SA’s newest senator Lucy Gichuhi grew up barefoot on a subsistence farm in rural Kenya
SHE grew up barefoot on a farm in Africa and dreamed of making something of her life. Now, at 54, Lucy Gichuhi is SA’s new accidental politician. But what are the principles that drive her?
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SHE grew up barefoot on a subsistence farm in rural Kenya and dreamed of making something of her life. At 54, Lucy Gichuhi is South Australia’s new accidental politician whose move to Canberra as an independent has made her the toast of Kenya.
The president, Uhuru Kenyatta, has been in touch through Facebook to advise her an emissary will present her with a gift after her swearing in Canberra on May 9.
“I am so humbled to give that hope because that African girl is still there, that was my life in Kenya,” she said.
“Even now I go home and go to my humble village and the kids are still walking to school with bare feet.”
Nothing about her early life could have prepared her for the sheer drama of the past fortnight which saw the High Court rule her appointment valid, only for her party, Family First, to dissolve and merge with Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives before she could find her feet.
The whirlwind of events revealed a woman who is politically untested but will not be pushed into a decision. For now, she will go to Canberra as an independent Senator for SA before deciding how best the state’s interests should be served.
“I have been a Senator-elect for nearly two weeks now, I need to know what we are talking about, what options do we have, is this the best way to serve South Australia?” she said. “I have to own it, justify it, pursue it and say — this is the best way I can serve you.”
Ms Gichuhi is a politician apart, Australia’s first African-born Senator who agreed to be second on Bob Day’s Family First tickets because she wanted the experience, and because he told her the chances of being elected were “0.000001%”.
An accountant and lawyer, she had no political ambition although she says now her upbringing on small coffee farm in Kenya’s Central Province, the oldest of 10 children who grew up sleeping in a bed with her seven sisters, was a political act.
Born in 1962, Ms Gichuhi’s grandmother was a Mau Mau freedom fighter — part of a rebellion in Kenya in the late 1950s — and her mother a strong woman not much older than Ms Gichuhi who remembers her as always carrying a young baby or pregnant, or both.
“We grew food, I knew how to milk cows before I would go to school, I knew how to cultivate crops,” she said.
Her mother died in 2013 but her father, Weru, 83, a primary school teacher, still lives in the same village with his twin brother and Ms Gichuhi hopes both will soon see her in Canberra, although it may not be in time for her swearing in. It will be their first time on a plane.
“We have to get their documents ready so even if they’re not here for the maiden speech, they will have to come and see me in Parliament here,” she said.
Ms Gichuhi left Kenya in 1999, after working in Nairobi for a decade with her husband William, an engineer who works for Electranet, and their three girls, now aged 29, 24 and 19.
They came to Adelaide because it was family-friendly and offered a “Meet and Greet” program to new arrivals.
“They told us someone will meet you at the airport and they will give you a house for three months,” she said. “That was music to my ears. I didn’t think twice and we took Adelaide.”
She is guided by her Christian faith and sees God’s hand behind her incredible journey from Kenya to Adelaide and now Canberra. Raised a Catholic, she is a member of an African Christian ministry and says she has been called by God to her life.
“When things happen, and only a Christian can understand this, I feel my steps are ordered,” she said.
She said nothing else can explain how she came to be here after a life of deprivation where no one knew if there would be food for the table, and her parents ran out of money for school fees.
“It’s a God factor, my whole life,” she said. “I’ve looked at the thread of my life and only a God factor can explain it because there are many people who went to school with me but who are not here yet, and they have done the same journey and done the right thing.”
She says she fell into politics, the result of a chance meeting after doing a law degree at 50 with her now trusted adviser and chief-of-staff, lawyer Mark Mudri. He encouraged her to do a public leader internship which led to the office of Family First Senator Bob Day, whose disqualification created the Senate opening.
“My pastor introduced me to Mark, I was looking for a job,” she said. “I only wanted to do law the Christian way because I knew the emptiness that could come from climbing the corporate ladder. I thought ‘I am looking to serve’.”
During the internship, the double dissolution was called and Ms Gichuhi agreed to appear on the Senate ticket.
Now, instead of feeling stressed at the thought of working in the toughest place in Canberra — the Senate crossbenches — she says she feels blessed.
“Every opportunity is a blessing,” she said. “Every days is about accessing God’s grace and lifestyle, everything is so good.”