Labor’s Jessica O’Donnell speaks at the candidates’ forum in Wonthaggi. Photo: Geoff Ellis
By Catherine Watson
IT’S difficult for Labor’s Jessica O’Donnell to find a space at the moment between work and campaigning so we settle on talking while she’s driving home from work. That’s normally her quiet, thinking time.
The last time we spoke, before the 2019 election, she was a Baw Baw councillor, a hairdresser, a student at Deakin University and a first-time Labor candidate in a federal election standing in a safe Liberal seat.
Three years later, her life has done a complete turnaround. She has finished her undergraduate degree and now runs her own consultancy, doing strategic communications and management for a construction firm.
IT’S difficult for Labor’s Jessica O’Donnell to find a space at the moment between work and campaigning so we settle on talking while she’s driving home from work. That’s normally her quiet, thinking time.
The last time we spoke, before the 2019 election, she was a Baw Baw councillor, a hairdresser, a student at Deakin University and a first-time Labor candidate in a federal election standing in a safe Liberal seat.
Three years later, her life has done a complete turnaround. She has finished her undergraduate degree and now runs her own consultancy, doing strategic communications and management for a construction firm.
She’s a solo parent who is feeling a great sense of relief after seeing her son complete VCE.
She’s put her own post-graduate studies in human rights and international law on hold to focus on her campaign. She did not seek re-election to Baw Baw Shire Council in 2020, deciding she had enough on her plate and she had to establish her career.
“You can do it all but you can’t do it all well.” She would like to return to local government one day when her life is less pressured – that’s if she’s not in Canberra!
She grew up in the Latrobe Valley, the daughter of a teacher mother and a father who worked at the Hazelwood power station. It was not a political household, she says, but for some reason she was politicised at the age of 10 by the 1998 election, which was a virtual referendum on the Liberal Party plan to introduce a GST.
“I decided then that I was more attuned to the Labor side of things and I’ve never wavered.”
She joined the party in 2016 and was selected to run in Monash in 2019, aged just 31. Not that there was great competition for the gig, which promised plenty of hard work with no chance of elation on election day.
Monash (formerly McMillan) has been held for 20 of the past 26 years by Liberal Russell Broadbent and the result in 2019 was pretty much as expected: the Liberal Party got 56.9 per cent of the two party preferred vote to the ALP’s 43.1 per cent.
Ms O’Donnell says the presence of an Independent candidate for Monash this time tips the balance slightly towards the Liberal Party, with three progressive choices on offer, but she also believes it’s within Labor’s grasp.
She’s put her own post-graduate studies in human rights and international law on hold to focus on her campaign. She did not seek re-election to Baw Baw Shire Council in 2020, deciding she had enough on her plate and she had to establish her career.
“You can do it all but you can’t do it all well.” She would like to return to local government one day when her life is less pressured – that’s if she’s not in Canberra!
She grew up in the Latrobe Valley, the daughter of a teacher mother and a father who worked at the Hazelwood power station. It was not a political household, she says, but for some reason she was politicised at the age of 10 by the 1998 election, which was a virtual referendum on the Liberal Party plan to introduce a GST.
“I decided then that I was more attuned to the Labor side of things and I’ve never wavered.”
She joined the party in 2016 and was selected to run in Monash in 2019, aged just 31. Not that there was great competition for the gig, which promised plenty of hard work with no chance of elation on election day.
Monash (formerly McMillan) has been held for 20 of the past 26 years by Liberal Russell Broadbent and the result in 2019 was pretty much as expected: the Liberal Party got 56.9 per cent of the two party preferred vote to the ALP’s 43.1 per cent.
Ms O’Donnell says the presence of an Independent candidate for Monash this time tips the balance slightly towards the Liberal Party, with three progressive choices on offer, but she also believes it’s within Labor’s grasp.
| “Seven per cent is classed as safe; 6.9 per cent is only 6000 votes. I’m a local and I’ve been working in my community. I was on council and I’m in multiple community groups. I actually care. I’m not doing this out of a need or want to be recognised or to be a career politician.” She said she undertook when she stood last time to stand again. “The Labor Party has invested in me. I need to keep pushing. If we can take it closer, make it marginal, I’ll be happy. It’s not ego-driven, I don’t have to do this for me, I’ll be perfectly happy if someone else wins the seat for the ALP, but I will have done my job.” This time round, and at the grand age of 34, she is a political veteran and the campaign feels very different. It’s partly her. “I have a little bit of presence. People know me.” She feels more sure of herself. The years on council helped. She has found her voice. She knows her stuff. “It’s bread and butter Labor stuff. Health and education which I’m passionate about.” And she senses the difference this time. “One thing almost everyone wants to comment on is Russell Broadbent’s decision not to get vaccinated. I think many of those who normally vote conservative are very unhappy about that. “His use of Ivermectin, which hasn’t been approved by the TGA, and to go promote it in Parliament, which is the people’s house is something I find … I’m trying to think of a polite word.” | Top 3 issues
Preferences 1. ALP 2. Greens 3. Independent 4. Liberal Democrats 5. Liberal Party 6. Federal Australia Party 7. United Australia Party 8. One Nation |
She eventually settles on “disrespectful”. “It was disrespectful to health workers who were under such pressure, it was disrespectful to his electorate after all the sacrifices people made, after they rolled up their sleeves and got vaccinated for their communities, for the people who are vulnerable, for the small businesses trying to get back on their feet.
“It goes to a track record of disregarding the views of his constituency with the marriage equality vote. It was a conscience vote and he could have abstained as other MPs did but he had to vote no.”
She says Monash electors have been taken for granted for a long time. “People want change. The mood is different. We’ve had so many people offering to help this time. People who’ve never been members of the ALP. Droves of people who want to hand out How to Vote cards, put things on fences, to be there at the polling both, to put up corflutes, to donate.
“People just want to do something. I’ve had so many people ring me to thank me for standing.”
“It goes to a track record of disregarding the views of his constituency with the marriage equality vote. It was a conscience vote and he could have abstained as other MPs did but he had to vote no.”
She says Monash electors have been taken for granted for a long time. “People want change. The mood is different. We’ve had so many people offering to help this time. People who’ve never been members of the ALP. Droves of people who want to hand out How to Vote cards, put things on fences, to be there at the polling both, to put up corflutes, to donate.
“People just want to do something. I’ve had so many people ring me to thank me for standing.”