Becoming a politician was never on Ellen Sandell’s career bingo card. When she left school, she pursued a career in science, fighting hard as an activist against fossil fuel, gas, oil and coal corporations contributing to the global climate crisis.
But there was one thing standing in the way of progress – politicians.
“Throughout my years as a climate activist, a scientist, and also in climate change policy in government, I saw time and time again how Labor and Liberal politicians were beholden to the big fossil fuel companies and making decisions in their favour, not in favour of people who are actually being affected by those decisions, which is all of us,” Sandell told Women’s Agenda.
“And so that’s why I took the fight from being a climate activist and a scientist eventually into politics.”
For someone who never anticipated a career as a politician, it’s impressive that Ellen Sandell is now the leader of the Victorian Greens. A Millennial leader, a mother, and still as fierce as ever in her activism, she is most certainly a force to be reckoned with in the Victorian parliament.
“We have politicians who are more worried about giving tax breaks to big gas corporations or supporting their mates and their donors in the coal industry, than they are about these fundamental crises that are facing all of us and our communities,” Sandell said.
“As a mum of three young kids, I’m terrified about the future that they’re going to grow up with.”
It’s not just climate change that the Victorian Greens are fiercely fighting: the housing crisis is another major issue that disproportionately affects young people, women and underrepresented groups.
“We’re in this housing crisis,” Sandell said, “and the housing and cost of living crisis are biting and hurting people… a lot of them, women with children, who are sleeping in their cars or sleeping on the streets or couch surfing at their friend’s house because they simply cannot afford a roof over their head.
“Something as fundamental a human right as that is becoming out of reach.”
Sandell said politicians have “chosen policies” that resulted in exorbitant house prices, unethical landlord conduct, tax breaks for landlords and more – but politicians can choose policy solutions to “get us out of this crisis – if they have the courage to do that”.
It’s no doubt that Sandell is up for the task, already showing her courage in other ways. In 2017, she was the first woman to breastfeed in Victorian Parliament 15 years on from when former MP Kirstie Marshall was kicked out for doing so in 2003.
“It’s hard, I’ll be honest – it is really hard to have three kids and be in politics at the same time,” Sandell said.
“There’s no official maternity leave for politicians… I think that the political system hasn’t thought about how that works, right?
“And when I had my first baby, there was no real kind of carers room or breastfeeding facilities in Parliament – they didn’t really know what to do with me.
“A lot of men have had babies in Parliament, and they just come back the next week like nothing’s ever changed – whereas for me, you know, I was breastfeeding. I needed facilities.”
Ellen Sandell is on this week’s episode of The Crux, the weekly Women’s Agenda podcast. Listen now with the link below, or wherever you get your podcasts.