Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Wentworth, thank you for electing me to this place. It is an enormous honour to represent you here. Our community is passionate in its support of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, so let me acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the traditional owners of the Canberra area, as well as the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, who are the traditional custodians of Wentworth, and pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging. My community and I are passionate about voice, truth and treaty as embodied in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and it would be my profound honour to contribute to achieving those goals in this parliament.

Every story starts with family. Some in this room knew my mother, Carla Zampatti. Many of you knew her designs. If she were still alive today, she would be delighted to see so many women in the House and that so many of them have worn her clothes in the last week. Thank you, all. She was an Italian immigrant. Her father left his pregnant wife in Europe to come to Australia to seek a better life. He was interned as an enemy alien during the war. My mother didn't meet her father until 1950, when she walked off the docks in Fremantle. Mum didn't speak English when she arrived. She left school at 14. She started her business in her 20s, when women didn't really run businesses. She got divorced when she had a nine-month-old baby and had to restart her business when women still didn't really run businesses and weren't really single mums. She was a champion of women, migrants and the arts.

For me, Mum's life represents the Australian dream. She taught me many things. She gave me her migrant values. She made sure my siblings and I knew that we had to earn our place in the world through hard work and never taking anything for granted. She showed me that, it doesn't matter where you come from, everyone can make an enormous contribution and that social mobility, the freedom to become, is the best thing about this country. She told me that as a woman I should and could do anything I wanted and not to feel guilty about it.

Then there's my father, John Spender, who so wished he could be here today. He was a member of this Australian parliament, as his father was. From Dad I received a passionate interest in ideas, learning and understanding how the world is governed and the high honour and responsibility of public service. He taught me to think independently, even if it makes you unpopular. He took that from his father, who in turn also served in parliament. He was Sir Percy Spender. He was the son of a locksmith and he was significantly responsible for both the Colombo Plan, Australia's first turn to Asia, and the ANZUS treaty, Australia's most enduring alliance. He stood for the future, not the past. Many claim him as a party man and as a Liberal Party leading light—and he was—but his first loyalty was to what is right. He first stood for parliament as a sort of Independent in the seat of Warringah. He stood against the defence minister of the day because he disagreed with the defence policy and he decided that the best way to change it was to stand up—and he won the seat. And he continued to stand against his party when he felt that the party was in conflict with the national interest. I speak of him because of what he means to me but also because of what his example means to this House.

In the gallery are my siblings—my brother, Alex, and my sister, Bianca. I love debating Alex, and if he was in this parliament he would be firmly over there on those benches. And Bianca is simply the most wonderful sister anyone could have. Finally is my family that we created: Mark, my husband, who loves me better when my hair is frizzy and I don't have any make-up on, who gives me great advice even when I ignore it, and my wonderful children, Arietta, Octavia and Rafferty. I am eternally grateful for your love and care. I'm here because I want your future to be better for the choices made here in this chamber.

My family values have had a significant influence on my career. I started working in my family business at the age of 10. I'm sorry, Minister Burke; this is just how family businesses operate! I only truly left it when I stood for this election. I love the dynamism and freedom that comes from business, how you can find new ways of solving problems. But my passions have always been greater than business. That is why I first studied economics—because I wanted to understand how public policy works and how it impacts on the lives of people. It's why I worked in the UK Treasury, where I felt that government policy was so far away from the people it was meant to help, and then in the UK public teaching hospital, and it is there that I learned and focused on how to improve quality of care without necessarily increasing costs. I've never forgotten those lessons.

My career has taught me how business and social impact can work together to solve big problems, from my time at Sydney Renewable Power Company, from my time in Kenya working with rural farmers and finally to my time at the Australian Business and Community Network, where volunteers from business mentored thousands of kids from low-socioeconomic schools about the world of work. Those kids were like my mum, without a lot of material advantages but with so much to bring to this country if we support them. It was the best job I've ever had. Your family gives you your values, and your career lets you live them. But they're not the reason why I am here. I am here because my community, Wentworth, sent me here to represent their values in parliament. I want to acknowledge those who came before me: Dave Sharma who worked very hard in the community; Kerryn Phelps, a trailblazer female Independent who stood for humane treatment of refugees; and, of course, the former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. These are enormous shoes to fill.

Wentworth is known for its beaches, our harbour, our green spaces, but those images don't actually capture the community of Wentworth. It's the community that makes it so special. Like Todd and Trent who founded the 440 Run Club. It's called that because you have to get up at 4.40 on a Saturday morning to help young people reduce alcohol consumption and improve their mental health. Like Henry, who invented a film that you can put on planes. It's literally like covering them with contact to reduces drag, to reduce fuel consumption, to reduce greenhouse gases and actually to grow local high-tech jobs. Like the wonderful locals at ACON and Waverley council who worked to deliver the new memorial to gay hate crime victims in Marks Park. Like Kitty Clark, the director of the gallery Saint Cloche, who galvanised a local arts community into fundraising thousands for the victims of war in Ukraine. Like the Holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku who recently passed and is much missed. He advocated for kindness and compassion out of the world's worst genocide. And finally like Sean, who I met in Bondi one day pushing his daughter on a tricycle. I asked him, 'What do you care about?’ He said: 'I care about the environment. I love the beaches and I want this for my kids. I want a kind society. I want us to treat people well. Finally, I'm a small business owner, and that's the most important thing for me.'

That's Wentworth. We care about the environment. We love the natural world and we carry in our hearts the responsibility to pass it to our children. Our community is kind, compassionate and inclusive. We voted for marriage equality in overwhelming numbers. We are passionate advocates for refugees. We have Australia's largest Jewish community and many treasured Holocaust survivors in that community. Many of us came to Australia to seek a better life. We are entrepreneurial, we are innovative and we are businesslike. We work across technology, in finance, arts, medicine, in caring for others and in teaching. We expect the government to use our money wisely. I want to pay tribute to those people who sent me here. When I first was approached by community members about running I said no, but I couldn't let it go. Saying yes was the hardest decision I have ever made. I have a young family, a job I adored and I used to have an Italian passport. But I said yes because our values were not represented in this parliament. I said yes because I watched with despair the former government go to COP26 with the position that our businesses, our scientists, our community did not support. They did not stand for us, for Wentworth, and I could not stand aside any longer. This was the moment to say we can do better.

Many people ask me if it was hard to stand against my family's liberal tradition. There are those who try to paint me and other Independents gathered here today as radical. I said to them protecting our environment for our children is not a radical choice. Ensuring that our businesses are at the forefront of innovation is not a radical choice. Making sure that our institutions have integrity, transparency and accountability is not a radical choice, and having equal representation of women and men in public life is not a radical choice. We are the values of modern Australia, and to truly stand up for them requires unprecedented community action, and I want to pay tribute to those who contributed to it. Our first event, when hundreds of people came together at Paddington RSL on a typically rainy Saturday, was the first taste of the commitment our community was willing to make to change, and the community grew from there. At first, people took a brochure. They may have worn a cap. They put a dog bandana on their puppy. They wore a T-shirt. Then they found themselves dropping off leaflets, standing on street corners, talking to their neighbours about politics when they have never done that before. Then they were making a line of signs, one kilometre long, waving to the people of Wentworth as they drove to the city. How did it happen? It happened because good people stood up and lived the words that we need to be the change we want to see in the world.

Thank you to those who approached me and those who supported me, particularly—this is a long list and I know I'm going to forget someone—Lyndell, Anthony, Daniel, Maria, Michaels, Davids, Alexa, Ed, Kath, Sarah, Traceys, Alex, Ruby, Max, Charlotte, Joe, Fred, Kerry, Margots, Andrews, Ians, Sigrid, Louise, JulieAnne, Jillian, Tim, John, Wendys, Ken, Jonathan, Nick, Desiree—I promise haven't just taken a baby list!—Heather, Ella, Peter, Margriet, Martin, Sally, Steve, Annettes, Catherine, Karen, Daniella, Ramazan, Eliana, Jack, Lynn, Marianne, Matthew, Michelle, Mike, Pam, Patricia. Thank you. You were wonderful!

Thank you to my wonderful friends and family who supported me in this choice, and thank you to the thousands of people who supported, volunteered and donated. You are the change that created this. I'm the vehicle of the ambitions of our community to have a voice that truly represents our community in parliament. My first loyalty is to the people of Wentworth, to represent you and your values, not a party. But I know that Wentworth wants me to focus on the best interests of Australia as well, as these people care for the whole country and not just our own patch. For our times are not easy, and it is the values of Wentworth and all the Australian people that are needed now.

We have so much to be thankful for. We are the most successful multicultural country on this earth. We have the longest continuous civilisation on this earth. We have abundant resources. We are educated. We are healthy. The Australian dream is still meaningful here. And we are irreverent. And yet we face significant challenges. There are global challenges: climate change, Ukraine war, shifting global power dynamics, the pandemic. There are local challenges: low productivity, inflation, cost of living, mental health, government debt, a world where young people's real wages are going backwards and housing is out of their reach. And there are challenges to our own values. How do we humanely treat refugees and asylum seekers? How do we achieve a makarrata to truly bring reconciliation to our country? How do we bring respect, safety and equality to all women? And how do we support and include all Australians in our future?

I will stand with Wentworth for the future of this country, not the past. I will stand with Wentworth for strong climate action in this decade and beyond, for a more ambitious climate change action than the government has put forward—one that is informed by the science and works collaboratively with business, unions, community and government to achieve; one that underpins our national security through a reduction of foreign oil. I will stand with Wentworth for investing in our democracy and in this parliament. That means a strong federal ICAC, that means support for ABC and SBS, that means donation reform and that means an end to pork-barrelling. But it also means challenging this parliament to behave better, because we do not behave like this in our living rooms, in our workplaces. I am yet to meet a member of the public who thinks the pointscoring football match of question time is actually helping our country be governed better.

I will stand with Wentworth for a future focused economy. We need to listen to business about migration, about getting the skills we need into this country. We need to listen about innovation; we need to listen about how to help Australia lead R&D, not lag; and we need to listen to businesses about regulation. We absolutely must protect our workers and the environment, but we need to do this in a way that still allows business to focus on its customers, its suppliers and its people, not to be tied up in government complexity and red tape. I will stand with Wentworth for the tough decisions in government for the long term.

My mum almost went out of business in the late eighties, and she taught me that spending more money doesn't always equal better. But both sides of politics so often signal their commitment to issues with dollar signs. In business, if you spend more money and you don't get results, your budget gets cut. We are spending more money in education and in health, and we are going backwards. We must engage with the states in the harder task of reform. We must always remember that this isn't our money. We are taking it out of the pockets of families that need it. And they need it now more than ever.

We have a tax system that holds us back, stamp duty that imposes costs on housing, a payroll tax that is a tax on working—a tax system that doesn't drive productivity. It's not fit for purpose. The economists know it. The business community knows it. The social sector knows it. But neither party wants to deal with the real challenges that we face there. And we must face those hard questions.

I will stand with Wentworth for young people, because all the generations of Wentworth are concerned that homeownership for young people is slipping out of reach. The hard choices of increasing housing supply and reforming stamp duty must be addressed. I will stand for education and for truly preparing young people for the future.

I will stand with Wentworth for bringing the kindness and compassion that we show in our private lives back into parliament in how we treat our most vulnerable—in how we treat our refugees and asylum seekers.

And, finally, I will stand with Wentworth for women. I am the daughter of a female trailblazer. I am a feminist. I am the mother of girls. And, if nothing else, I am one piece of a transformational change in the balance of this parliament.

I pay tribute to the others that are part of this incredible wave of change—the women and multicultural people who have come into this parliament and made it the closest that the Australian parliament has ever had to true representation. I pay tribute to my fellow Independents, those in the parliament now but also those in the past; the brave women who have said: 'Enough is enough in stale old politics.' It will be my lifelong honour to stand in the class of 2022 with you all and seek the change that our communities sent us to pursue.

And I will say to the coalition: in 1996, you actually led the parliament in terms of women. Twenty-three per cent of women in the lower house were women in 1996, in the coalition. After this last election, it was 19 per cent. In 25 years, it has never got above 25 per cent.

Women will be represented. We have been polite, we have asked nicely and we have waited. But we've done waiting, and we're going to take what is ours. This crossbench reflects this. Ignore it at your peril.

Let this parliament be the one that ends the politics of waste. I do not want to waste the potential of so many women by not allowing them to work. I do not want to waste the potential of so many young people who are locked out of opportunities in this country. I do not want to waste the economic opportunity of decarbonisation for this country. And I do not want to waste the precious world that we've been given.

I stand in the middle of parliament because this is where the people of our country stand—in the middle. They stand for balance. They stand for difference, but not division. They want us to be builders, not wreckers. They want us to find solutions, not finger-point. You can be pro environment and pro business. You can live in the city and care about the country. You can be economically responsible and compassionate.

I will make mistakes in this parliament—my final, I guess, thing I will confess to you! I will make mistakes in this parliament. No doubt I will disappoint some people. But the one thing I will do is, listen to my community. When I falter, I know you will be there. You will tell me the truth. I feel the weight of responsibility for the woman who came out of the polling booth with tears in her eyes and said to me: 'My daughter had anorexia and couldn't get the care she needed. I voted for you. Make a difference.' I feel the weight of responsibility for 17-year-old Millie, who said: 'I've always wanted to go into politics, but I never saw anyone I wanted to be. But now I have.' I will seek to be worthy of your trust. I will carry you in my heart. Thank you.

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