NEWLY elected MP Kristie Johnston is not afraid of making enemies, but she hopes her new colleagues in parliament will see her as an asset, not a threat.
Having just made history as the first independent elected to Tasmania’s lower house since the size of parliament was reduced, Johnston is still trying to figure out how she wants to be categorised.
It is a problem for analysts as well, how to succinctly describe this 40-year-old politician who is obsessed with bringing passenger rail to the northern suburbs and wants pokies gone from local communities. She opposes inappropriate high rises in Hobart, but is in favour of the university moving into the city and even supports a cable car to the top of kunanyi/Mt Wellington, albeit with a major caveat.
“It’s really complicated, I don’t know quite where I fit,” she says. One thing she is sure of is her desire to change parliament “for the better”. Hailed by herself and her supporters for bringing to light financial and cultural problems within the Glenorchy City Council, Johnston has the potential to cause headaches for a state government that tends to shun public scrutiny.
“What I hope I can bring to the parliament and what I think people are looking for is someone to go in there and just cut the crap out and get to the issues,” Johnston tells TasWeekend.
Ordering a coffee at her favourite bar, St Albi’s in Moonah late on a Thursday afternoon, Johnston is clearly exhausted by the election campaign and the long, sleepless week that followed while the results were finalised.
To make life just a little more complicated, she and her husband, Ben Johnston, have decided to separate after 21 years together.
“We are lucky to be separating in a situation where it’s amicable, we’re still very good friends and we’ll focus on our wonderful children together,” Johnston says.
“The children are the best thing that’s ever happened to both of us and we want to make sure they feel loved and secure even though we have separated.”
Despite the exhaustion and personal challenges, Johnston is as articulate as ever and ready for business, stylishly dressed in a blazer and pants. She is promising to work collaboratively with all sides of parliament and hopes her criminology and social justice background will be an asset in policy-making, although she makes it clear she will quickly become a pest if not offered full briefings on legislation and other matters that impact the community.
As she has previously said, there is always a risk the Liberals will lose their one-seat majority, so she argues it is in their interest to work constructively with her, as well as the Greens and even Labor.
“You never know when you might lose a majority. You can be one dodgy Tinder account away or one Liberal member deciding they are independent now away from requiring the assistance of the crossbench to be able to provide supply and confidence,” Johnston says.
“Even though the government will have the numbers on the floor to push through legislation, they’re still going to have to provide that oversight and opportunity for the opposition and crossbench to speak and shine a spotlight on the issues.”
In describing herself as pro-development, Johnson is not just talking about her passion for passenger rail. She wants to see greater multi-story residential development throughout Hobart’s north and is all for the cable car, so long as it is rerouted to the northern side of the mountain, avoiding the organ pipes and bringing greater activity to the ‘burbs.
A lawyer and criminologist who has helped inmates in Hobart’s Risdon prison and did a brief stint in criminal law in London, Johnston also has a decidedly commonsense suggestion that could end the stalemate over the government’s plans for a northern prison.
“My view is we don’t need a northern prison. My criminology background tells me that putting people through a prison system you end up with damaged goods coming out the other end and you don’t end up with a safer community,” she says.
“What we do need in the north and north west is rehabilitative residential facilities where people can go and get help and support to make sure they end up being good functioning members of the community.”
Johnston supports the University of Tasmania’s shift into Hobart’s CBD as she recognises the physical and perceived barriers that may stop some people from attending a campus in Sandy Bay.
“I’m really pleased that university will become more accessible. For a long time I’ve been talking to the uni about the psychological barriers for people in the northern suburbs accessing the campus in Sandy Bay. I know stories where there are people from the northern suburbs who have been to Melbourne but have never been to Sandy Bay,” she says.
After law school, Johnston worked in a criminal law firm in London (“I had my Rumpole moment in the Old Bailey,” she says) before returning to Hobart to study criminology, her thesis drawing a link between criminal behaviour and a lack of public transport access.
She entered local government after advocating alongside her husband Ben, an electrical engineer, for a light rail service to the northern suburbs and insists she never expected to find herself in parliament.
But her father David Knox, a former Baptist minister, says his daughter’s political ambitions were clear from a young age.
“I remember very early on she wanted to be Prime Minister of Australia,” Knox says.
“She always had an interest in the way society is run and how the nation is governed and had a sense of equity and respect for others.”
He recalls his young daughter’s fascination with elections, putting off bedtime to quiz him on who was running for parliament and what they stood for.
A defining moment for the family, and one that solidified Johnston’s desire to break down institutional barriers, came when Reverend Knox and his late wife Donna decided to leave the church over what he calls its “apparent reluctance to help the disadvantaged”.
Knox went to university to study psychology and sociology with a view to providing more practical assistance, while Donna worked in emergency relief support. “They were lean times for our family but we wanted to put our money where our mouth is and help to make a difference,” he says. He and Donna, who died early last year from a rare illness, both ended up in the public sector, working in the areas of homelessness and housing.
Johnston’s keen interest in social justice and politics continued and she joined the Labor party at 17, but quit in disgust a couple of years later over the ALP’s stance on asylum seekers. She believes the recent state election should be a wake-up call for Labor in Tasmania, arguing the party will have a tough time winning back a second seat in Clark – and therefore winning government -- after abandoning a policy to remove pokies from pubs and clubs.
“The community wised up after the 2018 election and if Labor had held onto their stance and stared down the barrel of big business and said ‘No, we stand up for the community, we stand up for mums and dads and nans and pops, then they would have done a lot better,” Johnston says.
In her downtime Johnston is unashamedly nanna-like, pottering in her garden in Glenorchy and crocheting baby blankets and scarves for friends and family.
She often mortifies her young teenage kids, Harry and Lucy, with her penchant for “daggy dancing” and singing in the car. During a recent school drop-off they begged Johnston to wind up the windows as she sang along to John Farnham’s You’re the Voice.
It remains to be seen how the Liberals treat Johnston and whether they are, as she hopes, willing to bring her around the table. With close attention being paid to how politicians and governments treat women, perhaps Premier Peter Gutwein will embrace this opportunity to collaborate with an outspoken female independent. Fostering a harmonious relationship with Johnston would also be an effective thumbing of the nose to former Liberal MP Sue Hickey, who clashed with the government on multiple issues.
Ms Hickey, who failed to win a seat as an independent after falling out with the government, predicted Ms Johnston had a tough four years ahead of her. “Kristie has a steep learning curve but I’m sure she’s up for it,” Ms Hickey says.
“She is in a very unique situation, being the first independent voted in in such a long time, but the advantage of majority government is that you don’t need to negotiate with anyone who is not in your party. I wish her well and I hope she enjoys the next four years and finds a way to contribute more constructively than I found,” she says.
Johnston says she is a very different person and different style of politician to Hickey.
“My approach is a very calm one. I want to build bridges rather than burning them,” she says.
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