Charlotte Walker was elected third on the ALP’s Senate ticket for South Australia on her 21st birthday. She gave her first speech on Monday. I spoke to her between 1.30pm and 1.45pm on Wednesday.

Senator Charlotte Walker, delivering her first speech in the Senate.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Fitz: Senator, thank you very much for your time. I must say in terms of strict timing, this is the most strict – in terms of tight start and finish times – I’ve had since I interviewed Bill Gates a decade ago. Is it odd, to be 21 years old, and have such a tightly regulated schedule?

CW: [Laughs.] I actually like the organisation of everything, and this is the perfect time because we have question time in half an hour. So this is my one free slot where there’s no division, no interruptions.

Fitz: Your first speech was nothing if not honest and raw. One thing that jumped out at me was your talk of suffering such bad depression up to the age of 18 that you wondered if you wanted to go on – and yet, on the very day of your 21st birthday, you were elected as an Australian senator! Very broadly, how in the space of three years did you go from feeling so low to where you are now?

CW: Obviously my mental health has recovered significantly, but also from the time that I turned 18, that’s when I got involved with the Labor Party, and from there I got a job. I was working for my local state MP, which gave me lots of opportunities. I got involved in Young Labor, went to lots of meetings, tried to do lots of volunteering, which got me a job in the union movement, and then the opportunity came up for preselection to the Senate. But I honestly think the reason that I got here was because people believed in me, had trust in me and gave me the resources and support that I needed.

Fitz: When you got that preselection, third on the ticket, what chance out of a hundred did you think you were of actually getting elected?

CW: In no place in my mind was I even thinking of what the chances were. That was not even a consideration. What I was committed to, though, was getting out on the campaign trail and making sure I was talking to people about why they needed to vote Labor.

Fitz: And when you found out that, against all odds, you’d actually won, did you feel intimidated or overwhelmed? Did you see your carefree early 20s disappear before your eyes, into caucus meetings, planes, trains, automobiles and speeches? Did you say, “Oh ... f---”?

CW: [Laughs.] I did not say that. But........

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