Michelle Milthorpe was a stranger to me when I went to Griffith to support her campaign for Farrer. I went because I believed in what she stood for. I came to know her because I watched what it took to run for office and what she had to go through.
It takes courage to put your name on a ballot. It takes another kind of courage to keep going when the personal attacks begin.
Michelle was a teacher in Albury when her family went through something no family should. She fought to bring the Child Sexual Offence Evidence Scheme to regional NSW and helped secure $64.3 million to make it happen. Then she emailed Helen Haines to ask how a person becomes a community independent candidate. Helen has been beside her ever since.
She ran for Farrer in 2025 and won every booth in Albury. She ran again at this year’s by-election and lost to One Nation.
This week I read about Allie Phillips. She was 19 weeks pregnant when doctors told her that only two of the four chambers in her baby daughter’s heart had formed. Tennessee’s abortion ban meant she had to crowdfund and travel to New York for care. By the time she reached the clinic, Miley Rose had died.
Allie told the world what happened. She joined a lawsuit against the ban. Then she ran for the Tennessee House of Representatives in 2024 and lost to the sitting Republican member, Jeff Burkhart. He died in late 2025, and in Tennessee the local county commission appoints a stand-in until the next election. Allie put her hand up. The commissioners split nine votes each between her and Republican Michael Lankford, and the county mayor used his casting vote to give the seat to Lankford. Last Tuesday, Allie ran against Lankford and beat him with almost 55 per cent of the vote. In January she takes her seat in the Tennessee General Assembly, the same legislature that passed the law that sent her to New York.
Some people enter politics because they want to change the world. Others enter because something happened in their own world that they are determined no one else should have to endure.
I care deeply about my causes. For more than twenty years I have worked with young people. My programs introduced school students to agriculture through art, and working in classrooms showed me their big ideas and their hope for the future. That hope is what drives me now. Today I support young people to be curious, creative thinkers, confident communicators and people who work well with others. That work has turned out to be my legacy. It has also taught me how funding works. People choose what they fund, and most want a return in the here and now. Finding people who will fund the trees they may never sit under is a rare thing.
Last month Helen Haines was struck by a four-wheel drive outside her electorate office in Wangaratta. She was at work, in the town she represents, and she suffered injuries that resulted in the amputation of both her legs. When her doctors woke her, her first words were of gratitude and concern for others. I think of Helen when I think of Michelle. Having the courage to run for office and represent the best interests of your community is a whole different level. The people who do it give up their privacy, their time with family, and sometimes their safety.
Standing up takes courage. Standing beside someone takes commitment, especially when the campaign is over, the cameras have gone and the result is known.
Politicians are my examples here, and the same holds for anyone who stands up for something. If you have the courage to put yourself out there and take the slings and arrows that come with it, you deserve people who will stand with you when you stand up. Be there for the campaign. Be there afterwards, whatever the result.
