Dr Ken Wyatt, Australia’s first indigenous MP, draped in kangaroo skin, struggled through his maiden speech in parliament yesterday. He wasn’t the only one moved — some hardened press gallery veterans called it the best speech they’ve ever heard in the place. The Liberal MP stated proudly:

“My mother was one of the Stolen Generation and spent her childhood years in Roelands Mission near Bunbury in Western Australia … When the former prime minister delivered the apology on 13 February 2008 in this chamber I shed tears for my mother and her siblings. My mother and her siblings, along with many others, did not live to hear the words delivered in the apology, which would have meant a great deal to them individually. I felt a sense of relief that the pain of the past had been acknowledged and that the healing could begin.”

Michelle Rowland, Labor’s member for Greenway, vowed a “special commitment” to supporting breast cancer research. She shared:

“I was 11 years old when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Six years of countless drugs, chemotherapy, radiation and the most unimaginable pain followed, but her survival could be prolonged no further and she died shortly after my 17th birthday.”

Jane Prentice, the new Liberal MP for Ryan, warned of our commitment to Afghanistan — “as an Australian but also as a mother of a serving member of the Defence Force”; Geoff Lyons, Labor MP for Bass, talked of “reinvigorating community sport”; Adam Bandt — the first Greens MP — urged his colleagues to “put compassion back on the agenda”; Andrew Wilkie, analyst-turned-whistleblower-turned independent MP, spoke of the “self-evident imperative” of protection for “the men and women who risk all to reveal”.

And we’re only just getting started. There’s the baby-faced Wyatt Roy, the youngest member in parliamentary history. The former tennis champion turned TV commentator. The Labor MP who took his oath on the Koran.

The new paradigm might look decidedly like the old one. But the diversity in membership, at least, is something to celebrate.

Crikey‘s seconded parliamentary snapper Mike Bowers continues to document the new paradigm in Canberra. Click on the gallery below for the first new-look question time in pictures…

30-09-2010 1-12-17 PM