King’s Birthday: Carol Martin says trailblazing victory for Aboriginal women was the Kimberley’s achievement

The first Aboriginal woman to be elected to any Australian parliament says the groundbreaking achievement was not hers alone but that of everyone in the Kimberley who voted for her. Carol Martin was elected to the seat of Kimberley for the Labor party in 2001 and served until 2013. On Monday she was recognised with an Order of Australia medal in the King’s Birthday honours for service to the Parliament of WA and the Indigenous community. The Yamatji and Noongar woman said learning of the honour was a “shock”, given she had been out of politics for a decade. “I felt really privileged that somebody took the effort to nominate me, and they put things I achieved in the application that I had forgotten about,” she said. During her first year in Parliament, Ms Martin spent just 41 days in her own bed to traverse the many remote communities in the expansive electorate and travel between her home in Broome and Perth. “There was no parliamentary office in the Kimberley until I got elected. And then I had to fight to get that,” she said. As a local member, Ms Martin fought for improved health services and is proud she stayed true to her values and spoke her mind. She has been followed in the Kimberley by two successive female Aboriginal MPs. “There’s no doubt that I was a trailblazer,” Ms Martin said. “We didn’t actually set out to do that. What we wanted was a voice for the Kimberley. And we wanted a Labor voice for the Kimberley. “The Kimberley has never been shy about letting women lead. “The only reason I could be the first Aboriginal woman to serve in Parliament was because the Kimberley wanted it. “It’s not just my achievement, but the achievement of every person who voted for me.” Ms Martin said she faced intense racism during her time in Parliament — including slurs, anonymous hateful letters, and death threats over the phone — but denied it was the reason she retired at the 2013 election. “I left on my own terms. Twelve years is enough, and it was enough for my family,” she said. “I’ve been an Aboriginal woman all my life. So racism — live it, breathe it, it’s there. Nothing would have scared me off.” These days, Ms Martin lives in Geraldton where she sells her art and has a part-time job with a construction company in Perth. She said she was happy the Kimberley had remained a Labor stronghold under Josie Farrer and now Divina D’Anna. This year is the first time a majority of recipients of the monarch’s honours in the general division are women. Governor-General David Hurley congratulated those honoured. “Learning about the wide-ranging service of recipients, which spans almost every field of endeavour imaginable, is uplifting and makes me enormously optimistic for our country,” he said. “While we can take a moment to acknowledge the significance of achieving gender parity in our honours, it should not be a cause to pause. We reflect on our progress, and then recommit our efforts to ensure nominations reflect our diverse and strong community.”