Malcolm Turnbull courting new Mayo MP, Nick Xenophon Team’s Rebekha Sharkie
NEW Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie is already being courted with a personal message from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who is aiming to secure her potentially critical support to form government.
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NEW Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie is already being courted with a personal message from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who is aiming to secure her potentially critical support to form government.
Ms Sharkie, the first Nick Xenophon Team member to secure a lower house seat, revealed in an interview with The Advertiser that Mr Turnbull texted his congratulations on Sunday morning.
Having defeated former minister Jamie Briggs by 55 per cent to 45 in the former Liberal stronghold, Ms Sharkie insisted she and the NXT’s three senators would form a united negotiating team in the increasingly likely event of a hung parliament.
“I did receive a text message of congratulations. I believe it is (from the Prime Minister). I haven’t responded,” she said.
Asked if she would advance any issues within Mayo during potential talks, Ms Sharkie listed tackling youth unemployment and improving health services.
“It’s not about pork-barrelling. It’s just about what we could possibly get for our community, for the South Australian community, that’s fair and right,” she said.
Ms Sharkie, a 43-year-old mother of three, has campaigned for a 24-hour doctor service at Mt Barker hospital and improving the Victor Harbor Rd.
Forced to quit the frontbench in December over a boozy incident with a female public servant in a Hong Kong bar, Mr Briggs on Sunday wished Ms Sharkie well and declared his family looked forward “to enjoying our lifestyle with the privilege of anonymity into the future”.
A former staffer to three Liberal MPs, including Mr Briggs, Ms Sharkie previously said she left his office in 2010 after overhearing “misogynist in nature” comments that did not align with her “personal values”.
“His was typical of the attitude of the Abbott government: that women were either beauty queens or ironing ladies,” she said just after Mr Briggs quit the ministry.
Mayo, which stretches through the Adelaide Hills from Springton to Victor Harbor and includes Kangaroo Island — had been held only by two high-profile Liberals since it was created in 1984 — former foreign minister Alexander Downer and Mr Briggs.
“The people in Mt Barker and the people in Strathalbyn and Nairne, where I was doing a lot of doorknocking, very much felt that they haven’t had good representation for some years,” Ms Sharkie said.
“Overwhelmingly, people said to me: ‘Alexander Downer, even though he was the foreign minister, we always saw him and his office was always open’.
“So, the most critical thing I can do is to ensure that my office is always open and it’s a place of first call.”
She is vowing to open an electorate office in Victor Harbor, in addition to Mayo’s existing Mt Barker office, and spend significant time on Kangaroo Island.
Ms Sharkie, who lives in Birdwood, most recently has been a senior manager at a youth employment service and co-manages a tiling business with her husband, Nathan. She has two boys, aged 17 and 14, and a girl, 11.
Her landslide victory mirrors an internal NXT poll conducted in the campaign’s final days but which even party strategists considered optimistic.
Ms Sharkie thrashed her rival in Mayo’s larger towns, securing a 60 per cent to 40 victory in the Mount Barker booth and 59-41 in Strathalbyn.