Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Cyber Security and Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Cyber Security and Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do, most grievously.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please proceed.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Cyber Security and Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In today's matter of public importance the member for Corangamite stated that I had been 'savaged' in a preselection battle and 'kicked out' by men, and this is simply not the case. I put out a media release on 13 August stating my reasons for not contesting the next federal election. In that statement I said that I was not nominating for preselection for the seat of Bean. My decision was made for entirely personal reasons. My mother turned 79 last week. Faye Anderson and my working-class matriarchy are why I am Labor to my bootstraps and why I ran for the seat of Canberra in 2010. My mother is now one of the reasons I am not nominating. By her own admission, Mum has years not decades left, and I want to be there for those years. Also, over the break, as I said in my media release, I spent more time than usual with my sisters and their families, and my friends, and it made me realise that I have missed too many precious and significant moments in their lives, and I want to be there for those moments. Any suggestion that I was kicked out by men completely underestimates me and fails to understand my own preselection. If you actually understood my preselection and if you understood me, you would know that if anyone tried to push me, particularly a man, I would push back much, much harder.