Old battle scars run deep. Not least when you remain the youngest woman to have ever entered federal parliament at a time when less than 15 per cent of the house was female – as was the case in 1995, when Democrat Natasha Stott Despoja was sworn into the Senate, aged 26.

Ask her about the struggles women and minority groups face in Australian parliament, and you’ll need an extra long lunch. Plus more time chatting through the issue on the pavement outside the restaurant she’s chosen in suburban Adelaide – and then time to read follow-up emails, as Stott Despoja recalls the war wounds.