In 2019, my family and I felt lucky to move to the bayside suburb of Hampton. With its beachside charm, leafy parks and quiet streets, it seemed the perfect place to raise our children.
Fast forward to May 2025, and I’m questioning that decision.
While the nation overwhelmingly rejected the Liberals’ descent into Trumpian politics, ongoing failure to listen to women, their regressive stances on climate, social equity and work (you should job share ladies in public service!) – Goldstein voted to turn back the clock.
It’s deeply disappointing that, in a moment when Australians called for progress, my electorate endorsed more of the same. The re-election of Tim Wilson – a figure whose past tenure of 7 years offered little by way of achievement – represents a refusal to engage with performance, accountability, or fresh ideas.
Despite two capable women putting themselves forward as potential Liberal candidates, the party once again backed Wilson. His return speaks volumes: about the party’s lack of imagination and about the electorate’s readiness to embrace the status quo over meaningful change. Once again, Goldstein has prioritised familiarity over diversity, despite our community’s progressive self-image.
This is a man who misused his parliamentary position during the franking credits debate, behaviour widely condemned as unethical and misleading. He has worked for a think tank that opposes climate action and continues to stoke division. He has a reputation for aggressive and dismissive conduct toward constituents — just ask the Grandmothers for Refugees.
And in this campaign, he directed preferences to Family First, a party that opposes LGBTQIA+ rights and wants to roll back marriage equality — despite being an openly gay man himself. It’s a troubling contradiction, and one that leaves many in the community, particularly young LGBTQIA+ people, feeling abandoned and confused.
As a professional woman and lawyer who has spent over two decades advising ASX-listed companies on misleading and deceptive conduct, I was appalled by the tactics used in this campaign. I witnessed bullying at polling booths and overheard supporters repeating inflammatory slogans and untruths. Misinformation was treated as strategy. Aggression was rebranded as passion. This normalisation of dishonest, hostile politics is dangerous. And we should all be deeply concerned.
As a mother, I’m heartbroken that my children are growing up in an electorate that has voted against action on climate change, against compassion for the vulnerable, and against integrity in politics. I’ve watched local kids don Liberal paraphernalia and hand out how-to-vote cards without being able to articulate why. It reflects a deeper problem: a culture of familial political loyalty that discourages questioning, thinking, and learning.
This is not the future I want for my children. And it’s not the community I hoped Goldstein would be.
Yet I still live in hope. Hope that our electorate can find the courage it showed in 2022, when it briefly broke from a four decade pattern of status quo. Hope that we’ll demand better from our representatives – not just in performance, but in values. Hope that we can stop rewarding familiarity and start recognising leadership that reflects the full diversity, intelligence, and decency of this community.
Until then, I’ll keep speaking up. Because silence, like complacency, is a choice. And we can no longer afford either.
Melissa Monks is a legal senior executive. The views in this piece are her own.