Labor MP Melissa McMahon on brain tumour fight

Labor’s Melissa McMahon was initially diagnosed with a brain tumour in June last year but did not inform Steven Miles until months later “because they had an election to win”.

Labor Member for Macalister, Melissa McMahon.

Labor member for Macalister, Melissa McMahon, says she “can’t wait for the day” when she is no longer called ‘resilient’.

But there’s little chance of that, with the politician who just two years ago divulged a litany of horrendous childhood sexual abuse to parliament in the hope of encouraging others to come forward, recently that she has also been battling a brain tumour.

McMahon, 48, underwent a gruelling seven hour surgery last Tuesday to remove a golf ball sized tumour behind her right ear, and has taken leave from parliament while she recovers from the operation.

Opposition Leader Steven Miles told The Courier-Mail this week that McMahon had opted to keep her diagnosis private, describing her as “an extraordinary person”.

Speaking exclusively to The Courier-Mail the day before her surgery, McMahon said she was feeling ‘optimistic’ about her recovery post surgery.

Member for MacAlister Melissa McMahon has been hailed by Steven Miles. Picture: Liam Kidston

Supplied image of Labor Member for Macalister Melissa McMahon

“The doctors believe it’s a meningioma which is a tumour that grows in between the skull and the brain, in the meninges, and my surgeon said to me that out of all the brain tumours to have mine is in the best location, so you take your wins where you can”, McMahon said.

The Labor member who lives in Eatons Landing with her three children Luka, 15, Ronan 11, Mackenzie 7, said she wanted time alone with her family in the days leading up to her surgery, so postponed making her condition public until this weekend.

The politician, former police officer and army lieutenant, said that the tumour was first discovered during an MRI investigating her increasing bouts of vertigo.

“Over the last couple of years, I have had times when I couldn’t sit up properly, or stand up, times when I couldn’t open my eyes for 24 to 48 hours”, McMahon said.

“I could never pick when it would happen, so during a sitting week it was very hard, there were times when I couldn’t move at all, just lying on the floor for 24 hours.”

Melissa McMahon is fighting a brain tumour.

Believing it most likely to be an inner ear condition affecting her balance and general health, McMahon went to see an ear, nose and throat specialist, who sent her for the MRI.

“It was really just as a precaution, to make sure everything was all right, and that’s when they found this golf ball sized tumour behind my right ear between my skull and my brain,” she said.

The tumour is located near the cerebellum, the part of the brain that affects balance, movement and co-ordination

The tumour did cause headaches - but because the brain does not have nerve endings, McMahon said she has experienced minimal pain, and zero cognitive decline.

“I haven’t been in a lot of pain at all - other than knowing I have a ticking time bomb in my head,” she said.

Initially diagnosed in June, 2024, McMahon said she did not inform Miles of her diagnosis until October last year “because we had an election to win”.

While history shows that the David Crisafulli-led Liberals trounced Labor in that election with a swing of 17 per cent, McMahon was one of the 32 Labor members who retained her seat.

Elected in 2017, she said she is ‘fiercely loyal’ to her electorate which is located where the Logan and Albert rivers meet, and includes the suburbs of Beenleigh, Edens Landing, Home View, Windaroo Mt Warren Park, Eagleby, Cornubia and Carbrook.

“I really love this place, and while the election was very tough, I was hoping that the work I’ve done in the last seven years would be enough for my community to want me to keep doing that work,” she said.

Melissa McMahon discovered her condition after a check-up for bouts of vertigo.

“It was very tough, I went from a 9.7 margin to 1.9, but I gave it my absolute all.”

McMahon said that when she told the then Miles of her diagnosis and commitment to keep campaigning he was “incredibly supportive” - and knew something was wrong as she is “not someone who knocks on the leader’s door for a bit of a chinwag”.

“I told him I had health issues, that I would require a period of leave and this is what it is for, and that I believed I could delay my surgery and it would not affect my performance or my campaign,” she said.

“He made it very clear that my health came first and basically said ‘whatever you need, whenever you need it, whatever decision you make, we are here for you. He’s a very good person.”

So too is McMahon, who said her number one priority throughout her health battles has been her three children she shares with her ex-husband, Leigh.

Married for 25 years, the couple separated in 2022, but have remained “good mates”.

“He has been incredible through all of this, he has just really stepped up and helped me in every way, especially with the kids,” she said.

“One of the things I am most proud of is the way we have been able to maintain our friendship since our split.”

McMahon said the deterioration of her long marriage was in part due to the “fall out of my mental health issues” following her revelation to parliament of her harrowing experiences of childhood sexual abuse which began from the age of five.

McMahon’s statement to parliament, where she told of a childhood marred by repeated rape and abuse by those responsible for her after- school supervision, and being ‘shopped around the neighbourhood, often in exchange for a can of soft drink’ was both powerful and harrowing.

McMahon also told of how, at age nine, she looked “pure evil in the face for the first time”.

“Courtesy of our church, I came into the company and under the supervision of the last person on earth who should ever be granted such a position; a child sex offender recently released for a particularly heinous child sex crime,” she said.

She reflected that her decision to go public with her abuse saw some relationships “fall by the wayside”.

“I had been internally struggling for years because I had really compartmentalised what had happened to me. I had put it in a box, and you can only do that for so long before it starts to eat you from the inside,” she said.

“I just felt I couldn’t keep a lid on it, it becomes this burden you carry with you, and even though your rational brain tells you it is not your fault, you feel this guilt and shame, and I had to unburden myself of that because it was killing me.

“But ancillary to that was realising I had a public platform where I could speak about it, and I realised I had a responsibility to speak about because I was lucky that I was in my forties, and in a job and in healthy relationships because so many people who have been abused in childhood don’t live to their forties, the shame and pain is just too unbearable for them.”

McMahon said that after she spoke about her own experiences, people from all over Australia contacted her with their own stories, many of them speaking about their experiences for the first time.

“I have been able to encourage people to speak to counsellors and put them in touch with the appropriate services and that made all the attention around it and my own struggles with disclosing it worth it,” she said.

“I said at the time, and I meant it that ‘I will recover loudly so that others don’t die quietly’.”

As for her recovery from her brain surgery, McMahon revealed she was told it will be a three- month recovery where a team of occupational and speech therapists will “help me to walk and talk again”.

“The brain has to repair itself, so they will work with me very intensively to get all those connections firing again. They will try to help me sit up , stand up and walk again as soon as possible,” she said.

“My speech could be a bit slurry, and I may be a bit slower forming the words but because cognitive functioning is located in a different part of my brain, there is zero chance of me waking up speaking a different language, so that’s taken all the fun out of it”, she laughed.

It’s this sort of trademark humour and attitude in the toughest of times that has seen McMahon stamped with the “resilient” label, one that she says has been thrust upon her, not sought.

“Honestly, I live for the day when I will never get called resilient again”, she said.

“I think I am ready for some peace and quiet while I recover.”

At the time of writing McMahon was recovering in the hospital’s intensive care unit, surrounded by her close support team of family and friends from politics, policing, the defence force and high school.

“I would like to thank the people of McAlister for understanding that I need some time off, as I know they will because it’s such a great community here, such a wonderful little patch here in Logan,” she said.

“You know people have their thoughts and opinions on Logan but we are proud of who we are, our diversity and our achievements.

“We are all really loyal to Logan, we are not Brisbane and we are not the Gold Coast, we are the best bit in between. People underestimate us, and they should never underestimate us.” The same can be said of McMahon herself.

A spokesperson for Miles said that ‘no replacement’ has been announced for McMahon at this stage, and that other members of parliament and electoral staff intended to rally around the politician.

“Melissa is someone who has always been ready to step in to help others” the spokesperson said.

“And now is the time for us to do the same for her”.

Originally published as Labor MP Melissa McMahon on brain tumour fight