Ms KELLIE SLOANE (Vaucluse) (16:08): I have done a lot of public speaking, but this is a unique setting, as you have all learned in the past few minutes. It is a great honour to be standing before you as the member for Vaucluse—only the tenth person to do so in almost 100 years since the formation of the electorate in 1927. I thank our community for entrusting me with this great responsibility, and I pledge to always remember that this role does not belong to me; it is yours. This community is not mine; it is ours. Well before Europeans occupied this stunning headland, it was and is theirs: the Gadigal, Bidjigal and Birrabirragal peoples have lived across the eastern part of Sydney for millennia. I acknowledge our Indigenous history and culture. I will promote ongoing friendship and respect, and I will honour their intrinsic link to the land and waterways by pledging to protect our natural environment for future generations.

Vaucluse is just 24 square kilometres. It is one of the smallest and most densely populated electorates in the State. Behind the sparkling harbourside fringe that we are so often stereotyped by, lies a community that I love for many other riches—a diversity of cultures, of enterprise and of ideas. Half of those living in our electorate are first generation Australians with both parents born overseas, and many more come from other parts of Australia and Sydney. We choose to live in a place marked by contrasts. You will see barefoot surfers in budgie smugglers at Bondi; crisply uniformed officers at HMAS Watson; Jewish families heading to synagogue; people dropping a fishing line at the historic village of Watsons Bay; fast cars moving slowly through Australia's version of Rodeo Drive in Double Bay; parents, babies and dogs at Seven Ways in North Bondi; and high-rise after high-rise, because two‑thirds of our electorate is made up of flats and apartments. A further 20 per cent is made up of semi‑detached houses, so we are packed in.

I love the rich tapestry that makes up our busy and diverse community. My challenge as a local MP is to represent everyone equitably, whether young, old, born and raised locally or, like the majority of those in my electorate, have come from somewhere else and chosen our amazing electorate as home. I am one of those people. I grew up in regional South Australia, first in the west coast tuna-fishing town of Port Lincoln and then north of Adelaide in wine country in the Barossa Valley. I am a country girl at heart. Dad ran a small business and Mum worked at the local school. My sister, Juliette, my brother, Adam, and I were taught that we could achieve anything through hard work, persistence and, most importantly, honesty. Service was part of our upbringing. Mum and Dad were always part of clubs, such as Apex and Rotary, sports clubs, arts clubs and local health committees. Dad recently retired as mayor. My parents have always put family and community ahead of any personal ambition. I like to think that those values have shaped who I am today and have taken me on the pathway here to community representation.

I am proudly public school educated and went to Nuriootpa High School—hello, everyone in the Barossa—before juggling university and a cadetship at the ABC, where I began my career as a journalist. My first ever interview as a journalist was with the then Premier on my birthday week when I had just turned 18. I was thrown straight in the deep end, but that is how I like it. I was drawn to political reporting, so I sat up there in the press gallery. I loved the contest of ideas. I moved to Sydney in 1997 to join the Nine Network, where I would spend 14 years with a front-row seat to history, hosting major network shows and covering breaking news at home and abroad. I interviewed prime ministers, plenty of movie stars, business leaders and sporting heroes. I got to see inside submarines and fly in Black Hawk helicopters. I covered the Oscars and danced with John Travolta in his private jet. Adam is so sick of that story. I would bet that not too many people say that in their inaugural speech. I had a lot of fun; it was a great privilege.

But it was the events that impacted everyday people that shaped me as a person. It was a privilege to be able to give a voice to the quiet Australians who were doing it tough or had been silenced. Those people feel that politicians in this place and in Canberra do not have their best interests at heart, behave poorly—you wouldn't do that, would you?—talk too much about themselves and not about their communities, and do not act in the public interest. I promise all of the people I have interviewed that I have taken note. Journalism immersed me in so many different worlds, and I shared many life-changing moments with people. I have been with families when they have lost their homes to flood. I have been at fire fronts. I have seen the flames and witnessed the sheer terror of that destructive force. I saw the indescribable relief, as well as the simultaneous guilt, that families felt when their neighbour's house burned to the ground and, inexplicably, their home was spared.

I witnessed the trauma in the aftermath of the Bali bombings when I covered the tragedy in Kuta that took the lives of 202 people, including 88 Australians. Twenty of those were from the eastern suburbs. I remember the shock and disbelief we felt as a nation. I remember the heroism of the doctors, the holiday‑makers and the Balinese people who came together in that time and achieved extraordinary acts of humanity. I still feel the pain of those families and survivors today, and I remember them more than 20 years on. It is impossible to not be changed by that experience. It is giving me goosebumps talking about it today. Something that binds us in all of our experiences, and the only thing that saves us from disaster, from loneliness, from grief and from struggle, is family and community. The strength of community comes from many hands joined together. It comes from a powerful cohesion, a sense of common purpose and a sense of belonging. It is the job of governments to support communities and ensure that they create policies that bring people together—not divide them—and give them individual autonomy within a supportive network. That is how a society thrives. I have seen that up close as a journalist, and it was a privilege.

While that was important work, and work that is fundamental to our democracy, it increasingly frustrated me that I had a voice but not a direct influence. I could be a critic, I could talk about the change that needed to happen and what others should do, but that was not enough for me. When my husband, Adam, and I had our three wonderful boys, I felt things more deeply. Two of them are here today. The other is on school camp and cannot be here. Hello, Lachie, if they are letting you watch. When we had our boys, it changed me immeasurably. My heart broke in a different way when I was with families suffering from grief. When I saw an injustice, I found it harder to stand by and not be an active participant in the change I wanted to see. I used to keep a quote on our fridge—I do not know if you remember it, boys—and I would refer to it when I talked to my boys about making friends, about standing up for what they believe in and about why they should intervene when they see a bully or someone who needs help. It is a quote from Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt that members might be familiar with. He said:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.

So here I am in the arena, or the bearpit, trying to not be a sideline critic. I am trying to bring about change to elevate people and support communities and families. That journey began for me after journalism when I shifted to the education sector as CEO of an organisation called Life Education, most commonly known as Healthy Harold. I was a volunteer, then a board director and then, in a sliding doors moment for my career and my life, I took on the role of CEO. I started at State level, based at Colyton in Sydney's west for four years, and then at national level. It was great work. We worked to improve the lives of young people by giving them the tools, knowledge and strategies to make better choices around their mental and physical health, whether it be nutrition, cyber safety, bullying, resilience or vaping and other emerging issues for their schools. We were not fixing their issues, giving them the solutions or telling them no, but empowering them to make those choices for themselves. In many ways, they are truly Liberal principles.

I felt I was making a positive difference to hundreds of thousands of young lives. It was incredibly satisfying to work with teachers, parents and schools right across New South Wales, from my electorate in Vaucluse to Lakemba, Lismore and Lightning Ridge. I gained broad insights into the issues that mattered to young people. I gained a deep respect and admiration for the educators I employed and for the hardworking teachers we supported in schools across the country, particularly during COVID. Through that role, I made a lot of friends in this Chamber. I saw the very best side of politics and politicians. I saw people in this place shifting the dial for their communities. I saw their behind-the-scenes advocacy, care and commitment. I saw the power of the grassroots advocacy that they all do every day that is largely unseen. I thought that perhaps I too, through politics and policy, could make an even greater contribution.

My work in education connected me with young people, and I loved that. I want to continue to hear from young people in my new role as the member for Vaucluse. I want to ensure that their input is part of the decision‑making in Australia's oldest Parliament. Australia has the most impressive generation of young people aged 18 to 25. Statistically, they drink less, smoke less and take fewer drugs than generations before. They are a socially minded cohort of problem‑solvers, change‑makers and innovators. They are impressive. But they are growing up in a world that is complicated and busy, with a torrent of information via the internet and social media that can often be overwhelming and a distortion of what real relationships look like, what real bodies look like, what success looks like and what community is.

One of our biggest modern social challenges is how to balance an era of information and misinformation, a time of exponential change, of artificial intelligence, of uncertainty, of division, of left and right rather than right and wrong, with the care, connection and stability that this young generation needs. They have never had so much information, so much online connection, but so much loneliness and fragility. Suicide is the leading cause of death in 15 to 24‑year‑old Australians. Around 20 per cent of young people report high or very high levels of emotional distress. Young men are most at risk. When we champion our young women—and we must, and I will in this place—we also need to praise and champion our boys. They need it. It is important for us to listen more to our young people, ensuring that their voices are heard in our policymaking and that they feel engaged with the political process.

That is why I invited student leaders from across the Vaucluse electorate to join us today. I ask them to stand. In the gallery today from Kincoppal Rose‑Bay School are Charlotte Field and Ariella Perkins; from Cranbrook School, Josh Smith, Ed Walker and Owen Magee; from The Scots College, Will Destro and Archer Pullen; and from Rose Bay Secondary College, Isaac Hemsworth‑Smith and Zac Villa. Thank you all for coming today. Let me know how to better represent you. My door is always open. I am so grateful that you took the time, most of you during an HSC year, to come to the Parliament today.

Young people in my community tell me that one of their greatest priorities is the environment, and that it is a shared priority with their parents and grandparents. It is a priority for me. That is why it is with great pride that I have started my parliamentary career as the shadow Minister for the Environment. What a privilege it is to immerse myself in policymaking and decision‑making that will preserve our natural environment, our waterways, our lands and our forests for future generations—not just preserve but enhance. That is a job I relish. I can apply that to my own backyard, continuing to protect the spectacular South Head, the marine life in Parsley Bay and the penguins that popped up in Point Piper last week. Great work is being done by Woollahra and Waverley councils on grassroots environmental initiatives.

Going back to young people, I thank the most important young people in my life: Tom, Lachie and Will. Boys, you will be at the front of my mind in every decision that I make in this place. I am here to make a better future for you and for your generation. I thank you for your love and support, for the laughs, for keeping it real and for your understanding of the long hours that have already gone into this role and that will continue. I thank my husband, Adam Connolly. We are coming up to our twentieth wedding anniversary this year. Adam, I love you so much. I am grateful that you are in my life. You are the best decision that I have made. You are a great dad to our boys. Thank you for making me laugh—I needed that quite a bit over the past six months.

To my mum and dad, who I wish could have been here today, thank you for teaching me what matters, for being incredible role models, for teaching me the difference between right and wrong, that kindness matters, that humility is a trait to be admired and that service to others is an obligation to be embraced. Thank you for giving us so much. To "Spud" and "Schweet", my brother and sister, sitting in the gallery, thank you for coming and for keeping it real. To my grandmother, who is 97 and cannot be here today, Pumma, I promise I will not let politics change me—at least not for the worse. I mean it. To someone who knows me probably better than anyone, my best friend, Nina Stephens, who tried to talk me out of this when I first mentioned I was considering politics but who, nonetheless, like good girlfriends do, supported me protectively through this crazy journey—thank you.

Behind every woman who does something big is a tribe of other women supporting her. Mine included Annabel Merz, Amanda Lawson, Rowena, Amelia, Vix, Mel, the school mums, and Anna Hayes, who has known me longest. I also acknowledge Gabrielle Upton, the former member for Vaucluse, who I think deserves applause. Gabrielle, thank you for your friendship and support. You are a class act and you have made my job so much easier. We both follow some trailblazers, like former member for Vaucluse Rosemary Foot, who was the first Australian woman to be endorsed by a major party to contest an acknowledged safe seat. She entered Parliament in 1978, one of only two women in the Legislative Assembly—and for a while she was the only one. Back then, the bearpit was an aggressively masculine environment—I emphasise back then—but she held her own and she is an inspiration.

I mention her for a couple of reasons. She was a trailblazer but also a vocal critic of the ocean‑outfall sewage disposal system and its effects on eastern suburbs beaches, a situation which was a local public health issue. I am afraid to say that 45 years on, you would not believe it, sewage still pours off our cliffs, untreated, directly into the ocean. It is an environmental and health hazard. It is unique to my electorate and a legacy of our aging infrastructure. I again pay tribute to Gabrielle Upton and the former Coalition Government for committing funds and action to put an end to that. I will ensure that project is completed.

Connection to my community comes through many channels but I especially thank my Liberal Party conference—all 700‑plus branch members. I am sorry we could not fit you all in here. Thank you for the wonderful support you have given me, especially the branch presidents and the campaign committee led by Darel Hughes. Thank you to our amazing conference president, Janet McDonald, who has done so much for the Liberal Party and for our conference, and to the SEC executive. Thank you to my wonderful friend, Sally Betts. There are so many more people I would like to call out individually.

I thank the hundreds of volunteers who gave their time to post corflutes in the electorate, who stood at our polling booths and who put signs up in their backyards. I am in awe of your commitment and your support. I really and truly hope, and I will try my hardest, to meet your expectations. To Vaucluse: thank you. How will I help you? The issues will change over time, but my values will not. I believe in freedom of worship, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and freedom of choice. That is partly because so many people have emigrated to Vaucluse from different parts of the world to flee systems that denied them the same freedoms that we take for granted today.

The most important job I can do for you is to remove barriers to your individual success. These are Liberal values, and they are my values. We have become accustomed, in recent years in particular, to governments solving our problems. The pandemic made that necessary for a short period, but we must resist the heavy hand of government intervention in perpetuity. We need less bureaucracy, less regulation, fewer taxes and less interference in our daily lives. Enough of being told how to think, how to act, how to vote, how to parent, how to look and who to love. You should be able to dream big, get on with the job and make this State a better place. The best thing I can do is to help clear the way for you. A community is not a homogenous group; it is a collection of individuals, fortified by the contribution of new ideas and by respect.

I believe New South Wales is the best State in the best country in the world, and I believe we have not yet reached our potential. Our best times are ahead of us. We can be smarter. We can improve our education system—and we must. We need to be more inclusive. We need to encourage more innovation and we need to better celebrate our arts and culture. Our CBD needs to be so much more dynamic. There is so much opportunity, and to be in this place and to be able to make a contribution to that change is incredibly exciting for me. I still cannot believe it. To the young people in the gallery, if you have a goal, be patient. More importantly, be persistent, because that is what it is all about. This is a late addition—I quote the amazing Tina Turner, an awesome woman who, sadly, passed away today. She said:

I believe that if you'll just stand up and go, life will open up for you. Something just motivates you to keep moving.

I am motivated to keep going for the electorate of Vaucluse no matter the challenges. I will not take this important role for granted. I will measure my achievements not by the years I spend in this Chamber and not by the outcomes. I am in this arena not to be a critic, although I sometimes will be of those on the other side. My priority and my main objective is to be, first and foremost, a contributor. I will strive to make this State and my electorate a better place for future generations.