New MPs look to history for inspiration NEW MPs in Australia's 44th parliament have taken inspiration from history as they made their first speeches in the House of Representatives. New Liberal MP Sarah Henderson, a former ABC television journalist, pointed to lessons from the first women in the House of Representatives, Dame Enid Lyons, while Labor's Jim Chalmers, who was an adviser to former treasurer Wayne Swan, said he was inspired by former prime minister Paul Keating. A total of 42 new MPs will make their first speeches in the House of Representatives over the coming months. Ms Henderson, the new Liberal member for the Victorian seat of Corangamite, pledged to be a strong, local voice for her constituents. She was inspired to study law and eventually enter politics by Lyons, who won a seat in parliament in 1943 and after the death of her husband, former prime minister Joseph Lyons. The first female member of the House of Representatives might have made history but she never made an issue of her gender, Ms Henderson said. That example should inspire the government and parliament to fight discrimination everywhere. "Let us ensure that we are a country where equality knows no bounds," she said. Mr Chalmers was inspired to join the Labor Party when the Keating government was thrown out of office in 1996. The new Labor MP for the Queensland seat of Rankin said he turned 18 the day Keating lost power. I won't claim to remember much about the late evening of 2 March 1996. But I do recall that election being a formative experience," Mr Chalmers said. It helped me decide I wanted to be part of a vision like Keating's: bold, progressive and exciting. He championed the economic vision, Asian integration, and republicanism that I admired. Former Senator and now MP for the Sydney seat of Kingsford Smith, Matt Thistlethwaite, used his first speech in the lower house to focus on history, the arrival of the First Fleet and French explorers, and World War One veterans who settled in his beachside electorate. He then went on to urge Australians to change the constitution to recognise the contribution of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, and to become a republic. "I despair that my two daughters, or any other Australian child, cannot aspire to one day be our nation's head of state," Mr Thistlethwaite said. As a parliament and a nation, we must begin to again discuss our identity and our constitutional arrangements. I hope that in my time in this place, we see our nation fully recognise our maturity and become a republic.