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The Speaker, the Hon Milton Dick MP, grew up and went to school on the south side of Brisbane and now proudly lives locally in the electorate of Oxley. Prior to being elected the Federal Member for Oxley, Milton served as the Brisbane City Councillor for the Richlands Ward from 2008 – 2016 and was elected Leader of the Opposition in 2012.

Milton believes in delivering for his community and standing up for local residents. He believes everyone deserves access to quality and affordable education and health care, regardless of where they live.

After finishing his studies at the University of Queensland, Milton went on to work as an adviser in the Federal Government before working at both state and local government levels.

In the Parliament, Milton has served on several committees including the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. He was elected as Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2022. He is committed to promoting and improving civic education of Australia's Parliament and democracy.

Milton prides himself on always being there to help people, no matter how big or small the issue may be.

Here's an extract of his first speech, which you can read from his First Speech page:

It is a cold winter's night in 1944 on board HMAS Ararat, an Australian warship positioned in the newly captured Allied territory of Cape Gloucester, New Britain. Life on board Ararat is not easy. Sailors carry out their minesweeping and antisubmarine duties in cramped conditions and are exposed to high rates of pneumonia and tuberculosis. One young sailor on board Ararat works tirelessly performing his duties as a signalman on the upper deck. He knows that, if the ship is to come under fire, it will be he who is responsible for a signal to call for a rescue and will likely go down with the ship if the vessel is ultimately bombed. That young man was my father, Allan Baxter Dick, who served his country through the Second World War, enlisting at the age of only 20, serving in the Second Australian Imperial Force until Allied victory in the Pacific.

Fast forward 70 years to this time last week and, as part of the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program, I was privileged to be on a similar sized vessel, the HMAS Maryborough, in the Timor Sea. This not only reminded me of my father's brave and dedicated service to this nation but reminded me of the service of those women and men who protect our borders, freedom and democracy. Whilst my father served in the Navy, my mother, Joan, who is with us in the gallery today, trained as a nurse at the St Martin's repatriation hospital. Like my father, Mum has also dedicated her life to one of service, working as a midwife throughout her career, providing the same compassion and care for others as she did her family.

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Terry Young grew up in Kallangur with two younger brothers and spent most of his life in Moreton Bay.

He attended Kallangur State Primary School and Dakabin State High School and like most boys his age, left school at the end of Grade 10, age 15 to pursue an apprenticeship and get a trade; his first dream was to be a motor mechanic. He started as a driveway attendant at a service station which  he did for a month with a view to starting an apprenticeship. This didn’t work out and he ended up in retail starting as a storeman and working his way into a sales role, then assistant manager and then finally store manager ironically right across the road from his current office in Caboolture Square shopping Centre.

His desire for the people in this community is to see people regardless of their education, skin colour, age, gender or religion, be able to find a fulfilling vocation in our community whatever that may be. As the son of an educator, he understands and values education, but from his own experiences he knows that pathway doesn’t suit every kid. One of his goals as a Federal Member of Parliament is to ensure that people who don’t suit the traditional education system have other pathways to achieve their chosen career.

As a father of 4 great kids and grandfather to 5 grandchildren, Terry wants the generations after him to have a future and hope. he will continue to share his journey with the youth in this area so they know that no matter how you start your journey, there is more than one pathway to success.

Here's an extract of his first speech, which you can read from his First Speech page:

As an everyday Australian myself, I can say: we want our children to go to school and be able to hear all points of view presented to them and make up their own minds. The greatest gift human beings have is the gift of free choice. Indoctrination of any type robs our children of this gift. That also has to change. We want our children and grandchildren to hear the theories of evolution and creation, different religions, climate change advocates and climate change sceptics. I can say: what we don't want for us and our kids is to be brainwashed with extreme left or right ideologies.

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Kate Chaney is the Independent Federal Member for Curtin, Western Australia.

In 2022 Kate was elected on a platform of climate action, integrity, future-focused economic management, and a commitment to building connected, inclusive communities. She sits on three Parliamentary committees: the Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, the House Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.

As an Independent, Kate’s policies are informed by the voices of the Curtin community rather than a party. She holds regular public catch-ups with her constituents to hear their thoughts on various issues and actively engages with her community to hear their feedback on specific issues such as aged care, NDIS, and housing.

Here's an extract of her first speech, which you can read from her First Speech page:

At the end of this century, I hope that my great-great-grandchildren will look back with gratitude and wonder on the decisions I was part of; I hope they will see the assumptions we challenged and overcame and the way we used cooperation and ingenuity to turn our planet around. Of course, it will all be history by then and so immutable, just as we take for granted the outcomes of wars, the ending of recessions and the granting of rights to marginalised people. I hope that, by then, we will have the luxury of taking for granted our decarbonised economy, the care of our most vulnerable, our focus on wellbeing, and the integrity of our political system. I hope that, by then, we can move on to more subtle and less existential challenges, and talk with amusement about the time when we extracted our energy from the earth, not the sky.