A childhood of dinner time "parliaments" with her father and eight siblings has prepared Ged Kearney for the rigours of the real thing.
The former ACTU boss delivered her first speech to federal parliament on Monday afternoon, after winning the seat of Batman at a by-election in March.
"My actual first speech was to my dad's dinner-time parliament - where he was always the Speaker and each of us nine ... Kearney kids was cast in a parliamentary role," she said.
As well as a family parliament the Kearney youngsters also had their own trade union.
"All nine kids were members, we paid dues, we made demands on the bosses, mum and dad, and we even went on strike once when mum wanted to get the cat spayed," Ms Kearney said.
This led to a sit-in in the kitchen which ended with a strike-breaker, her mum with a broom.
"We didn't win that one, neither did the cat," she said.
Ms Kearney, who began her career as a nurse, warned she would take on anyone who has a crack at the federal paid parental leave scheme.
"I learned directly from my experience about the needs of working mums, and the crucial need for paid parental leave - because I didn't have it," she said, adding she was back at work finishing her nurse training when her twins were seven weeks old.
"Raising children should not be a struggle for economic survival."
She hit out at cruelty to asylum seekers in indefinite detention overseas and the budget cuts to the foreign aid budget.
Ms Kearney acknowledged her electorate's vibrant Aboriginal community and pointed out the seat was named after John Batman, a founder of modern Melbourne who spent the 1820s and 1830s tracking and hunting Tasmanian indigenous people.
