Nicolette Boele (Bradfield, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge and pay respect to traditional custodians of this land, their elders past and present, and those of nations right across this land and its seas.

Let me start with the problem—trust. Trust in our democratic institutions is declining, partly, I think, because the key assumptions have turned out to be mistaken. In recent history, the three key assumptions most of us accepted were: that democracy could cosily coexist with more or less unfettered capitalism; that it could successfully navigate between technocracy and ideology, between cultural warriors and pragmatists; and that externalities like climate change and global conflicts could be ignored. None of these assumptions are correct, and, worse, they're likely misleading distractions from the real challenges we face. My three decades of working in finance, energy and climate has shown me that capitalism needs well-functioning democracies, ones where governments set clear rules, where independent institutions referee those rules, and where those rules are efficient and effective to protect the citizens and consumers from bullies, scammers and corrupt actors.

Market players cannot effectively contribute to a strong economy amid uncertainty when the direction of play is unclear or when the rules of the game are changed every time the red and blue team change the captain's chair and take with them their ideologies and special interests. What's more—and I've heard this over and over again from the people of Bradfield—there's a widespread conviction that political parties, and therefore the parliament itself, are incapable of dealing with systemic, longstanding issues. We fail to properly regulate online media platforms. We fail to implement a reform agenda to act on climate change, the existential crisis of our time. We tinker around the edges of housing affordability, Australia's gambling addiction and making our taxation system fairer, and, worse still, even if there is an inquiry or a commission that delivers a report, which is a thoroughly public and deliberate process, our parliament, the parties that comprise it and the special interests they represent, usually fail to deliver on the recommendations—Gonski on education, Samuel on the environment, Henry on tax, Sackville on disability, and I could go on. It's little wonder that the public feels that the people elected to represent, serve and protect us do and effect the exact opposite.

So, where are people turning? I, like a growing number of Australians, believe that one way we can avoid these fates is by electing people that have the community's and not the party's interest at the centre of what they do, and that's why I'm so proud to be associated with the community independents movement and its more than one million supporters. The movement that is a step towards a more decentralised and people-centred rather than party led system. We listen, we are inclusive, we are patient, we're respectful, we're generous, and the movement is momentum, and, most beautifully, it is rebuilding trust—trust between neighbours, communities and generations—and trust in the idea that our future can be a hopeful one because we created it intentionally together.

For the almost 1,500 volunteers involved in my campaign for election in 2025—some whose faces I see here today—I know that these relationships connect us by a common purpose and provide people with a renewed sense of membership and belonging—not power over but power with, by and for the people.

As a third-year undergraduate, a light was turned on when my planning law lecturer shared a quote from the founder of Taoism, Lao Tzu:

Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. But with the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say 'We have done this ourselves.'

This is as true today as it was 2.5 millennia ago, and I've lived it and learned it my entire life.

I was born and raised in Bradfield. My parents migrated from the Netherlands in 1965, and I settled in Gordon, which is the contested green heart of Bradfield. Like so many in this nation, when they arrived they had challenges fitting in and finding their tribe and in finding that sense belonging. For my father, Peter, it was going back to university to redo his engineering qualifications so he could practice here in Australia. For my mum, Inneke, it was finally being invited by school mums to join a morning tea and being told to 'bring a plate', which she did—literally!

Things switched up when my Aussie-raised stepdad, Keith, joined our family journey in 1976. He knew how to navigate Aussie norms and culture. He brought with him to our family his National Geographics and Scientific Americans, lined up on the shelves in chronological order—yellow and white. They fuelled my nascent love for our natural world and science as seen through the glossy pages of these most fantastic publications. It was where I saw my first photovoltaic array, strapped to a satellite orbiting our tiny planet, powering communications with back home. This was Australian solar technology.

Something foundational that I learnt from my folks was that people with completely different life experiences and outlooks can be a team but it takes patience and commitment. From the countless, heated family debates I learnt the art of listening and compromising and that it was okay to disagree. In fact, disagreement is not a bad thing; it is a byproduct of a very important exercise—an exchange of ideas discussed and supported by deep listening—and this is what I bring to my style of representation for the people of Bradfield and to this House, to work across the floor with whomever wants to join me to tackle the housing crisis, to take serious action on climate and help reconnect our communities.

Turning now to the people of my beloved electorate, Bradfield is home to hardworking and outward-looking folk who care about the less fortunate and who work towards better outcomes for all. At a community level, there are those like Ann Newbrun, who, on top of her actual life, leads the charge at Ku-ring-gai's RFS. At a national level, I am proud to say that we were the only then Liberal electorate to return a yes majority in the voice referendum, thanks to co-captains Carey Francis and Nick O'Brien. On a global level, we have a strong, vibrant and growing South Asian community which includes—fan girl moment—Miles Franklin award winner Shankari Chandaran doing important work in Sri Lanka with youth stuck in the cycle of addiction, and of course the vibrancy of our Chinese-Australian communities that make up nearly 25 per cent of our residents in Bradfield.

But I know that for 75 years Bradfield has been represented by five men, all from the Liberal Party. This represented the values and the views of the area for such a long time. But Bradfield, in line with broader Australian society, is evolving, and so must our parliament evolve. There was a time when the governments of Australia enacted reform, when a government courageously adjusted to realities. I'm thinking here of the introduction of Medibank, now Medicare, by the Whitlam government and gun reforms by the Howard government. But today the parliament does not make these courageous decisions. Instead, difficult decisions are delayed until the failure to act ushers in disastrous consequences, at which point a royal commission is called for, a referendums sought or a plebiscite scheduled. Or important decisions are made in the dark or strategically, so as to receive little media attention, or sneakily, where action on one thing is mischaracterised as action on another, or they are made when parties quietly and unobtrusively agree. It's as though they use each other as cover or as excuses to pass legislation that is in their shared interest, such as the campaign finance reforms of the 47th Parliament.

How is it, for example, that two parties can agree on hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on AUKUS, a project and an approach to our international relations that has not been explained or justified to the people of Australia and is not subject to the discipline of a federal budget or the scrutiny of this parliament? How is it that the administrative catastrophe of robodebt, which hurt so many of our most vulnerable, made its way through layer upon layer of bureaucratic and government approvals processes with no-one calling out what was blatantly illegal and immoral conduct? And how is it that the two parties can each so easily justify the appalling decision to approve the extension to the North-West Shelf gas project—the single most damaging decision for the climate that I'm likely to see in my lifetime? Australians expect and deserve more than this.

In my own political career I'm motivated by the belief that government must pass the bold reforms that Australia needs. For a long time I thought that by working on policy with stakeholders in this parliament, in federal and state bureaucracies and in civil society I could help Australia on that journey to tackling climate change and our economy's reindustrialisation. We came close. We had Howard's emissions trading scheme. We had the Rudd-Gillard carbon pollution reduction scheme—all good economic, environmental, trade, and energy security policy. But it was quashed because of political inconvenience and culture wars.

Tired of banging my head against a wall, I turned to investment and worked there for years with the custodians of trillions of dollars, who recognise both the risks of unchecked climate impacts and the opportunities of acting on climate. Here I also rekindled my joy in science and technology, marvelling at PV rays, albeit in a new context. I worked on developing and commercialising emission reduction technologies—renewables, energy storage, soils and even fungi. I saw how companies that put people and planet at the centre of what they do achieve better business outcomes. I came to understand the potential for business to do good. But my efforts to shift the dial, to speed up the progress of climate action through business, met obstacle after obstacle—but not from business, not from customers and not from NGOs but from government: government protecting special interest, from a grand ideological war that has set Australia behind, decade after long infuriating decade.

So, that became my next move: to take my three decades of real-world relevant experience and apply it in the sphere in which the rules are made, here in this place. And what will I do with his humbling and extraordinary trust given to me by the people of Bradfield? First and foremost, I will push the government and the opposition to act urgently and meaningfully to address the climate crisis that we have created. I will work tirelessly until the people in this place make laws to reverse biodiversity collapse and commence, in earnest, to repair country—from our woodlands and wetlands to our old-growth forests and our kelp ones.

The other priority for Bradfield and this nation is the provision of secure shelter for every one of our people. It shames me to think that, as a country that is one of the wealthiest in the world, we cannot provide shelter for our most vulnerable. According to the 2021 census, there are as many people experiencing homelessness in Australia as there are voters in the electorate of Bradfield—shame on us! Yet we know that when we give people secure, stable places to live, they improve on every single metric—physical health, mental wellbeing and employment, just to name a few. Our system of homeownership—or, as we now call it, 'property'—in this country works solely for the lucky ones who are blessed with it, and new entrants be damned. The system fails so many: those without already wealthy parents and future generations, but, particularly, the dispossessed, like so many of our First Nations Australians.

A lot of these problems are compounded by a lack of shared understanding of our stories. Another priority of mine sits at the unspoken heart of what it means to be human: storytelling. Why? Storytelling, through performing arts, fine arts and literature, is essential for us as a nation, and it was during the Voice referendum when it became clear to me that Australia does not yet have a common story. People from across the political spectrum joined the Bradfield for Yes campaign, but when we doorknocked to engage on the topic, school aged children of migrants could tell us more about the contribution and the plight of our First Peoples than their voting parents, and even though this story is yet to be truthfully told and heard, it is one that defines us as a nation. The story is one that can help us mend the growing disconnection, isolation and loneliness, and the role of the arts, from its ability to inspire reflection, to challenge, to entertain and to its utility as an industry, an employer of creative and technical Australians, is one that needs nurturing and strengthening. There is so much to do, but equally as important as what needs to get done is, how best to get it done, and I'll be trying a few different ways.

Firstly, I'm going to push the government to be more courageous. I will hold the government to account on the decisions it makes—and doesn't make—and I will demand explanations and throw sunlight on dark places so that citizens understand the mechanics of the national governance that shapes the conditions of their everyday realities.

Secondly, I will support laws that enhance the relevance and efficacy of Australian democracy in a post-truth era.

Thirdly, I will take decisions back to the people that it will affect. In my electorate, I'm going to show people how to engage with our national decision-making processes, both formally and informally, and this will include leaning very strongly into the Speaker's agenda of improving standards of civics education for our young people but also for new arrivals.

Fourthly, I shall advocate for and deliver deliberative processes that start where people are and give them the information they need to engage and deliberate on the agendas that affect them and the generations to come. When people come together to imagine a future beyond the circumstances into which they were born, it's more than hoping, it is a deeply political act, and it challenges the power and the biases that are built into the systems that govern us. By opening the future to collective participation, we restore agency to those long excluded, and, in doing so, we allow an entirely different sphere of society to benefit from the way things are, because the way things are is different and this is not just desirable, it is necessary, and this should be our collective aspiration.

And now, I want to acknowledge just some of the people that have brought me here today. First and foremost, the traditional owners, custodians and elders of the lands right across Australia. Thank you for your care, your wisdom, your patience and your determination. To my parents, for having my back and being my cheer squad. To my kids, Fin and Saskia—my teachers. To Richard and Heike, for telling me to go and get some street cred, and to the rest of my amazing siblings and in-laws. To my nieces and nephews, and, particularly, the late Bodhi Boele, disability and trans advocate, elite athlete and mentor—yes, people do come in more than two teams!

To my besties, Maryanne, Isabel, Sharen, Amanda, Caet and Vanessa; the Killara family; the St Ives crew; and Freddy. To the Voices of Bradfield, particularly Robert Paul Ayres Mills and Dr Sam Graham, for believing that better is possible. To every single supporter of our 2022 and 2025 campaigns, and particularly for the captains for leading out in front. To the formidable and gracious Ms Kylea Tink, treasured Independent representing the former federal seat of North Sydney, for her support and encouragement.

Politics as usual isn't working. Parties are stuck, at best, or captured, at worst. Independents like me have been elected to put people back into the process of creating our future. This is how we fix things, and when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say, 'We have done this ourselves.'

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