Josh Dolega (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to start off tonight by acknowledging the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people as the traditional custodians of this great land, and I pay my deepest respects to their elders past and present. I acknowledge all First Nations people and your connection to country. No matter where we are, the land always was and always will be that of First Nations people.

I'm humbled and honoured to have been nominated by the Labor Party to serve as a senator for Lutruwita/Tasmania. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would be here, and it's probably one of the most special things about it for me. It's a testament to the great Australian Labor Party that, no matter who you are, how much money your family has, your gender, your sexuality, your race or your ethnicity, you can become someone that represents your community in a branch, in the party room or even in this incredible place.

My interest in politics started when I was a young boy. My family and I would watch the nightly news. Paul Keating was Prime Minister. Seeing him debate and advocate and the way he engaged with people inspired me to look into the Australian Labor Party. You can imagine how I felt when I found out about Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke!

Only one thing rivals my passion for the great Australian Labor Party and all that it has achieved for working people and Australian families over the years, and that is my love for Tasmania. I'm sure senators will agree with me here today that Tasmania is the best place on earth. We have the most beautiful land and we have the freshest air, the cleanest water, the best food and wine and the most-hearty people. I've been lucky enough to call north-west Tassie home for most of my life.

Wherever you go in Tasmania, the beauty and the history are like that of no other place. No other capital in our great nation is like Nipaluna/Hobart, where we have the magnificent and mighty mountain, Kunanyi, looking over it. Nowhere else can you find the beauty of Cradle Mountain and our national parks. Nowhere else is there Sheffield, the town of murals, or Stanley, the home of the Nut. We're a beautiful island state, and I encourage all Australians to come, to stay and to experience Tasmania.

For our democracy to be at its best, people need to have faith in those who represent them, and part of that is to know their politicians—who we are, where we have come from and what we stand for. So here's a little bit about me. I was born in Devonport, and I grew up in a town called Spreyton on a nine-acre farm, where I was raised by my hardworking parents, Lynne and Mark, alongside my little brother, Luke. I couldn't have asked for a better life growing up.

My earliest memories are of my mum and dad working tremendously hard to provide for our family. We didn't have a lot of money, but what we did have was a lot of love. I remember dad coming home on a Thursday evening, and he would hand his pay packet to mum. Back in those days you had to tear off the edges to open it up and you would take out the notes and coins. This was our money to survive for the week—food, bills, medicine and the mortgage—and, when it was gone, it was gone. Dad reminds me that having a pizza night was a special occasion for us, like Father's Day.

My dad was—or is, I should say—a glazier. He's now mostly retired. I can only aspire to be as strong as this man. He worked and he worked, and, when I was growing up, I can honestly only remember once when he was ever sick for work. I recall being really worried about why Dad wasn't getting out of his bed for a couple of days. He just didn't ever not go to work. Even to this day, being semi-retired, he is always working and always pottering around the farm. He just never stops.

My mum worked two jobs and then ran our house. She kept our house organised, our stomachs full and our lunch boxes packed. She worked early hours in the morning for Tassie's local bakery, delivering bread all around the local area just in time for the shops to open. Mum would then do cleaning for her friend, who ran a couple of local cottages for accommodation. As you may be able to tell, I idolise my parents. They have given me everything, from a loving home to grow up in to every support possible. Still, to this day, they help me wherever they can. My mum loves to cook dinner for me and my partner all the time. My dad is my handyman, who still sets up things like my washing machine and does everything to do with tools that I haven't yet worked out how to use.

Twenty years ago, my mum was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. I remember Mum being extremely sick for many days. She just kept getting worse, and a doctor told her to take Panadol. I became incredibly scared for her wellbeing and I actually phoned her doctor and demanded they see her. The next day, she was in ICU. Her kidneys were in real trouble, and Mum was very sick. I remember getting a call from Dad. I was on my lunch break and I think I went into shock, and all I could do was go back to work at the call centre, where I just operated on autopilot until my bosses told me to get to the hospital. To this day, 20 years later, Mum has fought the disease. She has never stopped. Even being on the cusp of dialysis, her strength and her ability to fight has been nothing short of remarkable.

Growing up with my brother, Luke, was pretty typical for young boys—endless fighting, of course. We were, really luckily, on nine acres. We built tree houses and we had motorbikes. Luke had a Honda 50cc, and I had an old postie bike. It was a lot of fun. We had dozens of pets, and they all had their own names, even the sheep. My brother went on to become a beef cattle farmer who works hard to provide for his beautiful eight-year-old daughter, my niece, Miss Zarli Rose, who is feeling extra special today because she is in Canberra having a couple of extra days off school.

I went to public schools—to Spreyton Primary School, Latrobe High School and to Don College. I won't say that my time at school was all roses; I suffered quite a bit of bullying from other kids and there were many times that I felt scared to walk down the halls. I knew that I was different and I was quiet, but I got through it thanks to some tremendous people who have become my lifelong friends. After college, many of us even lived together in an old country farmhouse, which I can say is owned by and very close to the business where a former PM ate an onion out of a box, skin and all. My mates and I weren't popular, but that didn't matter to us. We built the best memories and we shared a lot of firsts—first loves, first heartbreaks, first cars and first car crashes. Last year was particularly challenging for us when we lost our mate Andrew. It was the first death in our group. He died suddenly from a heart attack. He was a genuinely caring person who, to this day, we all miss very dearly. Rest easy, my friend.

I have been fortunate in my life. I can say that I have never not had a job. I started working when I was 17 and still in college, folding and stacking women's clothing and underwear at Kmart in Devonport—something that many people close to me know that it probably wasn't in my comfort zone to do, but I was keen to work and I gave it a red-hot crack. When I finished year 12, I worked full time at a couple of call centres in Devonport. These were run and owned by international companies. They both closed after taking massive subsidies from the state government, leaving a huge hole in the local economy.

Fortunately, at the Sitel call centre, I met my partner and the love of my life, Josh. Yes, I know—Josh and Josh. After over 20 years, you get used to having the same name. I'm so thankful to our nosy lesbian friends, Laura and Joya, who invited us over to dinner and set us up, as I said, 20 years ago. We haven't been apart since. We have just moved back to Latrobe with our three cats, which we adopted from a local cat rescue who I can say do truly great work to save cats and kittens from cruelty. And I can confirm that we are those people that have our phones full of cat photos and videos!

It's not lost upon me—the sense of responsibility of being Labor's first openly gay senator for Tasmania. I hope me being here today can give hope to young queer people that you, too, can come to this great place. But, more importantly, I hope you know that you're already seen, you're understood and you are represented. I acknowledge other LGBTQI+ MPs and senators and the contributions that they have made to progress for our community.

As a young person, I experienced some tough times for being who I am. There were some dangerous times when I was faced with violence and hatred. There were times when I wondered if I'd ever find someone to love and to love me back. I don't bring all this up as a sign of weakness but to give a sense of hope and a shining light to young queer people. If you are going through a tough time, if you're wondering if someone will love you, if you're wondering if things will get better, I want you to know that, yes, you can find love and that you are loved and that things will be okay. Find your safety net and latch on to what makes you happy.

I acknowledge the efforts of Tasmania's Rodney Croome, his struggles and his strength and his outstanding contribution to gay rights and equality in Tasmania. My state was the last to decriminalise homosexuality and the only state to criminalise cross-dressing. And it's hard to imagine, in this time where RuPaul's Drag Race is an international phenomenon, that such laws ever existed. Tasmania has come very far. We have the most progressive and inclusive discrimination, hate speech, relationship and gender-recognition laws, and I pay tribute to my Labor colleagues and activists who have worked so hard to change Tasmania and Australia for the better.

In 2005, I started working in the Australian Public Service at the ATO in Burnie. I spent 15 years helping small businesses comply with their tax obligations. It was a small office of around 50 or so workers, and, at that time, an APS3 job of around $50,000 was a huge deal in the north-west coast. The site grew over the years, and in 2014 a dark cloud seemed to hang over the site. There were massive attacks on the Public Service by the government of the day. Jobs were being lost, and there were multiple attempts to strip workers of their rights and the conditions that had been secured in bargaining and fought for over decades. Closure of the site was a real risk. It was at this point that Jess Munday and Jen Fitzgerald from the CPSU convinced me to become a union delegate. This turned out to be much more of a life-changing moment than I could have ever imagined.

I've always supported unions. My dad was a member of his union. And my first was the SDA at Kmart. I had never seen hands-on how much work union staff do to support their delegates and their members. My organiser, Jen, was a wealth of knowledge for just about everything and was able to support me in my new role. We instantly clicked, and we became mates. Soon after my election, I attended delegate training run by a comrade, Paul Blake. I went back to my workplace not only having the tools I needed to represent members but feeling this new sense of confidence that I could stand up to things happening and know that my union had my back. I represented members in the workplace on collective and individual matters. I took my workplace from two members to 40 per cent density in my first year as a delegate, and I was awarded the Unions Tasmania 2017 Delegate of the Year. I later became an elected section councillor for the tax section, representing members' views in broader union business.

In 2017, Josh and I moved to Hobart to take up career opportunities that weren't available in Burnie at the time. But for me this didn't last long, as in 2018 I took a 12-month sabbatical to work for the CPSU, and I never returned to the tax office. I'd found my calling. I was assigned a patch to represent all Tassie members at Centrelink, Medicare and child support, which is now Services Australia. The work was rewarding, even with long hours and calls late in the evening and on weekends. But I loved every moment of working with this group of members and delegates.

In 2018 through to 2023, the culture at DHS, now Services Australia, was rough. No matter the member or the issue that kept coming up, there was a theme that was always consistent: the employer always seemed to try to say no to a worker who wanted to access flexible arrangements, even when it was against the agreement or where it would cause hardship to the member. Some of the greatest travesties that I have worked with members on were a young mum who was denied access to flexible work arrangements when she was coming back from maternity leave, a volunteer firefighter who was being forced to use annual leave rather than paid miscellaneous leave to go and fight the bushfires that were raging on the mainland, a worker being denied part-time work to allow her to care for her disabled parent, and labour hire workers being sacked for exercising their right to participate in union activities.

Another common issue for some public sector workers was being punished or shamed for taking toilet breaks, and this started our national 'Don't rush to flush' campaign—and it still gets brought out every now and then. I'm sure my comrades will agree.

Psychosocial hazards are common in many workplaces. I had sites where members were constantly calling me about their concerns about bullying, which triggered many work health and safety rights of entry. Never in my career had I experienced workers lining up to talk to me about how horrific their workplace was because of a rogue boss. To see workers change the culture of their workplaces and hold their bosses to account through speaking up and creating a positive reporting culture was a proud organiser moment.

In 2023, I took on a new role as a work health and safety lead organiser, providing internal advice in the union on work health and safety matters. I trained union staff and I provided real-time support to CPSU health and safety reps who were exercising their powers and functions in their workplace. This became incredibly important after a Centrelink worker was stabbed in the workplace at Airport West. I commend the response of the government for implementing a wide-ranging review into safety and security for Services Australia, and I acknowledge the efforts of CPSU members working in Services Australia who have tirelessly advocated for improved safety arrangements to ensure the safety of staff and their customers in their workplace. It's vital that as a government we prioritise worker safety as an integral part of service delivery, because everyone has the right to be safe at work.

Violence and aggression have no place in any workplace, and the work health and safety organiser in me couldn't pass on the opportunity, in my first speech, to encourage people to be kind when dealing with workers doing their job, whether it's in a supermarket, a restaurant or a Centrelink office. Kindness costs nothing, and it makes such a difference to a worker who is serving their community or their customers.

Public services are important. Public servants keep our country running, and this Labor government has done a huge amount of work to rebuild the capacity of the service after a decade of cuts, outsourcing and neglect. We should never forget that public services being provided by public servants is the best and most cost-effective way to serve the community and that outsourcing does nothing but degrade services and allow shonky business to make profits off people. Imagine sitting in an office doing the same job as the person next to you for 30 per cent less pay, with no sick leave, no holidays, no job security, while knowing that your employer is making huge profits off your labour. Shame.

I'd like to applaud Senator Gallagher, as the Minister for the Public Service, for her work to bring decency and respect back to the APS. And, of course, I applaud my union, the CPSU, so capably led by National Secretary Melissa Donnelly, for putting the rebuilding of the Public Service on the agenda and keeping it there. Piece by piece, union member by union member, workplaces are being repaired and rebuilt, and the flow-on effect from better workplaces is better outcomes for veterans, for pensioners, for people with disability, for jobseekers—for all Australians.

The union movement is a family. Members are the union. They are the heart of their union, and it was an honour to serve. In Hobart, at the CPSU, I had four extremely close comrades. We helped each other every day to carry the often heavy hearts and emotions of our members and the delegates who were doing it tough, whether it was an issue affecting one person or many.

I'd like to acknowledge my friends and comrades who have travelled to be here today. Of special note are Mel Donnelly, CPSU Deputy Secretary Rebecca Fawcett, Tasmanian Regional Secretary Zac Batchelor, Jen, Sally, Leonie, Wendy, Brooke and others. It's amazing that you've come to be here with me today. I'd also like to acknowledge CPSU Governing Councillors Scott Plimpton and Paul Wray.

The CPSU and the Tassie union movement are mourning the loss of our comrade Paul Blake, who died unexpectedly on Saturday 19 July. Today would have been his 58th birthday. Paul worked incredibly hard for our movement until the moments before he died. He had a tremendous sense of wit, and I loved every moment of banter with him. There was not a person who met Paul who didn't respect him, and I'm told that even former senator Abetz was quite fond of the man! I'm sorry, Paul; I couldn't help having one last dig at you, my comrade. Paul was a mentor of mine; he was my friend, and I wouldn't be the person that I am without his guidance. The CPSU wouldn't be the union that we are, without Paul. Rest easy, comrade.

I'm so hopeful for the future and the opportunities a second-term Labor government presents for this country and the people of Tasmania. We can strengthen Medicare and public services. We can support workers with safer, secure and well-paid jobs. We can harness the opportunities from the Future Made in Australia plan and manufacture more things here. We can continue to listen to and learn from First Nations people and continue to work on closing the gap. We can support more Australians to realise the great dream of owning their own home.

For this amazing opportunity, I'm thankful to so many people, some I've already named and some I can't get to today. But I'd like to mention the following people: my friend and amazing new member for Braddon, Anne Urquhart; the CPSU; the AMWU Tasmanian State Secretary, Jacob Batt; AMWU National Secretary, Steve Murphy; Paul Erickson; the trade union movement; Senator Tim Ayres; Minister Julie Collins; Senator Carol Brown; Julian Hill MP; and, of course, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese—thank you for placing your faith in me.

I'd like to thank my fellow new Labor class of 2025 senators for your camaraderie. I'd like to thank my Labor caucus colleagues, and I'd like to thank Senator Wong for the very warm welcome. To branch members of the party, the heart of the party: thanks for all the beautiful messages of support. You know who you are. To my staff, Sharifah, Kathryn and Riley: thanks for jumping on this wild ride with me.

To the Tasmanian people: today I've given you a little insight into my story—who I am, where I've come from and what I stand for. I commit to working with the Tassie Labor team, with the Labor caucus and with you, to get outcomes and to fight battles alongside you. My door is open; my staff and I are looking forward to meeting you, to listen and to serve. Thank you.