Thursday, 31 October 2024

Valedictory statement

Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (22:18): As this will be my last contribution in this chamber, I would like to seek leave to have additional time for my adjournment matter today, please.

Leave granted.

Samantha RATNAM: Thank you very much for this opportunity to say a few final remarks on this my final day in the Victorian Parliament. Thank you, President, for your service to this chamber and all the support you provide all of us. It is not often easy, but we do appreciate your energy and effort with all of us. Thank you to everyone who has stayed back unexpectedly late tonight to watch these final few remarks. I really appreciate all the people in the gallery. I did not expect it to go this long, but I really appreciate your dedication and commitment and friendship. It really means the world to me. To a number of folks I know who are watching online who could not be here given the hour, I am sorry I have kept you so late. But you now have got the full Parliament experience, every last minute of it, as we have often experienced it in this place, and it is not unfamiliar to all of us.

I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are on Wurundjeri land and pay my deep respects to our First Nations elders past and present. I acknowledge that sovereignty over this land has never been ceded and that this institution was responsible for some of the gravest dispossession, genocide and inhumanity perpetrated against First Peoples. As a migrant to this country from another colonised land, forced from our homes because of the aftermath of colonial subjugation, the complexity of this place is not lost on me. Lidia Thorpe, the first Aboriginal woman elected to a Victorian parliament a month after I joined in 2017, helped me really understand the tools of oppression and exclusion colonial institutions use to maintain their power. Just look around this place. Just look down the hallways. It does not reflect our First Nations history at all. It does not incorporate our migrant multicultural community now. There are so many exclusions for everyday Victorians, from how the place is adorned to how we are treated when we enter. If you do not look or seem like you are from this place, you often get over-surveilled, told to behave and policed in a way that others are not. But that has not stopped my team and I from trying to bring as many Victorians as possible into this place to remind them that this is their place too, and the way we make institutions like this better serve the community is for the community to be here, in the meeting rooms, in the hallways and in these seats.

As someone who never thought it possible to have the opportunity to be elected to a parliament, it has been the privilege and the greatest honour of my life to serve the Northern Metropolitan community, the Greens and the broader Victorian community.

[NAMES AWAITING VERIFICATION]

Politics is a collective endeavour and none of us do this alone. I could not have done this over the last seven years without a whole team of incredible people, and I will attempt to name as many as I possibly can. I apologise if I miss any, but do know that every one of you has contributed indelibly to my experience and our collective successes in this place. Some of my earlier staff: Steph Hodgins-May, Alistair, Alex Mack, Xanthe, Mary, Steph, Marlin, Addie, Rhea, Ajit, Lucy, Sebastian, Rose, Matt W, Tim, Matt T, Georgia, AJ, Nick, Domenica, Josie, Claire, Anuska, Madhu and the many interns, volunteers and helpers who have passed through our teams. I have learned so much from all of you, and you have kept me going even in the hardest of times – especially in the hardest of times.

A special mention to my chief of staff Clare Ozich, who is with us here this evening, for the incredible wisdom that I know many of the other MPs in this place, even if they are not from the Greens, have benefited from. The wisdom, the care, the clarity and the absolute solidarity you have given me has been one of the greatest honours of my life to receive. Thank you, Clare.

I would also like to acknowledge all the staff of all the MPs’ teams. We might seem to be MPs with our own staff teams, but the Greens work as one big team, and we could not do this work without the support of each other.

To the incredible group of Greens MPs that I have had the privilege of working with, especially this term, and especially my upper house colleagues Aiv, Sarah and Kat, you are formidable and stronger than you know. I am really sad to leave all of you. I have gotten to work with you day in and day out as you are just hitting your stride. But you have my absolute confidence and support.

Ellen, thank you for taking the reins as leader. It is not an easy job, but you have the clarity and the determination to take the Victorian Greens to even greater heights. I cannot wait to see Anasina, who is about to enter this place, demonstrate her innate dedication to community, building community and bringing community along. She will be formidable and a passionate change maker for our communities, and I cannot wait to see all of you soar together.

I also would like to thank some of my predecessors. I want to thank Colleen and Sue, who were here earlier. Some of you worked with Colleen and Sue too, and it was a great honour for me to have them here earlier this afternoon for a farewell event. And I thank my predecessor in Northern Metropolitan as well as the leadership, Greg Barber, for mentoring and supporting me every step of the way in my journey through the Greens. Many of us would not be in this place without their guidance.

I also want to thank all the staff of the Parliament. The clerks – so incredibly helpful and patient with all of us. Thank you for all the help over the many years. The attendants, the security guards, the cleaning staff, property services, IT, parliamentary services and so many more that I cannot name here – you all make this job possible, so we thank you very, very much for your work. I will never forget that the loneliness at times on entering this place many years ago was pierced by Patrick, one of the attendants who always said ‘Hi’ and struck up a conversation in those early days. It made all the difference.

I would also like to mention my beautiful family, who could not be here this evening because of the hour and also it is Halloween and Malala has had a lot of lollies tonight and needed to have a little sleep, but they are watching. I want to thank the loves of my life Colin and Malala for their unwavering support. I could not do this work without Colin’s absolute dedication and love for Malala and love for me. He has made this journey possible with the incredible work he does to support me and keep our house going on sometimes these long nights in Parliament. And a special note to my mum and my incredible family all round for their unwavering support, but especially my mum, who many of you might have met over the years. She used to come in when I brought my very young baby in here. She would be here from the moment I arrived to the moment we left with Malala so I could be in the chamber. Many of you had the privilege of meeting her. If you want to talk about dedicated, selfless service – if I have learned any of those traits, it is from my mum, so I thank my mum especially.

I want to speak about the highs and the lows. As many of you know, this place is a weird and wonderful place. But to start with the highs, there have been many over the last seven years – passing the first treaty legislation, voluntary assisted dying, firefighters’ presumptive compensation, donations reform, pill testing, the container deposit scheme, rental reforms, the windfall gains tax, all the parliamentary inquiries. Those were bills that I got to be part of and a part of the process, and it was a real privilege to be part of this chamber ushering really significant reforms through this place. And there were also parliamentary inquiries that my Greens colleagues and I initiated, including the inquiries into ecosystems decline, far-right extremism, the public housing renewal program and now Labor’s demolition and privatisation program, the rental crisis, waste and recycling, renewable energy and more and more to come.

So many Greens policy ideas have become law, and it has been a privilege to see what it takes to make change happen. You have to have the courage to start with and the vision to put the idea forward. You will often get howled down at the start, then you do the work to build the case. The community are often the ones asking for that change and beginning the process, and at times they will bring more and more community on board help the campaign. Ultimately the government of the day yields to that pressure. It can take time, but change can happen and pressure works.

I have learned a lot in my time here. I have learned how power is all too often wielded in the interests of corporations and their profits and that governments need to be pushed and pushed to do the right thing for the community. You just have to look at how long it has taken to get any action on gambling harm reduction, on the pokies. It is no wonder, when you see the millions of dollars in donations being funnelled into political parties, that inaction occurs.

I have learned too that change can take time and that the Greens in Parliament do get results. Passing the pill-testing bill yesterday was proof of that. I am so proud of the role we have played in improving legislation and pushing for progressive reform. Renters have better protections now, but do not worry, we will keep pushing for rent caps. More homes are available for sale or rent because of the changes we negotiated to the empty homes tax and short stay reform. Native forest logging has now mostly, although not completely, ended, and that corrupt entity VicForests is no more.

But we have not won all the fights yet. I am also proud of when we have been unrelenting in our advocacy and refused to back down despite being hounded on all sides. This Labor government has gone on a privatisation bender that will hurt Victorians for years to come. They have failed to take action on the cost-of-living crisis, letting the big supermarkets off the hook. Their ongoing relationships with Israeli defence companies are a deep moral failure at a time the world is witnessing a genocide in Gaza. And the fight for public housing goes on.

One of the things I am most proud of is bringing the voices of the community into this place, and most significantly the voices of public housing residents. We should not be afraid of the community in this place. We should welcome people here. I would also like to thank all the local community voices and groups that I have had the privilege of working with. I cannot name all of them, but here are a few – I also want to note that much of this work was done with my colleague in the lower house the MP for Brunswick Tim Read: residents who have reached out for support and who we have tried our best to help; the Pavilion School; RISE North group; all the local councils we have had the privilege of working with – they are often underestimated and unacknowledged but they do the most important work, and they are still the most important level of government, in my view; Murray Road safety group; Coburg High School; Friends of Merri Creek; Thornbury Primary; Save Preston Market group; Nicholson Street safety group; Merri Creek Management Committee; and the list goes on and on. I want to thank you for trusting us with asking for help. We have tried our best, but there is more work to be done, and I will certainly be there to continue that work.

I also want to talk about the lows. They say politics can be brutal, but it does not have to be. The brutality I have observed has been the result of power that is concentrated and power that is insecure. Perhaps all groups with power are vulnerable to it, but I am hopeful it does not always have to be this way, and we must strive for change. When this kind of power is not checked and not handled responsibly it becomes unkind and cold. I will tell you that some of the hardest times I had were when I was in pain in this place through a very difficult pregnancy suffering hyperemesis, and I was not afforded any care when the sittings ran very late and the government wanted to extend the sittings past midnight. With no ability to get a pair as a crossbencher, I had to sit here in agonising pain. I was the sole Green at the time here, and I had to represent our party. I took that duty very seriously. Despite pleading for a pairing system that could include pregnant people and parents with young babies, the big parties in this place refused to budge. That resulted in me having to return with an eight-week-old baby, who had hardly left the house until that point; having to keep a newborn here into the wee hours of the morning because she was breastfeeding; and at times not being able to get home in time – multiple times – for feeds, because no-one seemed to care if you did not hold their power.

None of us crossbenchers are allowed to get a pair so that our votes can count, even if we have a sick child, a funeral, a breastfeeding baby, COVID or any other emergency or urgent personal need. The major parties allow their members to pair with each other for these kinds of emergencies but refuse to include us in the system which could mean that we too can get to see a dying parent in their final hours if we need to while doing our duty in this place. I hope this changes in the future so that this place becomes more inclusive and compassionate. I have written the template already for a pairing system; it is ready to go. I hope the Parliament in its remaining term will make it happen.

I am taking all I have learned to the next challenge: contesting the seat of Wills in the upcoming federal election. It was not an easy decision, but I know how Greens in parliaments get results. We need more action from the federal Parliament to take on the big corporations on the cost-of-living crisis, the housing crisis, climate change and so much more. I do not see this next step as a risk, I see it as a responsibility, a responsibility I feel to our movement, our planet and future generations.

As a community we are facing significant challenges. News this week shows the world is on track to exceed 3 degrees of warming, a catastrophic situation, yet here in Australia Labor and the Liberals are owned by the coal and gas corporations, supporting more and more coal and gas projects. The cost-of-living crisis is really hurting and driving people to the brink, yet Labor and the Liberals are failing to take on the price-gouging big supermarkets. In the midst of a housing crisis Labor thinks the answer is giving property developers more tax breaks.

Nothing changes if nothing changes, and I am excited to be part of that change. I do leave this place, however, with some unfinished business. In September last year the former Premier announced plans to demolish and privatise public housing across Victoria. That could mean the end of public housing in Victoria. Our team has not relented on holding this government to account and stopping these disastrous privatisation plans. We have spoken to hundreds of residents, who have told us of their heartbreak and their distress, and because of them and for them this fight is not over. We will never give up. If there is anyone who can stop the bulldozers from destroying public housing in Victoria it is Gabrielle de Vietri, who will be taking on the housing portfolio. I look forward to seeing you at the barricades, my friend. I will be right there with you every step of the way. Everyone in this place must do what they can to stop these public housing communities from being destroyed and decimated and torn apart. They are all of our constituents, they are our friends, they are our neighbours, they are our family, they are our community. So in this, my final adjournment, on behalf of Victoria’s public housing residents, in memory of my late aach∙chi, my grandma, who was also a public housing resident, I ask the Premier to save public housing in Victoria.