And what was the catalyst that catapulted you into decide to actually pull the trigger and get into politics?

well I was a high school teacher and it was a job that I just loved and I still miss it but obviously child safeguards was massive to me it's one of the reasons why I think I always felt an affinity for being a high school teacher is that I just had this care and concern and compassion for children and wanted to protect them and look after them and I had assumed in my career that In the classrooms beside me, there were teachers who felt and acted the same as me and understood instinctively what child safeguards are.

And I think the vast majority of the time that is true.

But as we all know, wherever there are children, wherever there are children you are going to get predators and it's not the fault of the organizations that are also trying to look after children it's just a fact of life so when I started to hear bits and pieces about something called safe schools and you know I was having children and I was so busy as a teacher and I thought oh another anti-bullying program I mean If I need the government's help, stop bullying in my classroom.

I don't let my students get bullied.

I don't let them get bullied for any reason, let alone, you know, cherry picking one.

Their reason, their philosophy of bullying is irrelevant to me as a teacher and I couldn't care less.

I'm just like, how do you do that? I mean, this is out of control.

And has this been part of the attraction to your alignment now with Family First? Because Family First very definitely and solidly supports those values.

Yes, and it's often framed as a women's rights issue.

I think of it as a child safeguards issue and a sex-based rights issue.

My background in teaching has been pivotal in that because I knew that my fellow male teachers did not want to be put in a position where they had to supervise a female student in their change rooms with the boys, not only for their own reputation, for their own sake, but for that girl and for the privacy of the boys.

Boys are actually very shy.

People forget about that.

with all of their bravado and things like that, but they're very shy and they have rights to privacy as well.

And for listeners, how do you see that, all of that, the way that it has unfolded?

How tough are things economically in the western suburbs of Melbourne? For people who aren't familiar with it, what's going on there at the moment?

Families are going right under.

It is dire.

So if you put aside the fact that the violence on the streets is just something that is incomprehensible to everybody that I know, people older than me, people younger than me, it's not the same.

In fact...

when I was still in the Liberal Party, I was told by people on, you know, the wealthier side of town, um, that they were willing to get on board with the crime issue because it had finally reached their side of town.

I can't believe they say these things to my face and they think I'm going to let them represent my people in the West.

That's right,

Yeah.

yeah i mean it was amazing it was a it was amazing because um i was able to speak to people across the political spectrum not just because i came from labor but because i had been working for 10 years across the political spectrum and building relationships and so it was unusual that i had a gallery full of people who were from the greens even some teals you know from labor my mum and her a couple of her friends were outside and only they knew that I was talking about my mum, when I was talking about what turned me against, you know, the current form of unions, and it was the unions themselves bullying what, you know, it was my mum.

And so when I went out, and they were a bit emotional, they said they did do that to her, didn't they? And I said, yes, and that's when you lost me.

you know and I still believe that unions should be legal but they just need to be regulated differently and you know it went viral as you said I was getting all this good feedback but immediately immediately the mainstream media were just catastrophizing and I watched like I could see it I could see in real time oh they're all wobbling and falling apart people don't know this but immediately after my speech my husband told me that the woman you know who you know basically raised me while my mum was working so much she died she had already died but no one had told me so that I could get through my speech And so the furor in the coming days, actually, I could see everyone was wobbling in the Liberal Party and they were just having sort of a panic attack.

I don't know.

I was not paying attention to them.

I just didn't want all the mocking and the jibes and everything to make me miss Parliament.

Which is hilarious because I knew that