Already and this is this is the DAILYA, this is.
The Daily oas Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning and welcome to the Daily Ours. It's Wednesday, the twenty seventh of August. I'm Harry Sekulich.
I'm Lucy Tassel.
Charlotte Walker is Australia's youngest senator and the youngest woman ever elected to the Federal Parliament. On election night, she celebrated her win and her twenty first birthday. This week, she gave her first official speech to Parliament, reflecting on her labor activism, personal health struggles and her politically minded family, which all paved her path to Canberra. I spoke to Charlotte Walker about what drove her to get into politics, what she wants to see change in Australia, and how
young people can get more involved. But before we get into it, he's a quick word from our sponsor, Harry.
I don't know what you were doing when you were twenty one. I can tell you I was not getting elected to parliament.
I wasn't running either, Lucy. So I think Charlotte is probably blazing the trail for a lot of people.
Possibly the most impressive twenty one year old in the country. Other than her astonishing run for parliament, what else can you tell us about her?
Well, up until Monday night, we knew that Walker was the youngest senator ever elected. That's when she gave what's known as the first speech. And it might not be the actual time an MP or a senator actually speaks in the Parliament, but it's when they give a formal declaration that they announce who they are and where they come from. From Walker's speech, we learned quite a bit about her. She grew up in the regions of South Australia. She spoke about the influence of her grandparents, who were
card carrying members of the Labor Party. So just so happens that she goes on to get elected as a Labor Senator runs in the family totally. And she gave a shout out to her uncle and I thought this was really interesting because he's a union organizer, and she joked that unlike many other people, she actually enjoys a political chat with her uncle around Christmas time, which was
good for you know, quite amusing and quite unusual. Actually. Yeah, we also learned that she was diagnosed with a genetic heart condition recently and She also opened up about finding out she had depression after navigating her parents' divorce and bullying in primary school, which actually led to her moving schools when she was in year four. In the very few years since she's left high school, and there's only been three, she's worked for the Australian Services Union and
in the state's parliament in South Australia. She also became the state president of Young Labor, which all led to her getting chosen as a candidate for the Senate at this year's election. And it was in a tricky spot as well. It's fairly rare for a party to win third place on the Senate ticket, but she pulled it off.
Yeah wow, Well, I mean part of that huge landslide towards Labor that we saw at this election. You've mentioned that she's very young for the parliament. Is she the youngest ever MP? Like overall or just in the Senate.
She's the youngest woman ever elected to the federal Parliament, but the title for the youngest ever MP or senator still remains in the hands of White Roy. How yes, he was twenty years old when he won the Queensland seat of Longmen for the Liberal Party in twenty ten. Yes, it's also worth mentioning that Roy was in the House of Representatives, which is the lower house, and Charlotte Walker was elected to the Senate, which is the upper house,
the Red Chamber. It's got all sorts of nicknames. So she's made history as the youngest woman, the youngest senator, and I was really keen to talk to her about her path to politics and how she thinks young people should get more involved because we hear about the concerns when it comes to young people switching off from democracy and politics altogether. So with that in mind, here's our chat Walker. Thank you so much for joining the Daily Odds.
Thanks for having me.
So I just want to start on election night. We know that you were celebrating your twenty first birthday and the results also showed that you were likely to be elected as a Labor Senator for South Australia. Take me back to that night, described that whole experience, because there was obviously a lot going on.
Yeah, So, look, it had been a big day, being election day.
I'd spent the whole day out on a polling booth talking to voters, so I made sure that I spent some time with my family and friends the day before, and then from there we went to the boothby election party, which was a great night of celebrating with lots of our amazing volunteers and yeah, then the results sort of started slowly rolling in that it was a great night. We had some great results. So yeah, there's truly no other way I would have wanted to celebrate my birthday.
I don't think there's a better present than that.
Did they put on a cake for you or anything? Or there was?
There was, so it was organized without me knowing.
Some of the people in the party had organized a couple of cakes and brought them out into the night, which was really nice. Everyone got to have a peace during the celebration, so it was a really lovely surprise.
I want to rewind back to some of your earliest memories of being exposed to politics and what sort of sparked your interest. Was it conversations around the dinner table. Was it at school, like what some of your earlier memories there.
I guess sort of growing up.
You know, my direct relatives weren't members of the party, but we did sort of talk about issues of the day around the dinner table and it was a really safe place for me to express my opinion and speak up when I.
Had a particular view. It really came when I was eighteen when I had to decide who I was going to vote for.
My family had Labor values, but you know, there was no obligation to vote Labor, and I did some research and I decided that.
I really really liked Labour's policies.
And then sort of further from that, I decided that I was going to get out there and volunteer for them. My parents and family had done a little bit of volunteering for the party, and you know, I was really passionate about that policy and I wanted to get out there and talk to voters about it. So got involved with the party from the last federal election twenty twenty two, and then sort of from there, just got more and more involved from there and here I am today.
Yeah, so we know that it can take a bit of time for the count to be finalized. You don't immediately know on election night that you will be a Senator for South Australia that you've won the election because there's a quota system. And we could do a whole podcast explaining what that is, But describe that moment when you first realized I'm actually going to be a senator, because the AAC count can take some time, but describe when you actually knew you were going to parliament.
It was about three weeks after the election when the declaration was finally done and the preferences were distributed. That's sort of when I found out. So, you know, we were hopeful, but you don't want to get ahead of yourself with that type of thing, so we just remained positive.
It was about it was, yeah, nearly near the end of.
May, the declaration was made and it was just an absolute well wind got very quickly into doing some media interviews. I got to go to the declaration event and had, you know, my family and friends come and I got to speak and thank all of them. So yeah, it was sort of sort of up from there. But yeah, I think it took a couple of weeks, which the suspense was you know, it kind of killed me, but you know, we have a voting system that works that way, so you've just got to wait it out.
You've posted this video ranking online insults directed at you, which is a fairly direct way to respond. We know that young people are also turning away from getting politically active and getting more involved. Do you think that online commentary like you've received could be contributing to people young people in particular, driving away from parliament women in particular.
Look, I think I think there's a few layers to that.
I think, and I know all of my colleagues would say the same thing, sort of regardless of your age, or your background, or what political party you're in. You know, being a politician, you get a lot of feedback, You get lots of great lots of great feedback, and then there's always going to be the negativity.
That's sort of part of the job. You know.
Some of the comments directed towards me have you know, they have been misogynistic, and I don't condone those comments at all. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but sort of from there, the reason that I did the videos because I wanted to show other young people.
You know, when you.
Get into politics, there is hate, but you can't you can't let it get you down and you can't let it define you. Because there are other people out there that don't believe that young people should be elected officials like me, and I've wanted to show the young people that if you did do this, like, yeah, there is going to be hate, but you can you can get
through it. You can ignore that type of commentary. But I was just trying to bring a bit of light to, you know, some commentary that hasn't been great.
I also think.
Though, that you know, the media will show you that there will be a lot of negativity, but then you know there's less attention on the positivity, and there has genuinely been a lot.
Of positivity from people.
Often I get to meet lots of young people and older people at events, and when people coming up to me, it's genuinely very positive. So I think that's just the type of stuff you get online.
What do you think is the best way to get more young people interested in politics, because we know that can be the first barrier, just getting people to care.
I think it's interesting. I think young people at the moment are really engaged. I think we're seeing young people engage in politics more than they have before, which is really exciting.
I know something that I try.
And do when I'm wanting to get policy across to young people is try and meet them where they are the type of content that's going to appeal to someone a little bit older might not appeal to a younger person, so you'll probably see what I do. I try and replicate t because it's about meeting young people where they are and really about you know, getting onto their algorithm so that you know through all the memes and that they are.
Seeing a little bit of policy.
But I do think there's commentary around young people that they're disengaged, they're unorganized, they're lazy, but they're not a lot of young people are really, really, really passionate. Certainly, I hear from a lot of young people that are really passionate about politics, and they're really excited to see someone their own age in the Parliament.
I was going to say, do you want some of these people to get into the parliament with you? Do you want to see more young people represented in federal Parliament?
With the class of twenty twenty five, I'm the youngest, but we do have a lot of newer politicians that are in their early thirties. So that's certainly, you know, younger than what we've seen previously. So you can see when you look at our caucus and at the Parliament that progress is being made.
But I just want to. I want to continue to see that.
I'd love to see that meeting a you know, come down a little bit.
Yeah, you've already made history. That's very much clear. But what else do you want to be remembered for.
I touched on this in my first speech a little bit last night, talking about domestic violence prevention. I think it's no secret that we've got a problem in Australia. We clearly need to change the attitudes. We need to be having conversations about, you know, what type of comments we're making towards women, what sort of attitudes we're seeing portrayed in the community, because I think we have a problem. You know, there's already been some big investments into you know,
like crisis services, emergency accommodation, things like that. That's one part of it, but funding isn't going to fix the problem totally. The other thing that we need to do is be having conversations about, you know, what behavior is appropriate towards women and people generally, because you know, that sort of can be where it begins sometimes.
Senator Charlotte Orcatt, thank you so much for joining the Daily Hours and congratulations on your first speege.
Thanks guys, thanks for having me.
Wow, what a fascinating interview, Harry. Thanks so much for joining us on the Daily Ods today and thank you for listening. We'll be back again this evening with the headlines, and then again tomorrow with another deep dive. Until then, have a great day.
My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Kalkutin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.