Introduction by Croakey: In winning the Federal seat of Dickson in May, Ali France achieved the “highly unlikely” – she became the first person to unseat a federal opposition leader – Peter Dutton – and one of the first women with a disability to be elected to the House of Representatives.
“In voting for me, they rejected the politics of fear and division,” France said in her first speech to the Australian Parliament this week.
Read her speech in full below, highlighting her ambitions to represent the electorate with kindness, her life’s intersections with healthcare and Medicare, her experiences of grief, loss and discrimination, and the power of sport to heal and connect.
Ali France speech:
I would like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we are gathered and pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging. I would also like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of my electorate of Dickson – the Turrbal, Kabi Kabi and Jinibara peoples.
My epic journey to this place to represent the people of Dickson was not part of a grand plan or a lifelong dream; rather, it was hundreds of little steps – a lifetime of small acts of kindness and support from so many good people.
Some of you are in the gallery, some are in my electorate of Dickson and some are scattered across this big, beautiful country and the globe. Some of you, like my Henry, are in another place, hopefully looking on with a big, wide smile.
My journey to this place is not a sad story, nor is it a happy one. It is a human story. It will shape me as a representative and has narrowed my focus, but it is not especially unique.
Most of the people I represent in the electorate of Dickson share a life of ups, downs, success, hardship, loss and happiness. Winning Dickson was highly unlikely and, to some, an insurmountable mountain. With the very, very best Labor Party branch members, it took seven years to climb as a single mum with one leg, battling one of the most prolific politicians of our time.
“Highly unlikely” was also how the doctors described the death of my darling boy Henry from leukaemia last year, aged 19.
Despite the very best public healthcare, he is not with us, and he is so desperately missed. People often ask, “How are you standing?” I say, “On one leg.”
I was a curious but lonely child. I struggled to find friends at primary school and to find comfort at home. My parents separated and divorced when I was about six. My brother and sister and I moved with Mum eight times in 10 years.
Many of my best memories growing up were of spending every second Sunday with my dad visiting the Dyson family. We five kids – gen Xers – wandered through the bush, made our way to local parks, explored abandoned cars and made bush cubbies – no fear. Those cherished days were shared with my oldest friend, Emma Kennedy, who is in the gallery.
As I got older, I sought out my own people in the local neighbourhood. I wandered up to a property one day, aged about 15, and kind of refused to leave – mucking out stables, riding unbroken horses and sharing sandwiches with Tom and Bernie, two old fellas who ran the property. Nearby, I made friends with Carmen and her parents, Sonya and Peter Bond, who declared that I could stay whenever I liked and eat as much as I wanted from their fridge.
Like theirs, my door has always been open to neighbourhood kids, and my electorate office door will always be open to my community.
Fighting for fair
At 16, I landed on the front porch of my dad’s house on North Street, Southport. That tiny, hot fibro house on the Smith Street Motorway, built by my grandparents, was once described as the house of Labor on the Gold Coast, and for good reason.
Labor values of economic and social justice are not just something my family has voted for; they have underpinned our weekends, our work and our friendship for generations. Those values drive everything I do and fight for in Dickson.
My grandmother Mary Lawlor created the family template for generational activism. Mary was the wife of painter Jim; a stay-at-home mum to five boys; and a volunteer Lifeline telephone counsellor.
Mary was feared and revered in equal amounts by the Southport Catholic Church congregation and local politicians. When the priest told parishioners at Sunday mass in 1972 they should not vote for her beloved Whitlam, she did not hesitate. The take-down in front of the whole congregation is still remembered today.
She was never a member of the Labor Party, but she was the embodiment of Labor values. The early 70s were important years for our country and for Mary. Whitlam was elected in 1972 with a bold agenda that gave working-class families a chance at a better life.
Her first grandchild – me – was born in 1973, and in 1975 Mary went all the way to the High Court of Australia to challenge unfair electoral boundaries and end the gerrymander system. “Who is this housewife from Southport?” they said in Queensland parliament at the time. Fighting for fair is in my blood.
Whitlam’s Medibank, ending conscription and offering free university changed everything for my grandparents and their boys and, in turn, for me. Medibank meant my uncle Gerard, who had cystic fibrosis, could see a specialist in Brisbane and receive lifelong treatment at our local Prince Charles Hospital.
Medicare is Labor’s heart, but it is also mine. Medicare saved my life and gave my Henry the very best chance of surviving leukaemia. Mary never stopped fighting for Medicare, and nor will I.
Stuffing envelopes, letterboxing and council meetings with my grandparents were part of my little world. If you want change, you have to work for it. I soaked up every single word, and, so it seems, did their eldest boy – my dad, Peter Lawlor, just over there.
In the 80s, Dad represented Gold Coast SEQEB workers sacked by the Bjelke-Petersen Government. I heard the stories of families unable to pay the bills because they dared to fight for secure jobs. What I saw in my dad and my grandparents was solidarity in action: the gifts of time, free legal representation, a meal or a shoulder to cry on – gifts that reverberate across generations.
My dad stood with the Electrical Trades Union in Southport, and, decades later, ETU members stood with me over three election campaigns to win Dickson, and some of them are in the gallery.
Labor will always be the party for workers, fair wages and conditions. It is core business, and it is part of my core.
I have moved to and lived and worked in Toowoomba, Townsville, Perth, Hong Kong, London and, of course, Brisbane, but moving in with my dad at the age of 16 was probably the most impactful move of my life. Not only was it the beginning of a truly awesome father-daughter bond but it set me up for a well-lived, socially aware future.
We laughed a lot in that tiny fibro house. Dad was the perfect antidote to a moody teenage girl – not a lot of direction but plenty of sarcasm and jabs. “Looks like you put that make-up on with a brickie’s trowel!” “Maybe you should try getting to school on time just once or twice this year!”
In Dad I watched a master class in perseverance and commitment. He first ran for the state seat of Southport in 1992 with a margin of 12 percent, eventually winning the seat for Labor in 2001 – his fourth attempt. He’d previously been encouraged to run in a safer seat.
“If I’m not running in Southport, I am not running anywhere” was his response. He went on to serve as the member for Southport for 12 years, and as a Minister.
I always got the question, “Are you going to follow in your father’s footsteps?”
“No way!” I’d say. I saw power to right wrongs in the media, in exposure, and studied journalism at the University of Southern Queensland.
Toowoomba was not really the place for a progressive girl from the Gold Coast, but the country kids put up with my loud opinions. Importantly, I was surrounded by people who saw the world differently to me, who perhaps voted differently, whose parents had different priorities. Many became lifelong friends; some of you are in the gallery today.
After finishing university, I worked at The Courier-Mail. From there I worked in Hong Kong, covering the landmark right-of-abode cases in the high court and court of final appeal.
In London, I worked for the healthcare commission, working on the very first and the second state-of-health-care reports for the UK parliament. The work was great, but the people – from all walks of life and cultures – gave me a huge appreciation and understanding of lives that looked different to my own.
I’ve always loved work and never imagined stopping. But, by 2006, two little nippers had arrived: Henry and Zac.
Two in childcare while working full time meant my family was about $300 a week worse off, so, like many women in my electorate, I had little choice but to become a full-time stay-at-home mum after my Zac was born.
Being mum to my boys is by far my most treasured life experience. Every story read, every meal, every sloppy kiss, every win or loss on sporting fields, every birthday cake, every trip to the park is cherished. I also met so many generous and accomplished mums. My baby group mums, Jo and Natalie, and the mums I met through schools have been by my side for two decades, in hospital and in grief. Many are in the gallery.
After four years caring for my boys, when Henry started community kindy, I was offered a part-time job, and I jumped at it. Despite taking a spectacular pay cut, I was grateful for anything that would put an end to that big, wide gap in my CV.
Within a year my boss, Wayne Denning, took a chance on me, giving me the unique opportunity to produce a one-hour documentary for the ABC. Wayne, who is in the gallery today, is a proud First Nations man from Central Queensland and is such a talented businessman. He never flinched when I left work because one of my boys was sick. He saw my potential and was flexible well before community expectations demanded it.
Fifteen years later and as a result of Labor’s laser-like focus on women’s economic empowerment, we have paid parental leave, we’ve reduced the burden of childcare costs, and we are working towards gender pay equity.
Those changes have been hard fought for by many women – like Virginia Clarke, a founding member of EMILY’s List, who ran in Oxley against Pauline Hanson twice. She’s been by my side campaigning in Dickson over the last seven years. She is also in the gallery.
Power of sport
Little did I know then that the mother of all unconscious bias and discrimination was shortly coming for me. I lost my leg in 2011. The ground shifted. Everything was hard to navigate, and I was pitied. But I survived, and so did my baby, Zac.
Everyone in my life remembers the day I was supposed to die. I lived thanks to trauma surgeon Professor Martin Wullschleger, his team at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and also the bravery of strangers at the scene – Megan Brennan, who looked after my Zac, and Eric and Joe, the two young men who pulled the car off me and without whom I wouldn’t be here.
Martin’s split-second decision, though, to amputate my leg with a makeshift tourniquet saved me and ensured my kids had their mum. We keep in touch, and Martin is in the gallery.
Martin, I am in awe of your courage, expertise and work ethic and that of so many other health workers who have gotten me to this place. Everything they do at work ripples outwards.
I left the hospital positive and determined to head on down to that leg shop, buy a leg, put it on and walk off into the sunset! Of course, it didn’t work like that.
The first time I went out to dinner, a lady stopped us and said: “You have such a pretty face. What a pity you are in a wheelchair.”
I had six surgeries in four years, suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder, struggled to get out of the house, didn’t drive for nearly three years and had severe phantom pain. I was told I was unlikely to ever work again. I was also unable to use a traditional socket prosthetic despite my very best efforts.
My dream of being able to hold Henry’s and Zac’s hands while walking to school or the park seemed to be over.
I was at my lowest point when I entered the office of orthopaedic surgeon Dr Munjed Al Muderis. Munjed, a refugee surgeon from Iraq, put his arms around me and said, “I’m going to do everything I can to get you walking again.”
I was osseointegration patient No. 26 in Australia. The surgery was groundbreaking, risky and my only option. I’ve now been walking for 11 years, with a little help from my wheelchair. Munjed is in the gallery. I am so grateful you stepped outside of the boundaries of what was thought to be medically possible at that time. I literally would not be standing here today without you.
Modern Australia is the product of migrants and refugees like Munjed who have come here and worked hard to give back and contribute to their adopted country. Their only request is a chance to thrive.
My osseointegration surgery also connected me with other people with a disability. One of them was the truly remarkable Shona Muckert, a bilateral amputee from the Sunshine Coast, who said, “come and try outrigger canoeing with me.”
That invitation changed my whole outlook on life as a disabled woman. Quite suddenly I was amongst the waves, paddling my little heart out. I was unsheltered, free of bias and pity, and with others who shared disability but who were working, raising families and living really good lives. Shona is also in the gallery. Champion!
The more I paddled, the more confident I became. I went on to represent Australia with my No Limits team. They showed me that disability is not a barrier but that our environment, assumptions and lack of opportunity are the barriers. Some of those people – Paralympian Susan Seipel, Glenn Pyne and world champion Shona – are in the gallery.
Sport is such a powerful tool in combatting depression, anxiety and loneliness. It brings people together. I will always be the champion for our sporting teams and clubs in Dickson because I know they make our community better, and I am here to help ensure people with disability have the same opportunity to prosper and live fulfilled lives as the rest of society.
Failing forward
This new-found confidence ushered in a new era that I like to describe as “failing forward”, the just-bloody-do-it era. I was pretty angry by the time I joined the Labor Party in 2016. Labor delivered the NDIS, but people with a disability still struggled to be seen, to get around and to get jobs. Landing a job was incredibly difficult for me.
People only saw disability. It was like I was born on the day of my accident. No-one cared what was on my CV. As someone who draws a lot of my self-worth from work, this was devastating.
My place in the Labor Party began with Labor Enabled, a great crew of underutilised disability activists who welcomed me with open arms. It became clear that, in order to help change the perceptions of disability outside and inside the party, we needed to be seen as potential candidates, potential MPs.
I hadn’t thought of actually being the candidate until the then Queensland state secretary, Evan Moorhead, convinced me to run in a totally unwinnable preselection for a state seat. I failed forward. The experience turned a switch, and the journey to win Dickson began.
Dickson is much like the Gold Coast I grew up in in the 80s. Our suburbs north of Brisbane are leafy, still home to koalas, with town centres surrounding train lines that connect city workers and semirural acreage lots with small mountain communities. Our Moreton Bay community is aspirational: lots of families, mortgages and great public schools.
There are many working-class battlers and those who rely on us and government services to help get them through the tough times. Young people priced out of Brisbane are moving to our region in droves. I have door knocked many thousands of homes over the last seven years, but at this election the people of Dickson could not have been any clearer. My community wanted help with the cost of living.
They wanted more health services, more bulk-billed GPs and more housing, and, importantly, they wanted a government and a representative who is focused on them and their issues.
In voting for me, they rejected the politics of fear and division.
Unwavering support
The 2025 campaign was obviously my best, and that is quite a bizarre thing because, behind the curtain, I was grieving and desperately wanting to hold my son, Henry. He passed on 20 February 2024, after an 18-month battle with leukaemia.
The week before, he was able to come home for a couple of nights. He asked to sleep in my bed, next to his mum, like he did for years when he was a little boy. All night I watched him breathe, in awe of him – his courage and his ability to smile despite unbelievable pain and the never-ending hospital stays and treatments. I am so, so grateful for those hours.
He told me many times that this election was my time. He was convinced I would win and said a number of times, “don’t make me the excuse for you not doing important things”. And this was so important. His words, his courage, were with me every day of the campaign. Henry was instrumental in getting me to this place.
Also pivotal were the Dickson Labor Party branch members, of which there are many in the gallery. Many of you have been campaigning for a Labor win for two decades, asking for nothing in return but the possibility of a good Labor government. Succeeding in Dickson is your win. You have been relentless, you have never given up and I am so happy that I have been a part of your win. Thank you.
I also had a very awesome all-female campaign team. Our Queensland state secretary, Katie Flanders, together with Megan Kennedy-Clark and my campaign managers, Emma Holmes and Natasha Maynard, steered us to victory – along with a bit of help from Paul Erickson. They are the very best marginal seat campaigners in the country.
For the first time, our Dickson campaign was tailor-made for my community, and that made all the difference. Thank you.
Perhaps my greatest political believers are the Prime Minister and my former boss and former Queensland premier Steven Miles, who is also in the gallery. When you’re running for a third time, there will always be those who question if you’re the right candidate.
The Prime Minister and Steven have always been in my corner. Their support has meant I’ve continued to climb the mountain and succeed when many others said I should step away.
Prime Minister, I remember our first conversation. You were the Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, in 2018, and you called me out of the blue one morning and just said: “Hey, it’s Albo. I’ve just landed in Brisbane. Let’s have a coffee”.
What you were really saying was, “Hey, you’re one of us”. And that meant so much. I wouldn’t be here without your unwavering support.
Steven, I’ve learnt so much from you. Having worked with you over many years, I know you spend more time listening to people than talking, and that is an incredibly important lesson for me as a new representative. Thank you for always having my back.
Over three campaigns, I have got an incredible amount of on-the-ground support with all the support you can think of – emotional, strategic, mowing of lawns, all sorts of things – from members of the mighty United Workers Union. Some of you are in the gallery. Thank you. Thank you to all union members who joined our campaign.
My family; my dad; my son Zac; my partner, Rob; my brother, Phil; his wife, Marika; and the Griffiths all give me so much joy and are my whole world. Thank you for your unconditional love.
Zac, I hope I have shown you what is possible even when the universe gives you grief. You and Henry are the loves of my life. I’m so proud of the young man you are, and I know your dad, Clive, and Henry would be looking down on you with pride too.
Thank you to the people of Dickson for putting your faith in me. As I said on election night, I will be a representative for everyone in our community, whether you voted for me or not.
I am one of the first women with a disability to be elected to the House of Representatives and the first person to unseat an opposition leader.
Kindness, a helping hand, opportunity and open doors have got me here, and that’s what I will be giving to the people of Dickson.
See Croakey’s archive of articles on the 2025 Federal election
