Sarah Witty (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This year marks 125 years since Australia's first parliament opened inside the Royal Exhibition Building in the heart of Melbourne. For 125 years, the Royal Exhibition Building has stood as part of our national story. Long before Canberra became the seat of government, before this chamber, before the systems and traditions we now know, the Royal Exhibition Building held the very first parliament of Australia. When we reflect on the first sitting in 1901, we should celebrate how extraordinary that moment was—a new nation coming together for the first time, a parliament beginning its work, a democracy taking shape.

But we should also be honest about what that democracy looked like at the beginning. While the parliament gathered inside that grand building, many Australians were excluded from the national story being written in there. First Nations people, whose sovereignty was never ceded, were not recognised in the founding of the nation, despite caring for the continent for tens of thousands of years. Women could not sit in this parliament, could not stand for election and could not shape the decisions being made about the future of the country they lived in.

There is one story from the opening ceremony that stays with me. A young woman named Sabina Peipers attended the opening alongside her father, the German consul. She was the only woman to sit among the dignitaries on the main floor of the Exhibition Building. She was there for the birth of the nation, but, when the famous painting of the opening was complete, Sabina had disappeared from her seat. She was painted out. In the place where she had been sitting, the artist painted himself instead. There is something powerful in that choice. To paint a woman out is not just to remove a face from a canvas. It is to erase her from the memory of the moment and to suggest she was not central to the story and not important enough to be remembered. Even when women were present in the room, they were often pushed to the edges of the story.

Yet, 125 years later, that story looks very different. Australia became the first country in the world to give women the right to both vote and stand for parliament. That was in 1902. In 1943, Enid Lyons and Dorothy Tangney entered the parliament and changed it forever. And today this parliament reflects more of modern Australia than ever before, with people of different cultures, different faiths, different ages and different abilities, people whose families came from every part of the world, people with lived experiences that would once have been completely absent from this chamber and, in many cases, even the country.

For me, that progress feels especially meaningful because, for the first time since Federation, the people of Melbourne elected a woman to represent them here. That progress matters, not because representation alone solves everything but because democracy becomes stronger when more Australians can see themselves inside it—when more voices are heard and when more experiences shape the decisions we make. That is why the Royal Exhibition Building still matters so much today. As we mark 125 years since the first parliament sat in Melbourne, we celebrate not only the history of the building itself but the generations of Australians who helped shape the country since the first debates echoed through its halls. We honour the people who fought to be included, the people who pushed to be heard, the people who believed Australia could be fairer, broader and more equal over time. And we carry that work forward still because that too is part of our national story.

As the Royal Exhibition Building continues to stand in the heart of Melbourne, watching the country change around it for more than 125 years, it reminds us that democracy is never finished. It is something each generation must keep building and protecting. It is the idea that requires all of us, both in this place and across the country, to stand up for equality, for truth-telling, for a sustainable future and for the young people who will take up this unique Australian version of democracy. Each generation leaves its mark. Each generation widens the circle a little more. Each generation takes up the challenge of making this a better country. And, after 125 years, that is something worth honouring.

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