. Just like those who come today, they were escaping a region where conflict was the norm and opportunities limited. Their sacrifice and that of millions of other migrants helped build Australia—not just its physical environment but the diversity of its culture, the generosity of its peoples and the depth of its humanity. I say these things too because nowhere is this diversity, this generosity of spirit, this decency better reflected than in the people of Wills.

My parents sacrificed so much of their own lives, their dreams and ambitions, to give my sister, Ellen, and I a better life. We started out in an inner-city Melbourne housing commission. Dad had to give up a career in Egypt as a lawyer and he worked for Australia Post. He became a union man, a shop steward, and later was on the state executive of the Victorian postal workers union. Mum gave up her uni degree in Egypt and worked at the Reserve Bank printing labs and as a preschool carer and an interpreter. They worked hard to give us a chance to make something of a new life in Australia.

It was not always easy. There were times of great hardship and ugly prejudice. I grew up in Australia in the seventies and eighties, a world very different from the one we live in today. Racism was more overt and considered acceptable by some. I experienced much of it directly. I will always remember my Grade 6 teacher, Mrs Hendrix, a coloured South African woman, who told me that in apartheid South Africa my parents would not be able to travel on the same bus, because of the difference in their skin complexion. That troubled me deeply as a 12-year-old, but it also awakened in me a yearning for social justice and a nascent political activism.

Although I was a serious kid who went to concerts in support of the ANC with my dad and who read Gandhi and Mandela, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, I was also like every other Aussie kid: I really loved my footy—Aussie rules, of course. My grandparents lived in a housing commission in Preston, and my Auntie Gigi—Giselle—who is here today too, went to Preston East High School with Peter Daicos, the great Collingwood champion. She introduced me to Daics at the Preston fish and chip shop in 1978, when I was five years old, and I was Collingwood for life. I remember dragging Dad down to Victoria Park to watch the Magpies every second Saturday. I would sit on his shoulders as he stood in the outer.

While footy gave me great excitement, agony—1979, 80, 81, 2002 and 2003; I was too young for 77—and some great joy in 1990 and 2010, it taught me deeper life lessons. Daics was an ethnic, more usually called a wog in those days—and other terrible things—much the same as I was being called in the schoolyard. Despite the abuse, Daics was a champion. His exploits inspired me, and I started to believe in myself too. I learned to ignore all of the hatred and prejudice and to let my actions do the talking and that lots of hard work and a little talent will always make you a winner.

My parents also instilled in us the critical importance of education to our futures—education and the lasting impact of dedicated teachers like Mrs Hendrix and my year 9 politics teacher, Mr Sestito, who ignited my passion for Australian politics. I met recently with one of my predecessors in Wills, Bob Hawke, better known, of course, as one of Australia’s greatest Prime Ministers, and I asked Bob whether with all the achievements of his administration there was a policy that went unheralded. He told me that, when he became PM in 1983, only a third of students in Australia finished year 12. Only a third. Through policies his government put in place, by 1991 it had almost tripled to 90 per cent. Bob was particularly proud of that achievement. It was the visionary policy achievements of Labor governments—the one he led and those before and after—that gave me access to a quality education. I am and will be forever grateful.

Mine is not a unique story. Millions of Australians, whatever their ethnic background or their socioeconomic status, were given opportunities through Labor Party policies based on fairness. For my migrant family, affordable housing, Medicare and access to education were life-changing. The Labor Party’s commitment to equality of opportunity is not just a three-word slogan. It meant something to me and my family as it means something to millions of Australians, allowing them to make positive contributions in their lives and to those around them based on their merit and hard work, not on their postcode or their pay cheque, their gender or ethnicity, their religion or culture.

My parents also instilled in me the importance of giving back to the country that has given us so much. They often told me that Australia is not the lucky country, but, rather, we are lucky to be Australian. Migrants like my parents got much from the lucky country, but they also gave much to making it better, more prosperous and as open as its beautiful broad skies. I will do my utmost to advocate for and represent the people of Wills with all my wit and judgement, skill and experience, passion and smarts. I thank them for entrusting me with this great privilege.

When I reflect on what is important in our lives I think immediately of my family, as we all do. We love our families, and if we have children we would do anything for them. We also cherish the bonds we share with our friends and the importance of making an effort for them. Whatever god we worship or not, whatever cultural beliefs we have and whatever ideologies we adhere to, it is a central part of the human condition that we are fulfilled by our connection and service to others.

Yet the public are cynical of politics and politicians. We become lightning rods for people’s frustrations, disappointments and anger. The raw quest for power can threaten to overshadow our more noble instincts. More often than not, the public’s expectations are low, and when they are high they are seldom met. However, at unique and rare times in history politicians become the vessels for inspiring leadership, visionary change or simply doing good. That can only be when we keep our eyes affixed on our very own compass star—the shining light that guided us each to serve in this place, even amidst the voracious storms that rage around us and all too often consume our national politics. We can yet, with a steady gaze on that guiding star, serve to protect and defend the values that make our democracy great while passing new laws that reform our nation, advancing an even greater and fairer Australia. The responsibility and burden for this we happily bear. It signifies something great and important within all of us—a deep desire to make the lives of those around us better.

While a public servant for the Australian Department of Defence, I was sent on a posting to Iraq in 2003 and 2004, tasked with helping to rebuild Iraq following the removal of Saddam’s regime. Although I believed at the time the Iraq War was a strategic and humanitarian disaster, I made a choice to serve my country. I worked in Iraq on rebuilding and training of the Iraqi army that is now taking on Daesh, building the ministry of defence and public service, and negotiating for the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Sunni tribal leaders to jointly fight al-Qaeda in Iraq. While I faced danger, I was ably protected. I thanked the diggers of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment as we moved through the Baghdad streets in the very agile Australian light armoured vehicles.

No matter our ideological beliefs and how we choose to serve, we must recognise the importance of open and honest debate, differing opinions and different beliefs. Australia is a successful migrant country because of our wonderful multicultural model. I am proud to be Australian whilst also embracing my cultural heritage. I do not have to choose between identities. Our multicultural model works because we embrace and do not just tolerate cultural diversity. This diverse and fair society that generations of Australians have created and nurtured is worth protecting. We must educate that difference is not to be feared but embraced. We must all stand up to racism and prejudice. To those who would peddle it in this parliament by playing on fear and ignorance: ‘I will stand steadfast against you.’

I am particularly honoured to be one of the first of two Egyptian Australians elected to the 45th Parliament. The other of course is Dr Anne Aly, the member for Cowan. We are also the first African Australians in this place. I look forward to representing our brothers and sisters who have migrated from Africa and the Middle East. I am also the first Copt to be elected to this place. The Copts are adherents of one of the oldest sects of Christianity that emerged almost 2,000 years ago. Our history stretches back thousands of years connecting us to ancient Egypt. The Coptic language is the last form of the ancient Egyptian language. The Copts have faced the violence of sectarian persecution, as have many other ancient peoples of the Middle East. The Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, the Yazidis and the Kurds have all been on the front line, taking the brunt of violent extremism of Daesh. They deserve our support.

In Australia and in many Western democracies this is a moment in history where we face a fractious body politic exacerbated by or perhaps driven by the ugly rise of demagogues. These charlatans pull from their sleeves the same three-card trick played throughout history: first, identify an angry segment of the population and tell them they are just as angry; second, find a minority to scapegoat, like Asians, Muslims or Mexicans, and blame them for taking all the jobs; and, third, throw in a dose of fear, accuse the scapegoat minority of harming our way of life, stir the angry mob until it reaches boiling point and then claim only the demagogue can fix it. Of course we all know there is no substance to any of it, let alone real policies that can effect genuine change. To those religious and ethnic groups being used as political footballs: ‘I will stand by you, with you and for you. Know this: Labor will defend the multicultural society that we have built and we will never let the hateful dividers rip apart the egalitarian fabric of Australia.'

We must not, however, fall into the trap of blaming the people who are disaffected and angry. They are being exploited, they are genuinely fearful of the threats we all face and they are uncertain of their place in our society. While there are many winners in our globalised world, there are also many people who have lost out. Thousands of workers have lost or are about to lose their manufacturing jobs. Many live in Wills. Not all of these workers, after 20 years or more in a Holden or Ford plant, can become baristas or start-up tech gurus in our so-called exciting innovation society. I say to these people: ‘We the Labor Party and the labour movement are doing the hard yards to develop—and upon winning government will implement—policies that retrain and retool workers, provide vocational education, establish job creation programs and provide support to families that are struggling.’ I say to all of those people who feel disconnected, lost and angry: ‘Do not give yourselves to the haters. Keep faith in us. There will be better days ahead.’

I look forward to being the representative for the people of Wills, which is a diverse and socially progressive microcosm of modern Australia. In suburbs like Coburg, Pascoe Vale, Glenroy and Fawkner, to name a few, 60 per cent of residents were born or have at least one parent born overseas and 40 per cent of households are bilingual. Multiple faiths and over 60 ethnicities are living in harmony.

Wills has a magnificent arts community. The suburb of Brunswick has the highest concentration of artists in Australia. The arts matter. A thriving arts sector is the heart and soul of any society. It cannot be measured in traditional economic terms—its metrics are intangible—but its social benefits are invaluable. I will continue to support Labor’s great policies for the independence and return of substantive funding to the Australia Council and in addition be a voice and a pen on issues, such as parallel importation, that are of great import to authors, of which there are many great ones in Wills.

Wills has a commitment to the environment. Residents have led the way on climate change action, with one of the fastest rates of home and business adoption of solar panels. In the suburbs of Fawkner and Glenroy pensioners have roofs covered in solar panels because it makes environmental and economic sense.

Wills has a social heart that beats strong, exemplified by the work of 11 neighbourhood houses that do so much for the local community. There are many vibrant Italian and Greek pensioner and social clubs—and I enjoyed playing bocce in Fawkner with some of them during the campaign.

I have chosen to serve to change people’s lives, to channel their hopes and dreams, because I believe that Labor values make a difference. I believe in equality of opportunity, access to education, affordable health care and social justice. I believe in equality before the law, regardless of gender, sexual preference, ethnicity or religion. I believe in fighting for job creation, because a job gives a person dignity. I believe in tackling climate change for our and future generations, in sustainable living and in funding for infrastructure and public transport. I believe in a successful multicultural society that celebrates and embraces diversity.

Equality, not privilege; diversity, not divisiveness; hope, not fear. I will fight for these values for the people of Wills and for the nation, as have great Labor governments done for the best part of a century—delivering the reforms that have made all of those so lucky to be Australians.

Prime Minister Curtin, who led Australia through the darkest days of World War II put it much more eloquently than I when he said that the Labor Party and the labour movement stand for:

… humanity as against material gain and has more resilience, more decency and dignity, and the best of human qualities than any other political movement.

The Labor Party has always stood for improving the lives of Australians—for putting people first. It also has a tradition that seeks to extend these values beyond our shores. Prime Minister Chifley spoke of reaching for that light on the hill—to bring something better to the people: better standards of living, greater happiness to the mass of the people. Our objective to reach for that light on the hill was and still is to aim for the betterment of all humanity.

That is why I am committed to Australia’s role in the world as a good international citizen, making a difference to people’s lives across the globe. In 2005 I had the opportunity to testify before the US Senate foreign relations committee on security policy in the Middle East. I spoke before then Senator Joe Biden and then Senator Barack Obama. I was struck by Senator Obama’s compassion and search for real solutions. Over a decade later, President Obama is hosting a summit on refugees next week. I call on everyone in this place and those government ministers attending the summit to put aside partisan politics and work to find sustainable and compassionate solutions to the international refugee crisis. As a son of migrants who came from Egypt, escaping a region engulfed by war, I can appreciate the yearning for a life of peace, security and opportunity. For the best part of a decade, and in the recent federal campaign when discussing asylum seeker policy, I argued strongly for an increase in our intake and an end to indefinite detention on Manus and Nauru.

I supported our leader, Bill Shorten, when he made clear that if we won the election one of his first acts would be to negotiate with the UNHCR the resettlement of the refugees to safe and secure countries. We should not be fixated on countries like Cambodia or PNG which have woefully inadequate infrastructure but look to other countries, including New Zealand and Malaysia. But I recognise that even this falls far too short in our moral, legal and international obligations as a good international citizen.

I believe Australia has a moral obligation, at the minimum, to take responsibility for the care of those refugees that have been physically or emotionally damaged by the long-term detention that we have submitted them to. I also think we should re-examine the assumed nexus between detention centres and discouraging people smugglers to ascertain how much this argument holds in the context of robust turn back policies.

Whilst I support the ALP policy I also look forward to playing my part in the ongoing debate and change on this issue. I will advocate that Australia take a leadership role in developing an international agreement in which multiple countries increase their quota intake of refugees so we can begin to find solutions for 25 million asylum seekers and refugees in UNHCR camps around the world. An international agreement between 10, 15 or 20 countries agreeing to take an additional 30, 40 or 50,000 refugees a year each would start to be a real solution, resulting in a million or more refugees being resettled to safe haven each year. If we can as an international community come together to tackle climate change that threatens our planet we can and must come together to find a way to deliver safety and security for millions of refugees. We can and must do away with the lowest-common-denominator policies that have poisoned our political culture. We can and must do better as a nation.

So I speak on this not because it is popular, nor will I resile from the issue because it is unpopular, but because it is simply the right thing to do—because I believe that true leadership is not about appealing to the fear that lurks in our darker angels but appealing to our better angels.

No-one gets to this place without the support of literally hundreds of people. I want to thank the over 1,000 ALP members in Wills, the volunteers—the true believers—who worked tirelessly during the campaign. I salute you, for it is your commitment to the Labor cause that wins elections.

I would like to pay a special tribute to my predecessor, Kelvin Thomson, acknowledging his many, many years of service and advocacy. Thank you, Kelvin, for all your support and wise counsel. Ben Davis, the Victorian Secretary of the AWU, a great union leader of a great union: his wise counsel to me was summed up in four words, ‘Talk to the voters.’

Thanks to Theo Theophanous and his wife, Rita, who are in the gallery, for their strategic guidance, support and friendship, and to Steve Michaelson, also known as Mocca, and Shannon Threlfall Clark, who headed up my campaign team with great professionalism and efficiency.

Thanks to the rest of the campaign team: Carole Fabian, Councillor Lambros Tapinos, Hasan Erdogan, Chris Anderson, Mel Sherrin and Iva Bujanovic, our campaign field organiser, and to my many state colleagues—Minister Philip Dalidakis and Debra are here today. And special thanks to Speaker Telmo Languiller—thank you for your support. To Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek: you have run a tremendous campaign—but more than that you are Labor leaders we can believe in. I thank you and all my federal colleagues—too many of you to thank; you are all my friends as well—for your support over many years

To His Excellency Mohamed Khairat, the Egyptian ambassador: I bet he never dreamed that there would be not one but two Egyptian Australians elected to the federal parliament! Your Grace Bishop Suriel, Abouna Michael: thank you and the Coptic community for your support. And to Robert Ray for his political wisdom.

Thanks to my family, friends and supporters who have made the trip to Canberra for today: to my life-long mate John Jardim, Rose and my goddaughter, Emma, and Erin; to David Noakes, Tiff, Ollie, my godson, Coco and Zoe; and to Priya Saratchandran, Joseph Hanna, Robert Ishak, Simon Banks and Justin Di Lollo. Thanks to my Aunt Gigi, her partner Barry, Aunt Julie, my uncles John and Jerry—who cannot be here—and to my maternal grandmother, Nana Ellen, who is 92 and is here today; to my sister Ellen and my nephews Oscar and Ethan; and to my parents Fayek and Georgette—once again, I love you and I thank you all.

To my wife, Lydia: your sacrifices—the small ones you make every day as well as the big ones you have made and I know will also make—are the very reasons I am standing here today. Thank you for your patience, your wise counsel, your remarkable intelligence and, most importantly, for your love.

To my children, Cassius—the shadow minister for dinosaur welfare!—and to Aya—the parliamentary secretary for loud screaming!—I hope that I can do some good in this place that will make you proud of your dad, and make Australia a better place for your generation. I love you and your mum very much. I hope I can do you all proud and make something of my service.

Herein lies the magic of this place. It resides within and through that call to service, because I can serve and make a difference in the lives of not just my family and my friends but on a grand scale to tens of thousands of people across Wills. The tempest that rages in this place most often at 2 pm belies the quieter work MPs do for their constituents. I know it is not only sound and fury as we strut upon this stage. We have an awesome responsibility and a rare privilege to work even in the eye of the political storm and make our shared political values into realities. The magic of this place is that I—as a most improbable candidate—was elected to truly serve the people of Wills and the nation that has given me so much by making what I believe true for the many, not just the few.

Jo Cox: 'Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration', maiden speech - 2015

Jo Cox was murdered on 16 June 2016, while campaigning on the street . Her accused killer, Thomas Mair, gave his name as "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain" at his first court appearance.

3 June 2015, House of Commons, London, United Kingdom

Thank you, Mr Speaker; it is a great privilege to be called to make my maiden speech in this most important of debates, and I congratulate many others who have made outstanding maiden speeches today.

I am sure that many right hon. and hon. Members will claim that their constituencies consist of two halves or numerous parochial parts; I am another in that respect, and Batley and Spen is very much that kind of constituency. It is a joy to represent such a diverse community.

Batley and Spen is a gathering of typically independent, no-nonsense and proud Yorkshire towns and villages. Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration, be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan, principally from Kashmir. While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel round the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

My constituency is also home to Fox’s Biscuits and Lion Confectionery, so I am sure you will not think it an indulgence, Mr Speaker, if I describe Batley and Spen as a constituency with an industrial heart wrapped in a very rich and pleasant Yorkshire landscape—geographical, historical and cultural.

The spirit of non-conformity is as prevalent now in my part of west Yorkshire as it was in the time of my two immediate predecessors, Mike Wood and Elizabeth Peacock. They were both known for offering their own brand of independent, non-conformist service, albeit in very different ways. I intend to maintain that established tradition in my own unique style.

Of course, Batley is a town that has sent Labour MPs to this place for the best part of a hundred years. One of them, Dr Broughton, is of course famously credited with bringing down a Government, so I respectfully put the right hon. Members on the Front Bench opposite on notice. The Spen valley has a far more chequered political history, alternately sending Labour and Conservative MPs here to Westminster for much of the 20th century. Nothing made me prouder on 8 May than to be sent to this place with an increased Labour majority, proving again that in my neck of the woods non-conformity is what we do best.

As I have already alluded to, we make things in Batley and Spen; we do so now, just as we did historically. Batley and Spen has a high proportion of people working in manufacturing, and we can boast the full range of industries, including high-skilled, precision engineering. We manufacture all sorts, from beds to biscuits, and from carpets to lathes. We also have some of the best fish and chips in the country, and some of the best curries in the world.

However, what many of our businesses are lacking is confidence: confidence to expand; confidence to borrow; confidence to grow; and the confidence to fuel a real economic recovery that benefits everybody, offering decent jobs, paying decent wages and bridging the skills gap. Key to changing that situation is a fundamental shift in attitude towards regional economic regeneration. It is time to give city and county regions the powers and resources they need to promote growth, and I will happily work with all of those who are genuinely committed to building an economic powerhouse in the north. This agenda has to have at its centre a commitment to connect towns and villages in constituencies like mine to thriving city hubs, and to deliver a financial offer in the forthcoming July Budget that gives this worthy goal a real chance of success. Yorkshire folk are not fools: talk about devolving power to cities and regions, while simultaneously stripping them of the resources to deliver and subjecting northern councils such as Kirklees to the harshest of cuts, is not compatible with a worthy commitment to building a northern powerhouse to drive growth and prosperity.

Businesses in my constituency want help to address the skills mismatch at local level which leaves employers with staff shortages and young people without jobs. They want access to reliable sources of finance, including a network of local banks. They want to connect to a regional infrastructure that works for them, not rail price hikes of more than 126% and endless delays to key ransport projects such as the electrification of the line from Manchester to Leeds. Many businesses in Yorkshire want the security and stability of Britain’s continued membership of the European Union, a cause I look forward to championing passionately in this place and elsewhere.

The key question is: will the Government’s actions match their northern powerhouse rhetoric? HS2 is not the only acid test. There are two bigger challenges. First, will the Government really devolve all the powers and decisions that could and should be taken locally and regionally? My test will be this: if there is a compelling reason for this to be a national decision then so be it; if not, it should be devolved. Secondly, will the Government really take the whole range of their decisions—on transport, research and development, planning, education and skills—in the interests of rebalancing the economy and growing the north?

I am Batley and Spen born and bred, and I could not be prouder of that. I am proud that I was made in Yorkshire and I am proud of the things we make in Yorkshire. Britain should be proud of that, too. I look forward to representing the great people of Batley and Spen here over the next five years.

Pauline Hanson: 'If politicians continue to promote separatism in Australia, they should not continue to hold their seats in this parliament', maiden speech - 1996

10 September 1996, House of Representatives, Canberra, Australia

Ms HANSON (Oxley) (5.15 p.m.)–Mr Acting Speaker, in making my first speech in this place, I congratulate you on your election and wish to say how proud I am to be here as the Independent member for Oxley. I come here not as a polished politician but as a woman who has had her fair share of life’s knocks.

My view on issues is based on commonsense, and my experience as a mother of four children, as a sole parent, and as a businesswoman running a fish and chip shop. I won the seat of Oxley largely on an issue that has resulted in me being called a racist. That issue related to my comment that Aboriginals received more benefits than non-Aboriginals.

We now have a situation where a type of reverse racism is applied to mainstream Australians by those who promote political correctness and those who control the various taxpayer funded ‘industries’ that flourish in our society servicing Aboriginals, multiculturalists and a host of other minority groups. In response to my call for equality for all Australians, the most noisy criticism came from the fat cats, bureaucrats and the do-gooders. They screamed the loudest because they stand to lose the most–their power, money and position, all funded by ordinary Australian taxpayers.

Present governments are encouraging separatism in Australia by providing opportunities, land, moneys and facilities available only to Aboriginals. Along with millions of Australians, I am fed up to the back teeth with the inequalities that are being promoted by the government and paid for by the taxpayer under the assumption that Aboriginals are the most disadvantaged people in Australia. I do not believe that the colour of one’s skin determines whether you are disadvantaged. As Paul Hasluck said in parliament in October 1955 when he was Minister for Territories:

The distinction I make is this. A social problem is one that concerns the way in which people live together in one society. A racial problem is a problem which confronts two different races who live in two separate societies, even if those societies are side by side. We do not want a society in Australia in which one group enjoy one set of privileges and another group enjoy another set of privileges.

Hasluck’s vision was of a single society in which racial emphases were rejected and social issues addressed. I totally agree with him, and so would the majority of Australians.

But, remember, when he gave his speech he was talking about the privileges that white Australians were seen to be enjoying over Aboriginals. Today, 41 years later, I talk about the exact opposite–the privileges Aboriginals enjoy over other Australians. I have done research on benefits available only to Aboriginals and challenge anyone to tell me how Aboriginals are disadvantaged when they can obtain three and five per cent housing loans denied to non-Aboriginals.

This nation is being divided into black and white, and the present system encourages this. I am fed up with being told, ‘This is our land.’ Well, where the hell do I go? I was born here, and so were my parents and children. I will work beside anyone and they will be my equal but I draw the line when told I must pay and continue paying for something that happened over 200 years ago. Like most Australians, I worked for my land; no-one gave it to me.

Apart from the $40 million spent so far since Mabo on native title claims, the government has made available $1 billion for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders as compensation for land they cannot claim under native title. Bear in mind that the $40 million spent so far in native title has gone into the pockets of grateful lawyers and consultants. Not one native title has been granted as I speak.

The majority of Aboriginals do not want handouts because they realise that welfare is killing them. This quote says it all: ‘If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish you feed him for a lifetime.’

Those who feed off the Aboriginal industry do not want to see things changed. Look at the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. Members receive $290 a day sitting allowance and $320 a day travelling allowance, and most of these people also hold other very well paid positions. No wonder they did not want to resign recently!

Reconciliation is everyone recognising and treating each other as equals, and everyone must be responsible for their own actions. This is why I am calling for ATSIC to be abolished. It is a failed, hypocritical and discriminatory organisation that has failed dismally the people it was meant to serve. It will take more than Senator Herron’s surgical skills to correct the terminal mess it is in. Anyone with a criminal record can, and does, hold a position with ATSIC. I cannot hold my position as a politician if I have a criminal record–once again, two sets of rules.

If politicians continue to promote separatism in Australia, they should not continue to hold their seats in this parliament. They are not truly representing all Australians, and I call on the people to throw them out. To survive in peace and harmony, united and strong, we must have one people, one nation, one flag.

The greatest cause of family breakdown is unemployment. This country of ours has the richest mineral deposits in the world and vast rich lands for agriculture and is surrounded by oceans that provide a wealth of seafood, yet we are $190 billion in debt with an interest bill that is strangling us.

Youth unemployment between the ages of 15 to 24 runs at 25 per cent and is even higher in my electorate of Oxley. Statistics, by cooking the books, say that Australia’s unemployment is at 8.6 per cent, or just under one million people. If we disregard that one hour’s work a week classifies a person as employed, then the figure is really between 1.5 million and 1.9 million unemployed. This is a crisis that recent governments have ignored because of a lack of will. We are regarded as a Third World country with First World living conditions. We have one of the highest interest rates in the world, and we owe more money per capita than any other country. All we need is a nail hole in the bottom of the boat and we’re sunk.

In real dollar terms, our standard of living has dropped over the past 10 years. In the 1960s, our wages increase ran at three per cent and unemployment at two per cent. Today, not only is there no wage increase, we have gone backwards and unemployment is officially 8.6 per cent. The real figure must be close to 12 to 13 per cent.

I wish to comment briefly on some social and legal problems encountered by many of my constituents–problems not restricted to just my electorate of Oxley. I refer to the social and family upheaval created by the Family Law Act and the ramifications of that act embodied in the child support scheme. The Family Law Act, which was the child of the disgraceful Senator Lionel Murphy, should be repealed. It has brought death, misery and heartache to countless thousands of Australians. Children are treated like pawns in some crazy game of chess.

The child support scheme has become unworkable, very unfair and one sided. Custodial parents can often profit handsomely at the expense of a parent paying child support, and in many cases the non-custodial parent simply gives up employment to escape the, in many cases, heavy and punitive financial demands. Governments must give to all those who have hit life’s hurdles the chance to rebuild and have a future.

We have lost all our big Australian industries and icons, including Qantas when it sold 25 per cent of its shares and a controlling interest to British Airways. Now this government want to sell Telstra, a company that made a $1.2 billion profit last year and will make a $2 billion profit this year. But, first, they want to sack 54,000 employees to show better profits and share prices. Anyone with business sense knows that you do not sell off your assets especially when they are making money. I may be only ‘a fish and chip shop lady’, but some of these economists need to get their heads out of the textbooks and get a job in the real world. I would not even let one of them handle my grocery shopping.

Immigration and multiculturalism are issues that this government is trying to address, but for far too long ordinary Australians have been kept out of any debate by the major parties. I and most Australians want our immigration policy radically reviewed and that of multiculturalism abolished. I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. Between 1984 and 1995, 40 per cent of all migrants coming into this country were of Asian origin. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate. Of course, I will be called racist but, if I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to have a say in who comes into my country. A truly multicultural country can never be strong or united. The world is full of failed and tragic examples, ranging from Ireland to Bosnia to Africa and, closer to home, Papua New Guinea. America and Great Britain are currently paying the price.

Arthur Calwell was a great Australian and Labor leader, and it is a pity that there are not men of his stature sitting on the opposition benches today. Arthur Calwell said:

Japan, India, Burma, Ceylon and every new African nation are fiercely anti-white and anti one another. Do we want or need any of these people here? I am one red-blooded Australian who says no and who speaks for 90% of Australians.

I have no hesitation in echoing the words of Arthur Calwell.

There is light at the end of the tunnel and there are solutions. If this government wants to be fair dinkum, then it must stop kowtowing to financial markets, international organisations, world bankers, investment companies and big business people. The Howard government must become visionary and be prepared to act, even at the risk of making mistakes.

In this financial year we will be spending at least $1.5 billion on foreign aid and we cannot be sure that this money will be properly spent, as corruption and mismanagement in many of the recipient countries are legend. Australia must review its membership and funding of the UN, as it is a little like ATSIC on a grander scale, with huge tax-free American dollar salaries, duty-free luxury cars and diplomatic status.

The World Health Organisation has a lot of its medical experts sitting in Geneva while hospitals in Africa have no drugs and desperate patients are forced to seek medication on the black market. I am going to find out how many treaties we have signed with the UN, have them exposed and then call for their repudiation. The government should cease all foreign aid immediately and apply the savings to generate employment here at home.

Abolishing the policy of multiculturalism will save billions of dollars and allow those from ethnic backgrounds to join mainstream Australia, paving the way to a strong, united country. Immigration must be halted in the short term so that our dole queues are not added to by, in many cases, unskilled migrants not fluent in the English language. This would be one positive step to rescue many young and older Australians from a predicament which has become a national disgrace and crisis. I must stress at this stage that I do not consider those people from ethnic backgrounds currently living in Australia anything but first-class citizens, provided of course that they give this country their full, undivided loyalty.

The government must be imaginative enough to become involved, in the short term at least, in job creating projects that will help establish the foundation for a resurgence of national development and enterprise. Such schemes would be the building of the Alice Springs to Darwin railway line, new roads and ports, water conservation, reafforestation and other sensible and practical environmental projects.

Therefore I call for the introduction of national service for a period of 12 months, compulsory for males and females upon finishing year 12 or reaching 18 years of age. This could be a civil service with a touch of military training, because I do not feel we can go on living in a dream world forever and a day believing that war will never touch our lives again.

The government must do all it can to help reduce interest rates for business. How can we compete with Japan, Germany and Singapore, which enjoy rates of two per cent, 5.5 per cent and 3.5 per cent respectively? Reduced tariffs on foreign goods that compete with local products seem only to cost Australians their jobs. We must look after our own before lining the pockets of overseas countries and investors at the expense of our living standards and future.

Time is running out. We may have only 10 to 15 years left to turn things around. Because of our resources and our position in the world, we will not have a say because neighbouring countries such as Japan, with 125 million people; China, with 1.2 billion people; India, with 846 million people; Indonesia, with 178 million people; and Malaysia, with 20 million people are well aware of our resources and potential. Wake up, Australia, before it is too late. Australians need and want leaders who can inspire and give hope in difficult times. Now is the time for the Howard government to accept the challenge.

Everything I have said is relevant to my electorate of Oxley, which is typical of mainstream Australia. I do have concerns for my country and I am going to do my best to speak my mind and stand up for what I believe in. As an Independent I am confident that I can look after the needs of the people of Oxley and I will always be guided by their advice. It is refreshing to be able to express my views without having to toe a party line. It has got me into trouble on the odd occasion, but I am not going to stop saying what I think. I consider myself just an ordinary Australian who wants to keep this great country strong and independent, and my greatest desire is to see all Australians treat each other as equals as we travel together towards the new century.

I will fight hard to keep my seat in this place, but that will depend on the people who sent me here. Mr Acting Speaker, I thank you for your attention and trust that you will not think me presumptuous if I dedicate this speech to the people of Oxley and those Australians who have supported me. I salute them all.

Benjamin Disraeli: 'Though I sit down now, the time will come when you will hear me,' maiden speech - 1837

7 December, 1837, House of Commons, Westminster, United Kingdom

Future prime minister Disraeli was jeered in his maiden speech for attacking the previous speaker, Daniel O'Connell, a renowned Irish patriot. O'Connell's supporters shouted him down.

Bernadette Devlin (McAliskey): 'There is no place in society for us, the ordinary “peasants” of Northern Ireland', maiden speech - 1969

22 April, 1969, House of Commons, Westminster, London, UK

This was delivered the day before Devlin's 22nd birthday. She has been a lifetime campaigner for Northern Ireland's Catholic minority.

I understand that in making my maiden speech on the day of my arrival in Parliament and in making it on a controversial issue I flaunt the unwritten traditions of the House, but I think that the situation of my people merits the flaunting of such traditions.

I remind the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) that I, too, was in the Bogside area on the night that he was there. As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, there never was born an Englishman who understands the Irish people. Thus a man who is alien to the ordinary working Irish people cannot understand them, and I therefore respectfully suggest that the hon. Gentleman has no understanding of my people, because Catholics and Protestants are the ordinary people, the oppressed people from whom I come and whom I represent. I stand here as the youngest woman in Parliament, in the same tradition as the first woman ever to be elected to this Parliament, Constance Markievicz, who was elected on behalf of the Irish people.

This debate comes much too late for the people of Ireland, since it concerns itself particularly with the action in Derry last weekend. I will do my best to dwell on the action in Derry last weekend. However, it is impossible to consider the activity of one weekend in a city such as Derry without considering the reasons why these things happen.

The hon. Member for Londonderry said that he stood in Bogside. I wonder whether he could name the streets through which he walked in the Bogside so that we might establish just how well acquainted he became with the area. I had never hoped to see the day when I might agree with someone who represents the bigoted and sectarian Unionist Party, which uses a deliberate policy of dividing the people in order to keep the ruling minority in power and to keep the oppressed people of Ulster oppressed. I never thought that I should see the day when I should agree with any phrase uttered by the representative of such a party, but the hon. Gentleman summed up the situation “to a t”. He referred to stark, human misery. That is what I saw in Bogside. It has not been there just for one night. It has been there for 50 years—and that same stark human misery is to be found in the Protestant Fountain area, which the hon. Gentleman would claim to represent.

These are the people the hon. Gentleman would claim do want to join society. Because they are equally poverty-stricken they are equally excluded from the society which the Unionist Party represents—the society of landlords who, by ancient charter of Charles II, still hold the rights of the ordinary people of Northern Ireland over such things as fishing and as paying the most ridiculous and exorbitant rents, although families have lived for generations on their land. But this is the ruling minority of landlords who, for generations, have claimed to represent one section of the people and, in order to maintain their claim, divide the people into two sections and stand up in this House and say that there are those who do not wish to join the society.

The people in my country who do not wish to join the society which is represented by the hon. Member for Londonderry are by far the majority. There is no place in society for us, the ordinary “peasants” of Northern Ireland. There is no place for us in the society of landlords because we are the “have-nots” and they are the “haves”.

We came to the situation in Derry when the people had had enough. Since 5th October, it has been the unashamed and deliberate policy of the Unionist Government to try to force an image on the civil rights movement that it was nothing more than a Catholic uprising. The people in the movement have struggled desperately to overcome that image, but it is impossible when the ruling minority are the Government and control not only political matters but the so-called impartial forces of law and order. It is impossible then for us to state quite fairly where we stand.

How can we say that we are a nonsectarian movement and are for the rights of both Catholics and Protestants when, clearly, we are beaten into the Catholic areas? Never have we been beaten into the Protestant areas. When the students marched from Belfast to Derry, there was a predominant number of Protestants. The number of non-Catholics was greater than the number of Catholics. Nevertheless, we were still beaten into the Catholic area because it was in the interests of the minority and the Unionist Party to establish that we were nothing more than a Catholic uprising—just as it is in the interest of the hon. Member for Londonderry to come up with all this tripe about the I.R.A.

I assure the hon. Member that his was quite an interesting interpretation of the facts, but I should like to put an equally interesting interpretation. There is a fine gentleman known among ordinary Irish people as the Squire of Ahoghill. He happens to be the Prime Minister, Captain Terence O’Neill. He is the “white liberal” of Northern Ireland. He is the man who went on television and said to his people, “There are a lot of nasty people going around and if you are not careful you will all end up in the I.R.A. What kind of Ulster do you want? Come with me and I will give you an Ulster you can be proud to live in”.

Captain O’Neill listed a number of reforms which came nowhere near satisfying the needs of the people. Had he even had the courage of his convictions—had he even convictions—to carry out the so-called reforms he promised, we might have got somewhere. But none of his so-called reforms was carried out. He suggested a points system for the allocation of houses until such time that the Tory Party could see its way to introducing a crash housing programme. He suggested that a points system should be introduced, but he did nothing to force the majority of Unionist-controlled councils to introduce it. He thought that his suggestion would be quite sufficient to make everyone doff their caps, touch their forelocks and say, “Yes, Captain O’Neill. We will introduce it.” But the local councils of Northern Ireland do not work like that.

We come to the question of what can be done about incidents like that in Derry at the weekend. Captain O’Neill has thought of a bright idea—that tomorrow we shall be given one man, one vote. Does he think that, from 5th October until today, events have not driven it into the minds of the people that there are two ideals which are incompatible—the ideal of social justice and the ideal and existence of the Unionist Party? Both cannot exist in the same society. This has been proved time and again throughout Northern Ireland by the actions of the Unionist Party.

In the General Election, Captain O’Neill had the big idea of dividing and conquering. Captain O’Neill, the “liberal” Unionist, said, “Do not vote for Protestant Unionists because they are nasty Fascist people”. When the election was over, he had no qualms about taking the number of so-called “Fascist” Unionist votes and the “liberal” Unionist votes together, adding them up and saying, “Look how many people voted Unionist”.

We, the people of Ulster, are no longer to be fooled, because there are always those of us who can see no difference between the Paisleyite faction and the O’Neill faction, except that the unfortunate Paisleyite faction do not have hyphenated surnames. So we are faced with the situation that Captain O’Neill may, in the morning, say, “You now have one man, one vote”. What will it mean to the people? Why do the people ask for one man, one vote, with each vote of equal value to the next?

The Unionist policy has always been to divide the people who are dependent upon them. The question of voting is tied up mainly with the question of housing, and this is something which the House has failed to understand. The people of Northern Ireland want votes not for the sake of voting but for the sake of being able to exercise democratic rights over the controlling powers of their own areas. The present system operates in such a way that Unionist-controlled councils and even Nationalist-controlled councils discriminate against those in their areas who are in the minority. The policy of segregated housing is to be clearly seen in the smallest villages of Ulster. The people of Ulster want the right to vote and for each vote to be of equal value so that, when it comes to the question of building more houses, we do not have the situation which we already have in Derry and in Dungannon.

In Dungannon, the Catholic ward already has too many houses in it. There is no room to build any more in that ward. It would appear logical that houses should be built, therefore, in what is traditionally known as the Protestant ward or, euphemistically, the “Nationalist” or “Unionist” ward, where there is space. But this would give rise to the nasty situation of building new houses in the Unionist or Protestant ward and thus letting in a lot of Fenians who might outvote the others.

I wish to make it clear that in an area such as Omagh the same corruption is carried on because Protestants need houses and the only place for them is in a Catholic area. The one point that these two forms of activity have in common is that whether they are green or orange, both are Tory. The people of Northern Ireland have been forced into this situation.

I was in the Bogside on the same evening as the hon. Member for Londonderry. I assure you, Mr. Speaker—and I make no apology for the fact—that I was not strutting around with my hands behind my back examining the area and saying “tut-tut” every time a policeman had his head scratched. I was going around building barricades because I knew that it was not safe for the police to come in.

I saw with my own eyes 1,000 policemen come in military formation into an oppressed, and socially and economically depressed area—in formation of six abreast, joining up to form 12 abreast like wild Indians, screaming their heads off to terrorise the inhabitants of that area so that they could beat them off the streets and into their houses.

I also accept that policemen are human and that if someone throws a stone at a man and injures him, whether he be in uniform or out of uniform, if he is human he is likely to lift another stone and, either in self-defence or in sheer anger, to hurl it back. Therefore when people on either side lose control, this kind of fighting breaks out.

An unfortunate policeman with whom I came into contact did not know who was in charge in a particular area. I wanted to get children out of the area and I asked the policeman who was in charge. He said, “I don’t know who is running this lot.” I well understand this kind of situation at individual level, but when a police force are acting under orders—presumably from the top, and the top invariably is the Unionist Party—and form themselves into military formation with the deliberate intention of terrorising the inhabitants of an area, I can have no sympathy for them as a body. So I organised the civilians in that area to make sure that they wasted not one solitary stone in anger. [Laughter.]

Hon. Members may find this amusing and in the comfortable surroundings of this honourable House it may seem amusing, but at two o’clock in the morning on the Bogside there was something horrifying about the fact that someone such as I, who believes in non-violence, had to settle for the least violent method, which was to build barricades and to say to the police, “We can threaten you.”

The hon. Member for Londonderry said that the situation has got out of hand under the “so-called civil rights people”. The one thing which saved Derry from possibly going up in flames was the fact that they had John Hume, Member of Parliament for Foyle, Eamonn McCann, and Ivan Cooper, Member of Parliament for Mid-Derry, there. They went to the Bogside and said, “Fair enough; the police have occupied your area, not in the interests of law and order but for revenge, not by the police themselves but because the Unionist Party have lost a few square yards of Derry and people have put up a sign on the wall saying ‘Free Derry'”. The Unionist Party was wounded because nothing can be morally or spiritually free under a Unionist Government. They were determined that there should be no second Free Derry. That is why the police invaded that area. The people had the confidence of those living in that area to cause a mass evacuation and to leave it to the police alone, and then to say, “We are marching back in and you have two hours to get out”. The police got out.

The situation with which we are faced in Northern Ireland is one in which I feel I can no longer say to the people “Don’t worry about it. Westminster is looking after you”. Westminster cannot condone the existence of this situation. It has on its benches Members of that party who by deliberate policy keep down the ordinary people. The fact that I sit on the Labour benches and am likely to make myself unpopular with everyone on these benches—[HON. MEMBERS: “No.”] Any Socialist Government worth its guts would have got rid of them long ago.

There is no denying that the problem and the reason for this situation in Northern Ireland is social and economic, because the people of Northern Ireland are being oppressed not only by a Tory Government, a misruling Tory Government and an absolutely corrupt, bigoted and self-interested Tory Government, but by a Tory Government of whom even the Tories in this House ought to be ashamed and from which they should dissociate themselves.

Therefore I ask that in the interests of the ordinary people there should be no tinkering with the kind of capitalist methods used by both the Northern Ireland Unionist Party and Mr. Jack Lynch’s Fianna Fail Party. It was with no amusement but with a great deal of horror that I heard the somewhat peculiar statement by the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. George Brown) about an O’Neill-Lynch United Party. This brings home to me that hon. Members of this House do not understand what is going on. Of all the possible solutions of our problem the least popular would be an agreement between the two arch-Tories of Ireland.

I should like in conclusion to take a brief look at the future. This is where the question of British troops arises. The question before this House, in view of the apathy, neglect and lack of understanding which this House has shown to these people in Ulster which it claims to represent, is how in the shortest space it can make up for 50 years of neglect, apathy and lack of understanding. Short of producing miracles such as factories overnight in Derry and homes overnight in practically every area in the North of Ireland, what can we do? If British troops are sent in I should not like to be either the mother or sister of an unfortunate soldier stationed there. The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Mr. Henry Clark) may talk till Domesday about “Our boys in khaki”, but it has to be recognised that the one point in common among Ulstermen is that they are not very fond of Englishmen who tell them what to do.

Possibly the most extreme solution, since there can be no justice while there is a Unionist Party, because while there is a Unionist Party they will by their gerrymandering control Northern Ireland and be the Government of Northern Ireland, is to consider the possibility of abolishing Stormont and ruling from Westminster. Then we should have the ironical situation in which the people who once shouted “Home rule is Rome rule” were screaming their heads off for home rule, so dare anyone take Stormont away? They would have to ship every Government Member out of the country for his own safety—because only the “rank” defends, such as the Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture.

Another solution which the Government may decide to adopt is to do nothing but serve notice on the Unionist Government that they will impose economic sanctions on them if true reforms are not carried out. The interesting point is that the Unionist Government cannot carry out reforms. If they introduce the human rights Bill and outlaw sectarianism and discrimination, what will the party which is based on, and survives on, discrimination do? By introducing the human rights Bill, it signs its own death warrant. Therefore, the Government can impose economic sanctions but the Unionist Party will not yield. I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that one cannot impose economic sanctions on the dead.

Heidi Allen: 'I worry that our single-minded determination to reach a budget surplus is betraying who we are'', maiden speech - 2015

20 October, 2015, House of Commons, Westminster, London, UK

Why today? Why have I chosen today, and this debate, to break what I hoped might be the habit of a lifetime in resisting the urge to make a maiden speech? My friends and colleagues will know that I have been trying flipping hard to avoid doing it.

It is not because I did not want to thank my predecessor for the long and dedicated service he gave to South Cambridgeshire and to the Government, though I must admit that sometimes his shoes do feel incredibly roomy for these small feet. 

Andrew Lansley absolutely deserves our praise, and he will be rightly rewarded next week when he takes his seat in the House of Lords. 

It is not because I did not want to shout from the rooftops about my constituency. 

I am certain that I bore everyone rigid about the economic miracle that is South Cambridgeshire; I am so, so proud to represent its people.

It is because today I can sit on my hands no longer. My decision to become an MP is a very, very recent one. 

It was the Tottenham riots of 2011 that shook me from my comfort zone. Night after night, my television showed me a country that was falling apart—my country—with social breakdown and an economy on the verge of collapse. I felt so strongly that I had to step forward and lend a hand. 

Today, I feel that way again. So I picked a team—the blue team. I believed they were the party who could bring us back from the brink, and we have started to do that.

 This Government have taken tough but prudent decisions. Unemployment has reached levels never seen before. 

Britain is back, and I am immensely proud of this Government for their role in that. So I hope that I will see again those gems of prudence and wise judgment that drew me to the Conservative party, before it is too late.

Too late for what? Too late to stop us getting things wrong, and the timing wrong, on changes to tax credits. 

Believe me when I say that I entirely agree with the principle that tax credits should not be used to subsidise wages. 

It is not sustainable and it sends the wrong message about the kind of country and the kind of people that we want to be. 

Because I know that tax credits do need to change, I cannot support the black and white motion that is in front of us today.

I am sorry, but I believe that the Opposition are wrong to say that we must not touch tax credits. 

However, a detailed debate about them does need to be had, and I am far from being the only Member on the Government Benches who recognises that. 

It is right that people are encouraged to strive for self-reliance and to find work that pays for their independence from the state, but I worry that our single-minded determination to reach a budget surplus is betraying who we are. 

I know that true Conservatives have compassion running through their veins.

I have refrained from making a speech so far because sadly most days I feel that Members on both sides of the House are firmly married to their positions regardless of the debate, and so, frankly, why prolong the agony? 

Why sit in the Chamber for hours when I know I could be concentrating on helping my constituents with immediate needs now? 

But today is different. Today, every Conservative Member who knows who we really are has a duty to remind those who have forgotten. 

We are the party of the working person—the person who leaves for work while it is still dark, who strives to provide for themselves and their family with pride: a pride that says, 'I will go to work. Even though I still can't quite make ends meet, I will still go to work, because to work is to have pride, and to have pride is to be British.'

I am not interested in the colour of the Government who created a bloated welfare state—that is in the past. I do not care whose fault it is, but I do know one thing: it is not the fault of the recipients of tax credits. 

It is the responsibility of Government, whoever they may be—those who set and change policy and those who set the rules by which these families live. 

If we want to change those rules, we have to support the people through that change. This is not a spreadsheet exercise. This is not a Budget document on a piece of paper. We are talking about real people—working people.

Yes, the income tax threshold has risen and will continue to rise, and that is fantastic. The minimum wage is increasing—brilliant! 

I am so proud of my Government that they have made this happen. But the timing of changes to tax credits is not concurrent. 

When we talk about moving towards the ideal goal of a lower-welfare, lower-tax, higher-wage economy, that is right, but I also hear us talking about the financial impact on people 'over the Parliament'—that is the phrase I hear. 

But people on the breadline cannot wait for the Parliament to pass along. Many live hand to mouth every day.

I suspect that you and I could weather such a transition period, Madam Deputy Speaker—we could pull in our belts—but many of the families affected by the proposed changes do not have that luxury. Choosing whether to eat or heat is not a luxury. That is the reality.

Conservatives pride themselves on cutting their cloth according to their means, but what if there is no cloth left to cut? How many of us really know what it feels like? How many of us have walked in those shoes?

To expect people to immediately find more hours or better-paid work suggests, I am afraid, a level of naivety about the skills of some of our people. 

Also, are we out of touch with the economies and environments of some of our towns and cities? 

We can support people to get there, and I believe that can be done relatively quickly, but not overnight. 

That is the crux of the debate and the part that many of us on the Conservative Benches cannot reconcile.

I became an MP to stand up for the vulnerable, to lead the way for those too tired to find it for themselves. That is the role of Government, too. 

My first loyalty is to those people and it is to them that I now speak. To suggest that some Conservative Members may challenge the Government's approach only because they fear for their seats is offensive. This is not about retaining votes.

Change is not always a sign of weakness; it can show strength. 

Did the British public, who were so concerned about immigration before the election, condemn us when we reacted to the photograph of that little Syrian boy? No, they told us to open our arms. 

When the International Monetary Fund decried our economic plan for not being fast enough and not showing enough growth, we remained steadfast in our belief that slow growth was sustainable. So too must be these changes.

Our debt has been falling consistently while those who need protection have been protected. Is now really the time to change that successful strategy?

I would not be embarrassed even once - never mind five times - if we decided to review our approach.

Yes, being in government does mean making tough decisions, but tough decisions must also be strategic. One of the greatest challenges facing my South Cambridgeshire constituency is the affordability of housing. 

A constituency does not function - a country and its economy does not function - if the people who run the engine cannot afford to operate it. 

We need every teaching assistant, care worker, cleaner and shop worker to secure this economic recovery. To pull ourselves out of debt, we should not be forcing those working families into it.

The Prime Minister has asked us to ensure that everything we do passes the family test. Cutting tax credits before wages rise does not achieve that. 

Showing children that their parents will be better off not working at all does not achieve that. 

Sending a message to the poorest and most vulnerable in our society that we do not care does not achieve that, either.

I believe that the pace of these reforms is too hard and too fast. As the proposals stand, too many people will be adversely affected. 

Something must give. For those of us proud enough to call ourselves compassionate Conservatives, it must not be the backs of the working families we purport to serve.

Enid Lyons: ' This is the first occasion upon which a woman has addressed this House', Maiden speech - 1943

29 September 1943, Parliament House, Canberra, Australia

It would be strange indeed were I not to-night deeply conscious of the fact, if not a little awed by the knowledge, that on my shoulders rests a great weight of responsibility; because this is the first occasion upon which a woman has addressed this House. For that reason, it is an occasion which, for every woman in the Commonwealth, marks in some degree a turning point in history. I am well aware that, as I acquit myself in the work that I have undertaken for the next three years, so shall I either prejudice or enhance the prospects of those women who may wish to follow me in public service in the years to come. I know that many honorable members have viewed the advent of women to the legislative halls with something approaching alarm; they have feared, I have no doubt, the somewhat too vigorous use of a new broom. I wish to reassure them. I hold very sound views on brooms, and sweeping. Although I quite realize that a new broom is a very useful adjunct to the work of the housewife, I also know that it undoubtedly is very unpopular in the broom cupboard; and this particular new broom knows that she has a very great deal to learn from the occupants of - I dare not say this particular cupboard. At all events, she hopes to conduct herself with sufficient modesty and sufficient sense of her lack of knowledge at least to earn the desire of honorable members to give her whatever help they may be able to give. I believe, very sincerely, that any woman entering the public arena must be prepared to work as men work; she must justify herself not as a woman, but as a citizen; she must attack the same problems, and be prepared to shoulder the same burdens. But because I am a woman, and cannot divest myself of those qualities that are inherent in my sex, and because every one of us speaks broadly in the terms of one's own experience, honorable members will have to become accustomed to the application of the homely metaphors of the kitchen rather than those of the operating theatre, the workshop, or the farm. They must also become accustomed to the application to all kinds of measures of the touchstone of their effect upon the home and the family life. I hope that no one will imagine that that implies in any way a limitation of my political interests. Rather, it implies an everwidening outlook on every problem that faces the world to-day. Every subject, from high finance to international relations, from social security to the winning of the war, touches very closely the home and the family. The late King George V, as he neared the end of a great reign and a good life, made a statement upon which any one may base the whole of one's political philosophy, when he said, " The foundation of a nation's greatness is in the homes of its people ". Therefore, honorable members will not, I know, be surprised when I say that I am likely to be even more concerned with national character than with national effort.

Somewhere about the year 1830 there began a period in Australian history which for me has always held a peculiar fascination. I should like to have been born at about that time. I should like to have been alive in the days when bushrangers flourished, when life was hard and even raw, when gold was discovered, when the colonies became States, and when all of the great social and political movements were born which so coloured the fabric of Australian life; because, during all those years very much of what we now know as the Australian character was formed. It was during those years that we learned those things which still characterize the great bulk of our people - hatred of oppression, love of " a fair go ", a passion for justice. It was in those years that we developed those qualities of initiative and daring that have marked our men in every war in which they have fought - qualities which, I hope, will never be allowed to die. We are now on the threshold of such another era, when further formative measures will have to be taken; because we are to-day an organized community which no longer exists purely upon the initiative of its individual members, and if we would serve Australia well we must preserve those characteristics that were formed during that early period of our history.

I have been delighted, since I came here, to find the almost unanimity that exists in respect of the need for social service and in respect of many of the other problems that have been discussed in this chamber. In the matter of social security one thing stands out clearly in my mind. Such things are necessary in order that the weak shall not go to the wall, that the strong may be supported, that all may have justice. But we must never so blanket ourselves that those fine national qualities of which I have spoken shall no longer have play. I know so well that fear, want and idleness can kill the spirit of any people. But I know, too, that security can be bought at too great a cost - the cost of spiritual freedom. How, then, may we strike a balance? That, it seems to me, is the big question for us to decide to-day. There is one answer. We know perfectly well that any system of social security devised to-day must be financed largely from general taxation. Yet I would insist that every person in the community in receipt of any income whatsoever must make some contribution to the fund for social security. I want it to be an act of conscious citizenship. I want every child to be taught that when he begins to earn, then, for the first time, he will have the first privilege and right of citizenship - to begin to contribute to the great scheme that has been designed to serve him when he is no longer able to work and to help all of those who at any period of their lives may meet with distress or trouble. In such a scheme, I believe, there should be pensions for all; there should be no means test; those who have should contribute according to their means. But every one, however little he or she earns, should contribute something, be it only a three-penny stamp, as a sort of token payment for the advantage of Australian citizenship. In passing, let me say this: There is one reform, at least, that could be applied to our present pensions system, which would have the greatest effect in making a little brighter the lives of those upon whom the years are already closing in. I consider that every pensioner should have his or her pension posted to him or her in the form of a cheque. At the present time any pensioner who so wishes has the right to have the pension sent in that way, but few pensioners are aware of it. If that were done, I believe that not only would congestion in post offices be relieved, but also that a small contribution would be made to easing the burden of those who have come to old age or illness.

I am delighted that the honorable member for Denison Dr. Gaha should have secured the honour of having introduced to this chamber, in this debate, the subject of population. Other members also have seized upon that subject, apparently with a very great deal of pleasure, and have dealt with it at some length; but to the honorable member for Denison go the honours. I, like him, have pondered on this subject - not with my feet upon the mantle-piece, but knee-deep in shawls and feeding bottles. I have pondered it, surrounded by those who, by their very numbers, have done quite a good deal to boost the population of Australia. I believe that I have at least tried out some of the theories which would make for a better population, and that I know some of the difficulties that present themselves to any person who, in these days, desires to rear a family. One honorable member has spoken of the need for a greater population for reasons of defence. That, of course, is something that has to be considered. But there has also to be considered the fact that, unless we fill this country we shall have no justification in the years that are ahead for holding it at all.

Another honorable member spoke of the need for decentralization. On the north-west coast of Tasmania, which is a part of the district that I represent, there is, I believe, the best example of decentralization that is to be found anywhere in Australia; but I do not want the House to believe that that is why eleven members of the Lyons family were born at Devonport. I consider that something more than decentralization is necessary if the population of Australia is to be increased. It would be well to go back a little while and look for the reasons for the decline of population during the last 50 or 60 years. Two main reasons are ascribed, the first the growth of industrialism and the changed conditions resulting therefrom. Population became urban instead of rural, and the conditions in which children were brought up became less and less suitable. People were crowded. Housing was inadequate, and the large families went to the wall. The incidence of disease increased, and industrial disease came with the development of new occupations. The workers were unmercifully exploited. State paternalism became necessary, and even in State paternalism certain reasons for the decline of family life can be found. At the other end of the social scale other reasons can be found for the declining birth-rate. New inventions, and the provision of luxuries, provided new ways of spending incomes and leisure. There was less domestic help to be had. Finally, people began to think that the woman who became the mother of a family was something of a lunatic. About 30 years later she began to be regarded as something of a criminal lunatic. In the end the belief developed that it was a social virtue to produce fewer and fewer children. Where such a state of affairs exists, it is a matter of courage, even of hardihood, to have a family of more than two or three.

Still another reason for the declining birth-rate is sometimes advanced, a reason belonging to the moral rather than to the economic sphere. It is to be found in that strange reluctance to reproduce themselves that has overtaken the peoples of the past in the final years of their decline. That is a picture which none of us cares to contemplate. I agree with the honorable member for Denison that we cannot hope, merely by economic measures, to increase the birth-rate. Certain things are necessary to be done in order to ease the burden on families, but they must be looked upon only as measures of justice to those who are prepared to face their responsibilities. We need maternity and nursing services; we need some kind of domestic help service; we need better houses. But those things cannot in themselves revive the falling birth-rate. We must look to the basic wage, which at present provides for the needs of three children for every man who receives it; yet how many thousands of men in this country have no children at all? How many have fewer than three - yet the three notional children of the man who has not any militate against the success in life of the children in other families of six and seven and eight. The basic wage is meagre enough in all conscience - too meagre - but it should be estimated upon the needs of a man and his wife, or of a man who must provide later for a wife, and the children should be provided for by an extension of the child endowment system. Let the man's wages be a direct charge upon industry, but the children should be a charge on the whole community. If we hope to increase the birth-rate we must look to a resurgence of the national spirit, a resurgence of national vitality. We must look to a new concept of the dignity and worth of the family in the social order. I agree with Paul Bureau that the family is the matrix of humanity, the secret laboratory in which every unit of human society is prepared, organized and maintained, and if that laboratory is disorganized or chaotic, the most serious disorders in social life must be expected.

Let us pause for a moment and think, of the time when the war shall end. Many speakers in the course of this debate have said that they believe that the war will end during the life of this Parliament, and all too many people hope and believe that by the attainment of victory we shall step straight into the golden age. Nothing could be more foolish, because the golden age will arrive only when you and I and everyone else have made some contribution towards it. We shall have to plan for it, and work for it and sacrifice ourselves for it. We speak of the men corning back, who must be kept on Army rates of pay until suitable work can be found for them. It sounds easy, but it is very, very hard. First of all, what is suitable work for each of these men? It will not be sufficient merely to let them go out and take any kind of work. The employment offered them must provide a reasonable prospect of congenial occupation, perhaps for the greater part of their lives. And they will not want to stay on at Army rates of pay. They are young, eager and impatient, and they will be heartily sick of everything to do with the Army and with war. We must have patience for them. We must be prepared, particularly the women, to hold in stability those who have come back still in the grip of the restlessness engendered by war. Those who return will be, for the most part, in the age group of 20 to 30 years. They must be trained to a trade or profession. Our present apprenticeship cannot provide for their needs, and will have to be re-adjusted. Here, I believe, trade unionists can and will make a great contribution to national re-construction by considering and planning suitable alternatives to the laws which at present mean a great deal to them.

Almost every honorable member who has touched on this topic has spoken on housing. I, too, believe in a scheme of national housing. I believe that it will help in the re-absorption into industry of discharged men, but. I believe also that we face a grave danger that the housing scheme will be overloaded with unnecessary costs. We have in Australia what I call a bricks and mortar complex. We cannot carry on any activity without housing it in a palace. We want in the homes that are to be built something less than is provided in some of the houses that I have seen designed. We want good walls and strong foundations; we want good fittings, but we do not want something that will cost more than is necessary. Permanency in a cathedral is a wonderful thing, but no one wants a house to last for 300 years. We need houses with sufficient space, so that the housewife can work in comfort. There must be space for the children to move about, and there must be sufficient space about the house so that it will not readily become a part of a crowded slum.

There was a reference in the GovernorGeneral's Speech to an overhaul of the man-power situation. I hope that when the Government gives this matter its attention, it will re-adjust what I might call man-hours. At the present time, there are thousands of women in the services and in munitions factories. By a slight re-adjustment of hours, it should be possible for them to receive some training that would fit them for civil life, particularly in the domestic sphere where I hope most of them will eventually find their place. Each week they could receive one or two hours' training in domestic science in canteens attached to munitions establishments, hospitals or military camps, so that when the men come home, torn, worn and wrecked, as many of them will be by their war experiences, they will have women to meet and greet them who will not be immediately harassed by a lack of knowledge of domestic work, and the running of happy homes.

Now let me turn just for a moment to the international sphere. I have heard expressions of opinion that have surprised and even hurt me, and I have heard some that have cheered me greatly. Some honorable members have assured us that there can never be any hope that mankind will escape the horror of war that descends upon the world every now and then. Others have assured us that by international co-ordination we can usher in very quickly the reign of peace for which we all long. I stand somewhere between the two schools of thought. Because of what has happened to me in this war I have become disillusioned. For years I went about the world preaching the gospel of peace and friendship and co-operation. I believed with all my heart in disarmament, but I can never again advocate such a policy. I believe that we must arm ourselves to meet whatever danger may threaten us, but I also believe that we must co-operate with all those forces of good that are working for peace, and with all those people who have a will to peace, so that we may do whatever lies in our power to preserve peace in our time. However, it is not sufficient merely to co-operate, nor should we limit the sphere of goodwill. Surely we can see that if Germany should rise again in Europe, Japan will rise again in the east as surely as the sun itself rises. The other evening I, in common with many other honorable members, saw a film dealing with the war in Europe. There was one scene which portrayed the evacuation from Dunkirk. We saw how the German army flowed across the Low Countries and over northern France, and how the small British army was squeezed into an ever-decreasing compass, until finally it was compressed into the small area immediately around Dunkirk. Then the picture showed a mist on the water, and the voice of the announcer said this: " And then out of the mist there came a strange flotilla - warships and fishing smacks, and craft of all kinds filled the sea. It was the sea-going English come to rescue their own ". And I felt, as I believe every other person felt who saw the picture, that this indeed was one of the greatest moments in the history of our race. I thought then, as I think now, that we should not fail occasionally to pause and look back upon the great moments of our past. We go along, thinking always that we progress, but sometimes we have to pause and take stock. I think that every Australian should pause now and again and say to himself, " Only 150 years ago this land was wilderness. Now we have great cities, wonderful feats of engineering and beautiful buildings everywhere. And this is still a land of promise ". We cannot afford to neglect some recognition of our past, even though we gaze into the future.

Now, honorable members will forgive me, I know, when I say that I bear the name of one of whom it was said in this chamber that to him the problems of government were not problems of blue books, not problems of statistics, but problems of human values and human hearts and human feelings. That, it seems to me, is a concept of government that we might well cherish. It is certainly one that I hold very dear. I hope that I shall never forget that everything that takes place in this chamber goes out somewhere to strike a human heart, to influence the life of some fellow being, and I believe this, too, with all my heart that the duty of every government, whether in this country or any other, is to see that no man, because of the condition of his life, shall ever need lose his vision of the city of God.

Mhairi Black: 'I would have to ask on who is the sun shining?', maiden speech - 2015

14 July, 2015, House of Commons, Westminster, United Kingdom

Firstly in my maiden speech I want to pay tribute to my predecessor Douglas Alexander. He served the constituency for many years. After all, I was only three when he was elected. But it is because of that fact that I want to thank him for all he did for the constituency and I especially want to take a moment to commend him for the dignified way that he handled himself on what must have been a very difficult election night. He did himself proud, he did his party proud, and I wish him the best for the future.

Now, when I discovered it is tradition to speak bout the history of your constituency in a maiden speech, I decided to do some research despite the fact I’ve lived there all my life. And as one of the tale end doing the maiden speech of my colleagues in the SNP I’ve noticed that my colleagues quite often mention Rabbie Burns a lot and they all try to form this intrinsic connection between him and their own constituency and own him for themselves. I however feel no need to do this for during my research I discovered a fact which trumps them all. William Wallace was born in my constituency.

Now, my constituency has a fascinating history far beyond the Hollywood film and historical name. from the mills of Paisley, to the industries of Johnstone, right to the weavers in Kilbarchan, it’s got a wonderful population with a cracking sense of humour and much to offer both the tourists and to those who reside there. But the truth is that within my constituency it’s not all fantastic. We’ve watched our town centres deteriorate. We’re watched our communities decline. Our unemployment level is higher than that of the UK average. One in five children in my constituency go to bed hungry every night. Paisley Job Centre has the third highest number of sanctions in the whole of Scotland.

Before I was elected I volunteered for a charitable organisation and there was a gentleman who I grew very fond of. He was one of these guys who has been battered by life in every way imaginable. You name it, he’s been through it. And he used to come in to get food from this charity, and it was the only food that he had access to and it was the only meal he would get. And I sat with him and he told me about his fear of going to the Job Centre. He said “I’ve heard the stories Mhairi, they try and trick you out, they’ll tell you you’re a liar. I’m not a liar Mhairi, I’m not.” And I told him “It’s OK, calm down. Go, be honest, it’ll be fine.”

I then didn’t see him for about two or three weeks. I did get very worried, and when he finally did come back in I said to him “how did you get on?”

And without saying a word he burst into tears. That grown man standing in front of a 20-year-old crying his eyes out, because what had happened to him was the money that he would normally use to pay for his travel to come to the charity to get his food he decided that in order to afford to get to the Job Centre he would save that money. Because of this, he didn’t eat for five days, he didn’t drink. When he was on the bus on the way to the Job Centre he fainted due to exhaustion and dehydration. He was 15 minutes later for the Job Centre and he was sanctioned for 13 weeks.

Now, when the Chancellor spoke in his budget about fixing the roof while the sun is shining, I would have to ask on who is the sun shining? When he spoke about benefits not supporting certain kinds of lifestyles, is that the kind of lifestyle that he was talking about?

Mhairi Black, the twenty year old SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South
If we go back even further when the Minister for Employment was asked to consider if there was a correlation between the number of sanctions and the rise in food bank use she stated, and I quote, “food banks play an important role in local welfare provision.” Renfrewshire has the third highest use of food banks use and food bank use is going up and up. Food banks are not part of the welfare state, they are symbol that the welfare state is failing.

Now, the Government quite rightly pays for me through tax payers money to be able to live in London whilst I serve my constituents. My housing is subsidised by the tax payer. Now, the Chancellor in his budget said it is not fair that families earning over £40,000 in London should have their rents paid for my other working people. But it is OK so long as you’re an MP? In this budget the Chancellor also abolished any housing benefit for anyone below the age of 21. So we are now in the ridiculous situation whereby because I am an MP not only am I the youngest, but I am also the only 20-year-old in the whole of the UK that the Chancellor is prepared to help with housing. We now have one of the most uncaring, uncompromising and out of touch governments that the UK has seen since Thatcher.

It is here now that I must turn to those who I share a bench with. Now I have in this chamber for ten weeks, and I have very deliberately stayed quiet and have listened intently to everything that has been said. I have heard multiple speeches from Labour benches standing to talk about the worrying rise of nationalism in Scotland, when in actual fact all these speeches have served to do is to demonstrate how deep the lack of understanding about Scotland is within the Labour party.

I like many SNP members come from a traditional socialist Labour family and I have never been quiet in my assertion that I feel that it is the Labour party that left me, not the other way about. The SNP did not triumph on a wave of nationalism; in fact nationalism has nothing to do with what’s happened in Scotland. We triumphed on a wave of hope, hope that there was something different, something better to the Thatcherite neo-liberal policies that are produced from this chamber. Hope that representatives genuinely could give a voice to those who don’t have one.

I don’t mention this in order to pour salt into wounds which I am sure are very open and very sore for many members on these benches, both politically and personally. Colleagues, possibly friends, have lost their seats. I mention it in order to hold a mirror to the face of a party that seems to have forgotten the very people they’re supposed to represent, the very things they’re supposed to fight for.

After hearing the Labour leader’s intentions to support the changes of tax credits that the Chancellor has put forward, I must make this plea to the words of one of your own and a personal hero of mine. Tony Benn once said that in politics there are weathercocks and sign posts. Weathercocks will spin in whatever direction the wind of public opinion may blow them, no matter what principal they may have to compromise. And then there are signposts, signposts which stand true, and tall, and principled. And they point in the direction and they say this is the way to a better society and it is my job to convince you why. Tony Benn was right when he said the only people worth remembering in politics were signposts.

Harriet Harman has called on her party to abstain on voting on the welfare and work bill
Now, yes we will have political differences, yes in other parliaments we may be opposing parties, but within this chamber we are not. No matter how much I may wish it, the SNP is not the sole opposition to this Government, but nor is the Labour party. It is together with all the parties on these benches that we must form an opposition, and in order to be affective we must oppose not abstain. So I reach out a genuine hand of friendship which I can only hope will be taken. Let us come together, let us be that opposition, let us be that signpost of a better society. Ultimately people are needing a voice, people are needing help, let’s give them it.