‘I have a great husband, and two beautiful daughters’: Shannon Fentiman on her happy family life
A candid Shannon Fentiman has opened up about the traumatic moments that steeled her drive to become Health Minister.
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There’s no book on how to be a cabinet minister, no instruction manual. Actually there is – 2010s Learning To Be A Minister, by Australian academics Anne Tiernan and Patrick Weller, a nonfiction gem, and a must-read for rookie politicians – including Shannon Fentiman.
“Thank God Anne Tiernan wrote that book,” Fentiman laughs. “I think I read it, and re-read, and read it again.”
At her home in Brisbane’s south, the Queensland Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Ambulance Services, and Minister for Women, 40, is reflecting on her very early days as a fledgling pollie, candidly admitting it was “completely overwhelming”.
Little wonder. Cast your mind back to the January 2015 election night, and the seismic shock of Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Labor Party ousting Campbell Newman’s LNP, less than three years after the LNP’s electoral landslide win. Fentiman, a former lawyer, was a first time Labor candidate for the seat of Waterford.
“I knew we were a good chance of winning Waterford back, but I did not think we’d win the government. So come election night, I had my campaign office in Beenleigh, we won Waterford, and then we just started winning everything and then it was hang on, we might win government,” she says.
By February, Fentiman was sworn in as Minister for Communities, Women and Youth, Minister for Child Safety, and Minister for Multicultural Affairs.
“I was 31 years old, I went from having 30 client files (as a solicitor at Hall Payne Lawyers) to 30,000 constituents, and then I was in Cabinet. I was a first term MP, and everything was new, a new job, the parliament was new, it was a very intimidating space, all the procedures you have to learn …”
Suffice to say, Fentiman has proved to be a quick study. Her ascent in state politics has been swift, awarded some of its toughest portfolios – including her current role as Health Minister
(a “shit sandwich of a portfolio”, as one insider less politely put it) – she has been widely tipped as a future leader, a possible successor to Palaszczuk, whose satisfaction rating, polls show, is falling. But while polling indicates Labor’s primary vote is also falling, there’s little indication from the Premier that she has any intention other than leading her party into the October 2024 election. As one politico put it: “Stacia is not going anywhere.”
And if Fentiman, now a well-seasoned political operator, is hungry for the top job, she’s certainly not showing her hand.
“I don’t have much time to think about it, I actually don’t have any time to think about it
at all in Health. I am throwing everything I have at that.”
When pressed – because we journalists are nothing if not persistent – with the same question, differently framed: “What if there was a clear run? If all the planets were aligned?” she answers with a deft: “Ask me when the planets are aligned, but right now, honestly, I am throwing everything I’ve got at Health.”
And Fentiman has always been an “all in” sort of politician, beginning with those first, multiple ministries.
“It was overwhelming, but I am a person who really understands that you’ve got to work hard if you want to achieve.”
She says having a teacher for a mother and a carpenter for a father will do that.
Growing up at Mudgeeraba in the Gold Coast hinterland, Fentiman and her younger sister Erin’s (now 38) childhood was rural and idyllic.
“We grew up on acreage where we had dogs, cats, goats, guinea pigs,” she laughs.
She was also, even then, an “all in” sort of kid. A diligent student at primary and high school at Marymount College, she was a school councillor, on the debating team, in the drama club. “My mum, Christine (now 69), was a teacher and a real role model to me,” Fentiman says. “She went back to uni as a mature aged student, and she had such a belief that everyone deserves a first-class education, no matter where you live or how much money you have.
“My dad, Eric (now 74), was a carpenter and he taught me about the importance of fairness at work, of working hard. He tried to teach me to make a few things,” she laughs, “but I was more like his trade assistant, you know, ‘pass me that’, ‘not that one’, ‘hold that here’.”
But this somewhat bucolic childhood did not prepare Fentiman for what she would witness, years later, in her first Child Safety Ministry.
“I was incredibly privileged in that I had come from this very safe and loving home, so the material that came across my desk was so challenging. I had two cases in my time that were really awful. Mason Jet Lee (the Caboolture toddler who died from shocking injuries inflicted by William O’Sullivan), and Tiahleigh Palmer (the 12-year-old Logan girl killed by her stepfather Rick Thorburn).
“It was really awful, it was tragic, horrible, it was so, so sad. We had a number of investigations resulting in staff needing to be stood down.”
It was also fuel; the fledgling Minister quickly realising her own tears meant nothing if they didn’t achieve anything.
“You do experience high stress and anxiety in that role, but you have to use that to effect change. You have to take that and use it to motivate you to change the system, let it sit
with, and drive you.”
In December 2015, Palaszczuk named Fentiman Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, the first in that role. It would light the path to her eventual appointment as Attorney-General.
In between, she would be named Minister for Employment and Small Business and Minister for Training and Skills Development (2017-20). The Small Business portfolio, she notes, came during the Covid pandemic, and all border lockouts, social distancing and business shutdowns that came with it.
“We had to really work hard to support small businesses and the economy,” she says.
“Some small business owners were angry, and you had to listen with empathy. Of course they’re angry, they’ve built up their businesses for years and the government is saying you
can’t open?
“But Annastacia did the right thing. We saved so many lives by having the border closed.’’
The Training and Skills Development Ministry, Fentiman says, gave her the opportunity to put her mother’s belief in an egalitarian education system into practice.
Asked to nominate one of her best days in politics, she cites the day she announced free TAFE as a pretty good one. But while she was clearly “all in” while working across those roles, it’s equally clear where Fentiman’s heart lies.
“In November 2020, I got my dream job,” she says, quickly clarifying – “not that Health is not my dream job – but becoming Attorney-General, Minister for Women and Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence combined everything I’d trained for.”
During her years as a lawyer, Fentiman volunteered at the Logan-based Centre
Against Sexual Violence, and sat on its board for 10 years.
“I was so excited, so honoured about the opportunity to get stuck into progressive law reform and continue the work I’d started in my first term,” she says.
“The first thing we did was set up the Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce. We began working with the remarkable Lloyd and Sue Clarke (the parents of Hannah Clarke who was murdered, along with her three children, Aaliyah, Laianah, and Trey, by her former partner) on coercive control. The courage of Lloyd and Sue in telling Hannah’s story again and again is incredible.
“I could go out and talk about coercive control, but when Lloyd and Sue tell their story, well, I genuinely believe so many people now understand coercive control because of them.”
The unflagging work of the Clarkes also, just a fortnight ago, made legal history.
With Fentiman by their side, new laws were introduced into state parliament which will make coercive control a stand-alone offence, with abusers facing up to 14 years in prison. It was a landmark decision and one which followed the major recommendations of the Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce.
“Laws also came into effect recently about naming perpetrators who have been charged with rape and sexual assault. (Queensland was one of the last remaining jurisdictions to prohibit media from naming those charged with sexual offences until trial committal).
“Why has it taken so long? Why are these people protected? Because powerful men wrote those laws a long time ago,” she notes wryly.
Fentiman’s voice is rising. Rising, not screeching.
“They used to describe Kate Jones (formerLabor minister) and I as banshees or screechers when we got up to speak,” Fentiman recalls, sounding far more amused than bothered.
“I still get comments on my hair, my clothes, the lipstick I’m wearing, people giving me advice – ‘You’re doing a really great job, but you need to wear more lipstick’.”
Given all her runs on the board – and her experience on actual Boards – it seems ludicrous that anyone is offering Fentiman cosmetic tips.
But, as she notes, while we’ve come far since Vi Jordan, the second woman elected to the Queensland Parliament, had to leave her shoes outside the bathroom to signal her occupancy because there weren’t any female toilets in parliament, we’re not quite at peak, equal opportunity yet.
“In Queensland we are doing really well because we have a Labor parliament, and we have had affirmative action in the party since the ’90s, and I have been a beneficiary of that,” she says. “In parliament I think our side of the chamber is close to 50 per cent equal representation – the other side is not doing so well.” But it’s not just Fentiman who has been subjected to wardrobe critiques, with commentators sniffing at Palaszczuk’s “glittery jackets” and “designer clothes”.
Fentiman says she worries such commentary detracts from the positive aspects of the job.
“I have enormous respect for her, the hard decisions she made during Covid, but also in her being so supportive of other women, having 50 per cent of women around the cabinet table, she’d done a tremendous job. So when you see those sorts of reports, I think it sends a message to other women thinking about entering politics to maybe not put their hand up. I think we need more people from more diverse backgrounds and that sort of commenting dissuades them,” Fentiman says.
Palaszczuk’s private life is also often under scrutiny, and Fentiman she is well aware of the difficulty of balancing the public life with the personal one. Deeply private, this is the first lengthy interview Fentiman has given.
Married to Matt Collins, 45, chief executive of the Planning Institute of Australia, following a previous marriage to Anacta director/lobbyist David Nelson, she is now also a stepmother to Collins’s two daughters. Collins is a former chief of staff to Jackie Trad.
Fentiman, just turned 40, says she’s “feeling great” about reaching one of life’s milestones.
“I do have a very challenging job, but I love it. I have a great husband, and two beautiful daughters. It can be tricky trying to find the balance between being their good friend and sometimes having to discipline,” Fentiman laughs. “I have no idea what to do, most of the time I’m winging it, but they are great girls, and I love them.”
As for Collins, he says that he and Fentiman “have a shared set of values”.
“One of the things I love about her is empathy and sense of social justice, her passion for doing the right thing, and we are both people driven by purpose. And it’s been lovely to see her relationship grow with the girls,” he says.
“Families are complex, and we all want our kids to be happy. I think Shannon, in the work she does, is a great role model for the girls.”
Collins adds Fentiman has taught him the value of work/life balance. He says they love to cook – “we joke a lot that food is our love language” – and travel. However, a recent, and long-planned, trip was cut short when Fentiman was given the Health portfolio.
“We had our belated honeymoon booked for July, we were going to France and Spain but I just knew I could not take this job and then go away for a month,” Fentiman recalls. I dreaded telling Matt, but he was very understanding straight away. He said ‘Of course we can’t go away, you’re the new Health Minister’.”
And so we come to Fentiman’s current portfolio, Health, the aforementioned shit sandwich.
It’s fair to say the Queensland Health Department has faced widespread criticism in the past decade, and Fentiman has some work to do restoring public faith in its ability to deliver quality health care to Queenslanders.
“Being given Health, I knew it was a big, big job. But I thought about all the women I know who have endo (endometriosis), I thought about my dad who has had cancer – he’s okay now – and I thought, well this is a role where I can make a huge difference because health touches everybody.”
Early on in the role, Fentiman was contacted by the parents of Bella Fidler, the young Gold Coast woman who died last year at the age of 23 after contracting meningococcal B.
“Blair and Jodie Fidler will tell you that they thought, and I think a lot of parents did, that Bella was vaccinated for that, that she had been vaccinated as part of the in-school vaccination program.”
Fentiman also met with Kate O’Connell, the mother of Phoebe O’Connell who, at 21, almost died from the disease. Told the vaccine was not part of the National Immunisation Program, Fentiman moved swiftly.
“It cost families about $100 and I just knew it was one of those things we could do. I said ‘We’ll fund it, we’ll find the money (some $90m over four years). After we met with Kate, we had free vaccinations available in six weeks. And that’s my job, to do whatever I can when I can,” she says.
“You’re in these jobs for a short amount of time and you are very privileged to have them. I do have a sense of urgency to fix these things, especially the ones that are hard to turn away from. When you sit with victims of violence, or people who share their trauma with you, that stays with you. So I do have this real sense of responsibility to do as much as I can in the time I am here; it probably drives my staff crazy.
“But I am here for this length of time and I want to use my time well. You just can’t let these people down.”
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