By Parker Mckenzie
Believing politics needs to be more representative of the local community in the outer-east is what motivated Labor candidate for Aston Mary Doyle was motivated to run for the seat.
“I really wanted to see more women represented in Parliament, especially more women who’ve had real-world experiences,” she said.
“We’ve got a lot of lawyers and barristers in Parliament already, especially men with that background.”
After seeing “some shenanigans going on in Canberra at the start of 2021 from the menfolk,” she was motivated to try to make a difference with the encouragement of her friends.
Ms Doyle said her family influenced her to support the Labor Party and she has been a member since 2015.
“Growing up in Echucha in the 1970s and being the youngest of nine, my brother Kevin was a very big influence on me,” Mr Doyle said.
“He was 17 years older than and he was a huge fan of Gough Whitlam because when he got in he ended conscription, and if that hadn’t happened, my brother would have gone off to Vietnam.”
Another defining moment for Ms Doyle was being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995 at “such a young age,” something she has spoken about on the campaign trail.
“I was able to go to a bulk billing GP the very same day I found the lump,” she said.
“I want to be able to be part of an Albanese government that brings Medicare back to its former glory, because it isn’t much chop at the moment.”
The by-election triggered by Alan Tudge’s retirement is in a different climate from Ms Doyle’s first tilt at the seat at the 2022 federal election, with Labor in government and the Coalition as the opposition.
She said while there’s a lot more focus and spotlight on the electorate, she is glad to see some familiar faces from last year who helped swing the seat drastically towards the Labor Party.
“I remember meeting this wonderful lady Fiona on a hot February morning in 2022 outside Woolworths, she turned up to door knock for me this Saturday gone,” Ms Doyle said.
“The wonderful thing about last year was that going out and doing street stalls at little shopping strips around the place was that was how people got to meet me, and now they are saying how can we help, how can we volunteer?”
In 2022, Mr Tudge won a close victory that saw a 7.32 per cent swing towards the Labor Party, taking Aston into marginal territory.
Ms Doyle said while she thought there might be a “bit of a swing” towards an anti-Morrison government sentiment, she didn’t expect it to be as large as it was.
“I’d like to think that wasn’t all ant-Morrison or anti-Tudge, I think we worked very hard as a team and we just didn’t stop,” she said.
“I was working at the NTU — the National Tertiary Education Union — back then full time, so every moment outside my full-time working hours I dedicated to the campaign.”
Ms Doyle now works for a Superannuation fund and is facing a different political landscape compared to the federal election.
“People are telling me that the government has hit the ground running, they’re delivering cheaper medicines since the first of January and other things are coming to play, like the cheaper childcare plan on the first of July,” she said.
“It’s not that long ago that the Morrison government was in power, less than a year, so there’s still a lot of residual anger.”
When asked if the funding attached to road projects throughout the electorate was an issue raised by people to her, Ms Doyle said the projects were never fully funded and had no business case.
“They were promised and promised and promised and nothing happened between 2019 and 2022,” she said.
“I don’t think that you can lay the blame on Labor and say that Labor scrapped these, it was never properly funded, to begin with.”
Ms Doyle said if given the opportunity to be the member of Aston, she would represent everyone, not just those who voted for her.
“I’d like to be able to advocate for the people of Aston who’ve been neglected for a very long time,“ she said.
“There’s a lot of people in this community who have been neglected, forgotten and have fallen through the cracks.“
