General News
3 April, 2023
Newbies navigate Spring Street and their local community
"Nothing really prepares you completely for what it's actually like."
One quarter of the way through 2023, western Victoria's three newest politicians sat down with Australian Community Media to speak about their first few months as state government representatives.
Following the November 2022 election, Labor's Martha Haylett was elected to the lower house as the member for Ripon.
In the upper house for the Western Victorian district sits Liberal's Joe McCracken and Dr Sarah Mansfield from The Greens.
All three spoke to how the past four or so sitting weeks have been an intense introduction to learning how parliament works.
While it is only a small fraction of their jobs, there are a number of processes to get their heads around.
Newbie politicians spent their first few days in parliament induction before the first sitting week.
"It's a whole different role and nothing really prepares you completely for what it's actually like - being an MP," Dr Mansfield said.
She said they were given a tour of parliament and were able to get a sense of where things are and who were the people they needed to go to for help.
"But the best learning has really been once parliament started sitting," Dr Mansfield said.
"[You get] a feel for what happens when you're in there, the different processes and tools you have available to try and advocate for your community or around issues that are important."
Mr McCracken said walking up the steps to parliament could be a 'pinch yourself' moment, but once inside it was a bit of a mad, crazy rush.
He said there was plenty to get used to including remembering when to stand up when particular leaders walked in.
"You've got to get used to all the different sorts of questions that you can ask ... [and then try] to get your head around what contributions you can make," Mr McCracken said.
"I call it Hogwarts colloquially, because it's an old building, you have all these traditions and everyone is in their own house, their own party."
Ms Haylett said there has been a lot to learn and sitting weeks could be packed.
"It's helpful being supported by Juliana [Addison, Wendouree MP] and Michaela [Settle, Eureka MP] and the rest of the Labor caucus [explaining] this is how you do this and this is when you bow to the speaker," she said.
"It's been really great, but it's very different to being on the ground and the community.
"You need to try and maximise the time that you're at parliament to just bang down the doors of ministers."
Even when she is not in a sitting week, Ms Haylett said it could be challenging jumping from a variety of different topics in different meetings - from health care to meeting with a footy club to talking about family violence or learning about water.
"We're getting a lot of phone calls, emails and a lot of people walking into the office who have really serious issues," she said.
"They're dealing with family violence, child protection, mental health concerns and they may have fallen through the cracks of the system or don't know how to navigate the system.
"So there's a lot of heavy content that you deal with each day."
Mr McCracken said a big week of internal party politics had a surprising effect on him.
The Liberal Party spent a majority of Monday, March 27, debating a motion to expel MP Moira Deeming after she attended a rally attended by anti-transgender activist Kellie-Jay Keen.
"This last week was so hard and it probably took a toll on me more than what I expected," he said.
"It is no secret I'm good friends with Moira, but I support John [Pesutto, Victorian Liberal leader] as well."
As a former school teacher, Mr McCracken said it had taken some getting used to not having a clear schedule.
"You have a lunch break during the day but apart from that anything can happen," he said.
"People say there's a division and all of a sudden you have to run back to the chamber and vote, then continue on with what you were doing."
Despite the steep learning curve, all three politicians said they were keen to keep learning about their communities.
"I'm quite mindful that parliament can become quite abstract for people," Dr Mansfield said.
"Although it can feel like it dominates a lot of what we do, it's really a space where we can amplify the issues we hear about in the community," she said.
"We should be strengthening that connection between local communities and what's happening [in parliament]."