Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

MASCARENHAS () (): To the member for Indi: thank you so much for your comments today, and, from the people of Swan, our hearts and thoughts are with you. It highlights to me how important this place is and how important our words are and that we need to continue to protect Australian civil society, so thank you.

My first constituency statement is about democracy, and it is about the last federal election. I think it's only right to talk about the important work that was done in Swan, which is now held on a 14 per cent margin. We had a 16.6 per cent swing over two terms. The way I think of all the people that contributed to the campaign is about how we contributed to democracy and how we continued to say that we love Australia.

During the campaign, we knocked on 31,000 doors, and that cannot be done alone. That was done with a team of amazing volunteers, and these people include Anne Sippe, Rupali, Chris Miller, Warwick, Stanly, Abdi, Artan, Foysal Al Mahmoud, Sabir Hussein, Maisara, Claudia, Sophie, Jayden, Sania, Adrian, Craig, Rahel, Henry, Lisa Ma, Mathew, Lachlan, Charita, Robert, Leif, Dylan, Chee, Carolyn, Linda, George, Victor, Alen, Peter, Sabir, Bapi, Kamal Hussein, Heba, Tommaso and Janet. It was a phenomenal effort, and there were more people that doorknocked on top of those people listed.

Also there was my amazing field A-team, or the Z-team as we like to call it, which was led by Avery and Dan Roden, as well as Zen Kassim, Jay Williams, Maddy Too-lay-lie, Liam Hurley, Ruckshan, Simon Stokes and Adam Gilbride. We had some amazing women that were also on the phones, such as Anne and Felicity, the oldest team member in my office who is 73 years old. You all worked so hard and listened so graciously to the amazing people of Swan, and I think politics is about connecting with people.

Also there was my EO team: Melissa, Kailee, Sam, Leandro, Catherine, Abia and Zoe. There was also the campaign director, Darcy Gunning, and the Secretary of the AMWU. There were so many yard signs, including signs from Simon and Roni Forrest, who are amazing First Nation elders. There was also Wendy Fatin, who was Western Australia's first woman elected to the federal parliament House of Representatives. To booth captains, including Andy Skinner and Bec, who won the prettiest booth: it was an amazing effort.

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