My inauguration as a Member of the Legislative Council of Victoria took place a couple of weeks after the election result had been finalised in December 2014. Over Christmas, I set up a temporary electorate office in the Treasury Building, while the Parliamentary Services Department combed shopping centres around Brunswick for something permanent.
The office was located between the conservative Liberal member Gordon Rich-Phillips and the two Shooters. It was a three-by-three metre bolthole tucked up under the eaves of Parliament House with an old east-facing sash window, a 100-year-old leather chaise lounge and a couple of desks. Originally it would probably have been an attendant’s office. I could see that with a couple of staff members, Robbie and maybe a guest or two, it would be hard to even move around, but I was happy with it.
Hiring staff was the next cab off the rank. In the major parties, all these systems are put in place for you from head office and new staff are generally party members. Nearly all Liberal, Labor and Greens MPs would have worked in the office of another MP at some time before. My campaign manager, Nevena Spirovska, had been with me for a few years and naturally fell to the role of office manager. Finding a chief-of-staff for a Sex Party MP was a bit harder.
That summer, I also wrote my maiden speech, to be delivered when the first parliament resumed in March 2015. The maiden speech is a weird rite of passage because you have to make it before you are allowed to participate in parliamentary debates of any kind. It’s a bit like losing your virginity in public. After you’ve done it, you’ve lost your parliamentary innocence and become fair game for anyone in the chamber to pinch your political arse. That’s what it felt like, anyway—although I was allowed one vote first and that was for a new President for the Legislative Council.
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Everyone had seen the effect of having a partisan Speaker/President when Tony Abbott installed Bronwyn Bishop as the Speaker of the House of Representatives. She ejected Labor members on no less than 393 times, but only seven times from her own side of politics. My first criteria was to support someone who was genuinely unbiased. The Liberals had nominated their old President from the previous parliament, Bruce Atkinson. He had proven to be bipartisan in his calls and although I liked Labor’s nominee, Gail Tierney, I reasoned that the crossbench would be much better served with a progressive Opposition President. The Greens thought similarly, and so Atkinson won by a good margin. Many said that it did not bode well for the new government to lose the presidency of the upper house, but I was simply looking after myself and it had nothing to do with the way I would vote on future issues. I’d also known Bruce for a long time, even before he got into parliament. At that stage, he was running an industry magazine for retailers. I had lobbied him on Eros issues as far back as the 1990s and found him to be a true small-l liberal with a good sense of humour and a broad outlook on life. He was one of the very few politicians happy to accept my personal invites to visit Sexpo and to meet with traders and hear their gripes.
Over the years, I’d known many MPs who wanted to see what Sexpo was all about but just couldn’t bring themselves to abandon their political correctness. But some did take the walk on the wild side. In 1996, a Victorian MP entered the amateur strip competition up on the main stage and ended up wearing nothing but his undies and a mask in front of 2000 patrons. From memory, he had to be stopped from taking his undies off . . . Another had attended wearing a broad-brimmed hat, sunglasses and an actual raincoat, as if that was the uniform for Sexpo.
Following the election of a Legislative Council President, a call went out for seven acting presidents to help out in running the daily business of the house. I nominated and got one of them, which meant that over the next few years I would sit in the president’s chair during each sitting. The first bill I got to pass as acting president was one to repeal Section 19A of the Crimes Act. This law singled out the crime of intentional HIV transmission for more harsher penalties (up to 25 years’ imprisonment) than the maximum penalty for manslaughter (twenty years). With new anti-viral drugs around these days not many people die from HIV infections and so the inequality in the laws was obvious. It was also part of reducing the stigma around HIV/AIDS.
Life for a new crossbencher isn’t easy. Because I held one of a few balance-of-power positions in the upper house, every interest group in town wanted to meet with me. If you want to be engaged in the many debates that come before parliament, you must be prepared to read about them extensively. If you’re a backbencher from a major party, your minister does all the research for you, and if you are the minister, you have a department full of staff to do the hack work and research. As a crossbencher you don’t have any of these luxuries. If you want to be on a couple of parliamentary committees as well, you can just about kiss your weekends goodbye.
The rationale behind who gets on to a parliamentary committee is that, as far as possible, it should reflect the makeup of the parliament. The Greens refused to go on any joint house committees except the main financial one: the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee. My fellow crossbenchers weren’t keen on going on any committees either (I think they felt like they didn’t have time or they weren’t their responsibility) which is why I ended up on four of them—more than any other MP. They were: the Legal and Social Issues Committee; the Law Reform Committee; the Road and Community Safety Committee; the Electoral Matters Committee; and, later on, the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee. I was also on the White Ribbon Working Group and the Parliamentary Friendship Group for LGBTIQ people.
I didn’t enter politics for the free passes to the races and the footy. Being elected was an amazing opportunity to help change many of the outdated and conservative structures around me, and I had decided from day one that I was in this for all I was worth. The daily walk up the steps of parliament and into one of the most ornate Victorian chambers in the country was an extra bonus that never ceased to amaze me. Soaked in red velvet with Italianate putis, angels and lavish gold-leaf decoration, everything about my new work environment thrilled my senses.
In the last two weeks of the campaign, one of our ACT organisers, Jorian Gardner, had come down from Canberra to help out with the campaign. He had previously been Director of the ACT Fringe Festival and before that a political journalist and radio announcer. His public image as an enfant terrible had recently been enhanced by his removal from the Fringe Festival for running a burlesque event that satirised Nazism. It had been widely misinterpreted by plebeian types in the ACT administration as a ‘Nazi burlesque performance’ and because the festival was sponsored by the ACT government someone’s head had to roll. At a loose end, Jorian had travelled to Melbourne to help out in the campaign. Although I knew he could be a very naughty boy, he also had more front than Myers, which was what I needed as I tentatively felt my way around the parliament in that first year.
When after a few months all the crossbenchers began to feel the crush of the workload, we approached the government for an extra part-time staffer each. I needed legal help more than anything, and I found a smart young law graduate, Danielle Walt, who was across all my issues.
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Minutes after being officially elected by the Electoral Commission computers at Etihad Stadium in late December 2014, I had held an impromptu press conference and was asked by reporters what were my most important objectives. I had no hesitation in naming the widespread suffering experienced by many at the end of their life as my top priority. I foreshadowed an early referral of physician-assisted dying to the Victorian Law Reform Commission.
The media immediately door-stopped the new premier, Daniel Andrews, to see what he thought of the idea. He was adamant it would never happen under his watch. It wasn’t really what I wanted to hear regarding the first item on my agenda. If I was even going to get a hearing from the government, let alone any action on the issue, I had a lot of hard work ahead of me.
I know voluntary assisted dying (VAD) wasn’t what most people thought would be my first legislative move, but then they probably hadn’t met Peter Short—the Tic Toc man. I had launched the Sex Party in 2009 with a policy to legalise assisted dying, but I can’t say that I gave it much thought after the policy was written. Then, in the run up to the 2014 state election, I met Peter, who was dying of oesophageal cancer and was on a mission to change the options that were available to him as his own clock wound down. His passion to change the law became all-consuming and, I suspect, helped to keep him alive in his last year. It ignited something in me as well, to the extent that I made a promise to him that somehow I would get VAD legalised during my first term in parliament. I had never made a promise to a dying person before and it felt like a huge responsibility.
A few days after my inauguration, I got some unexpected support. I was standing on the steps of parliament, absorbed in watching the traditional Aboriginal smoking ceremony, when a voice from behind me said, ‘I’m very disappointed in you.’
I spun around to see former Liberal premier, Jeff Kennett, smiling down at me.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Well, when the Sex Party got elected, I thought we’d all be having a bit of fun. But all you’re talking about is legalising death!’
We both laughed and enjoyed a bit more banter before he turned to leave. But as he did he spoke more earnestly.
‘Don’t get me wrong. I support assisted dying . . . Just don’t forget to enjoy your time here and have some fun.’
It was good advice and he lifted my spirits. If I couldn’t get the Labor premier onside, then a former Liberal one was still a pretty good start.
The first week of parliament brought another surprise. The Greens first legislative action was to table a motion to refer the issue of VAD to the Law Reform Commission in almost the exact words I had used in my media conference. Not only was I now battling the government for support, I was battling the Greens to keep them from swiping my social policy initiatives. To be fair, they had tried to bring the issue into the parliament years before without success, and while it was annoying that they had stolen my thunder, I immediately threw my support behind their motion.
But I was beginning to have second thoughts about referring the issue to an agency outside of the parliament. The emails opposing the Greens motion were repetitive and soaked in religious dogma, but they made a couple of interesting points. First, that an issue such as this should be considered by the parliament and not a third party, and second, that any move on assisted dying would be to the detriment of other end-of-life services, such as palliative care. (Two years on, these same groups would completely reverse their logic when it came to the same-sex marriage debate, where they preferred to use a plebiscite on the issue rather than let parliament deal with it.)
I started drafting a different motion that moved for a parliamentary committee to investigate all end-of-life choices and issues including assisted dying.
I had already met with Dr Rodney Syme and others from the Dying with Dignity Victoria movement and they completely supported this approach. Assisted dying was just one part of a bigger toolbox for dying with dignity. By now I was also convinced that the Greens motion was not the way to go, even though I still supported it. But when it was put to a conscience vote, their motion failed. My intuition told me that if I didn’t do something immediately the issue would simply fade too far from the parliament to be pulled back and we would have to wait another four years to raise it again.
The following week, using the arguments that the social conservatives had put to me and incorporating the advice from the dying with dignity lobby, I listed a much wider motion couched in community health issues to set up an inquiry into end-of-life choices, which included consideration of advanced-care directives and planning, palliative care, legal decision-making, and physician-assisted dying. I also referred it to a joint house committee of the parliament—a committee that I wasn’t on. That way the anti-euthanasia campaigners couldn’t say I was directly involved.
Peter Short had sadly died during the summer months preceding parliament’s return. With the Greens motion defeated, a disinterested crossbench, a premier adamant that there would be no changes and a conservative Opposition that were never going to initiate anything in this area, I was determined to jam my foot in the closing door in the hope that a miracle would surface and the debate might still open up.
It wasn’t a miracle, but shortly after listing my motion an angel of sorts did appear in the form of Gavin Jennings, the leader of the government in the upper house. He took me aside and said that my chances of success would be vastly improved if I allowed the government to introduce a slightly amended version of my motion and to send the issue to the Upper House Committee on Legal and Social Issues, which I was on, instead of the Joint House Committee. Governments can refer matters to committees without having to vote on them, and I knew that the last thing they wanted was another debate around a motion following the Greens’ defeat. I also knew that Gavin was a supporter of Dying with Dignity Victoria and that this wasn’t an easy discussion for him given the premier’s stance on the matter.
I quickly agreed to his plan and within a week the End of Life Choices Inquiry was underway without debate and without a vote.
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Having the government take my motion and move it themselves was an unexpected bonus. Independents like myself get only two spots per year to lead debate in the House. This time can be used in a number of ways. You can raise a topic to be discussed, move a motion to start a committee inquiry, move a motion to debate how terrible the government is, or introduce a private member’s bill. It’s basically a ‘please discuss’ mechanism that can eventually lead to a bill becoming an Act of Parliament, or it can die without a trace.
When the government put my motion to refer voluntary euthanasia to a committee, it still left me with two spots in the year to introduce a debate. I saw this as my opportunity to introduce a private member’s bill to stop protestors from harassing women outside abortion clinics.
Abortion had been a hot button issue in Victoria since 2000. In that year, an anti-abortion protestor stormed the East Melbourne abortion clinic intending to burn it to the ground—along with everyone in it. Instead he shot and killed a security guard before being overpowered by clinic patients. Protests by religious campaigners had been constant outside parliament and the abortion clinic on busy Wellington Parade in East Melbourne, intensifying in the lead up to the 2014 election.
After my own experience of having an abortion over 30 years ago and having to run the gauntlet of these people, I was fired up. On many Saturday mornings, you would see me out the front of the abortion clinic with a bevy of committed Sex Party volunteers demonstrating against the anti-abortion group, Helpers of God’s Precious Infants.
The group had been founded by a Catholic priest and was supported by prominent Catholics, including the Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart. As the election drew closer, insults had been traded across the road outside the clinic. Helpers of God’s Precious Infants would often bring in a large plaster statue of the Virgin Mary holding a baby Jesus on top of a wooden stretcher, and every year they held a special protest called the March for the Babies, led and organised by Liberal Victorian upper house member, Bernie Finn.
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Campaigning for this bill among my parliamentary colleagues quickly became ‘not-so-secret women’s business’. A small cross-party group of women emerged to lead support for the bill, including Mary Wooldridge (shadow health spokesperson and leader), Jaala Pulford (Minister for Agriculture), Colleen Hartland (the Greens’ health spokesperson), Georgie Crozier (shadow for children’s health), Jaclyn Symes (government whip) and myself. It was my first taste of cross-party collaboration and it was a wonderful feeling to be united around an issue with a group of women that all had vastly different political affiliations. Since it was all about women’s health, I suspect that it would have been a different process had men been involved.
Conscious that another woman, the DLP’s Rachel Carling-Jenkins, would try to reopen the abortion debate at some point during her term, the group pulled in tightly with private meetings held in Jaala’s office to discuss strategies. Following the first reading of the bill, various organisations, including women’s health groups and family-planning groups, started to rally and I was fortunate to connect with the people who had drafted similar legislation in Tasmania.
The East Melbourne clinic, with the support of the Human Rights Law Centre, had just taken unsuccessful action against Melbourne City Council for not protecting them from the protestors. This in turn had ramped up the intensity of the religious demonstrators. Helpers of God’s Precious Infants were pushing out ever more graphic and punishing leaflets and increasing the level of abuse towards women presenting at the clinic. They were joined by the Right to Life association and my crossbench colleague, Rachel Carling-Jenkins, to form a loose coalition to lobby against my bill. Maybe this was ‘the battle of the blondes’ that she had referred to when she was first elected. They lobbied, threatened and sent bulk emails, but the list of supporters in support of the bill far outweighed their numbers, evidence and public support.
It was difficult for the government to decide what to do. The bill was popular in the community and it wouldn’t look good for the government to oppose it outright. Apart from a couple of right-faction members, most of them were supportive. But governments just don’t generally allow private members’ bills to proceed to a vote.
As the debate neared, I was still uncertain how the government was going to deal with it. The Liberals had agreed to a conscience vote and I was busy lobbying them individually, as well as holding party briefings using many of the skills that I learned as an Eros lobbyist. Others in the group were also writing and meeting with key people to ensure the success of the bill.
A few days before the debate was due to start, I met with the Health Minister, Jill Hennessy. She committed the government to introducing a similar bill within a few months if I would abandon mine. They used the excuse that it was technically flawed. It wasn’t. But, as an excuse for not supporting the bill, it was plausible.
It was a hard decision to make. How would I face the staff at the East Melbourne clinic if I agreed to the government’s plan and they then just let it lapse? On the other hand, allowing the government to take it over at this stage and introduce their own bill, assured it of success.
Sensing my reservations, Jill called me again to say that as an act of good faith she would stand on the steps of parliament with me and announce to the media the government’s intention to introduce their own bill. She would acknowledge the fact that I had brought the issue before the parliament and that they would continue to work with me on developing their own bill.
At that point, I just jumped, and a couple of months later I stood with her on the steps to announce the new bill. And only a few months after that, true to her word, the minister introduced the safe access zone bill and it was not to be a conscience vote for the party, either.
The Australian Christian Lobby called the bill an attack on free speech. In reply, I said I was an advocate for free speech but not an advocate of a free audience. The Right to Lifers campaigned hard. They stood at the rear entrance to parliament as they did on most sitting days and waived appalling signs at the passing parade. One day, I went and stood alongside them with a couple of drag queens and a few Sex Party volunteers holding signs saying things like ‘Wrong message, right place’ and ‘Honk if you support choice’. The old stagers didn’t know where to look.
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The final sitting before the vote was one of the longest the parliament had seen since the state’s new abortion laws had been passed in 2008. Everyone wanted a say. Opponents filibustered the proposed legislation for more than twelve hours on the first night, with the chamber calling it quits at 3.30 a.m. On the second day of debate, there were hours of ridiculous questions. Bernie Finn kept calling the clinics ‘abortuaries’ and then there was a debate over whether that was an actual word. Liberal MP Inga Peulich asked whether an aircraft flying at 149 metres over a clinic with a sign attached would run afoul of the legislation. She asked it eight times in various ways. What about a dinner party in a house that was less than 150 metres from a clinic where a conversation on abortion was taking place? The questions just got sillier and tempers started to fray. Finally, the vote was called at 4 a.m. and passed the upper house by 31 votes to eight.