Page 32 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 13 December 2016
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pay my respects to the elders past and present and to those present today. I acknowledge their continuing contribution.
First, I would like to offer thanks to all of my colleagues, many new themselves, for the warm welcome to the Assembly, and especially to the Assembly staff who have had no small task in literally accommodating us all.
I am proud to be joined by so many women on all sides of the chamber in making up the first majority female parliament in Australia. But let me put on the record how frustrated I am that it has not happened any sooner in any parliament.
To my staff, Josh, Minuri, Jemma and Jordan, thank you for your support in helping me start this new chapter of my journey. I also want to thank my partner, Hamish, for his support and love. It is a lot of fun to go through this life with you—and our dogs—and you have witnessed and been there through all the good times and all the tough times that have led to this point. You know better than anyone what it takes.
Madam Speaker, I was born an only child to small business owners in Cairns in north Queensland. My mother, Deb, and my father, Pete, ran a successful restaurant in the 1980s. By the end of that decade they upended their lives, and we moved to Toowoomba. It is no secret that as well as being my biggest supporter, my mother is my inspiration. Through her example, I have never known anything else other than “women can do anything”.
As I entered grade 1, my mother, who had left school at 15, started university as a mature aged student while my father drove a taxi. In the mid 1990s we moved to mining town Moura in central Queensland, followed by Dysart and Blackwater. As I grew up, my mother went from strength to strength, holding numerous significant leadership roles in a tough, male-dominated industry.
I have unashamedly copied her in many areas. If she had not done it before me, I expect I may not ever have even thought of going to university, getting an MBA, and even learning shorthand. One of our shared qualities is our determination, and that will come as no surprise to anyone who saw her camped out at the Belconnen pre poll every single day for three weeks of voting this year.
For much of the time that my mother worked, my father was a stay-at-home dad. This was especially unusual in a mining town, even in the 1990s, but it was brilliant. He remains the cleverest person I have ever known. There was nothing he could not do with his brain or his hands. He created a voracious reader in me, and we would go to the local library together twice a week. As an only child, he was often my only company, and he was the best company. Throughout his life, he was a great contributor to and volunteer in his communities, and he was the biggest fan of the two ambitious women in his life. I am deeply sad that my father was not able to be part of the journey over the last year.
I grew up quickly in a Rockhampton boarding school, where I made lasting friendships and was challenged by teachers who saw the potential in me and made it
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