• Title
  Item 1: Penny Sharpe interview by Martin Portus
• Level of description
  item
• Date
  
  23 January 2024
• Type of material
  Nonmusical Sound Recordings, Oral Histories
• Reference code
  9680429
• Physical Description
  3 audio files (1 hr., 35 min.) - digital, WAV, stereo (48 kHz, 24 bit)
  
• Scope and Content
  In this interview Penny Sharpe discusses her family background growing up and being schooled in Canberra, teenage jobs, music, and sport interests, and quietly realising her sexuality. She reflects on her involvement in politics, firstly while studying at UNSW and then through the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and her role as President of the National Union of Students. This led her to work for six years as advisor to NSW Legislative Council MP Carmel Tebbutt.
  
  Penny details the progressive nature of the Sydney inner west electorate and her unsuccessful 2015 campaign - including her first ‘queer’ traditional family shot - to win the newly created seat of Newtown; her loss to the Greens Jenny Leong, and her quick reappointment to fill her own NSW Legislative Council seat. She discusses her relationship with long-term partner Jo and their three children, her work in Parliament and within the Australian Labor Party around the 2013 NSW Bill for Same Sex Marriage and her lobbying at all levels of the Party, with Penny Wong, against internal, often faith-based objections to equality under law for LGBTQ+ communities.
  
  Penny speaks of the reaction she received as the first ever lesbian mother in the NSW Parliament and her policy priorities including advocating for queer and parents. The interview ends with Sharpe’s responses to four short focus questions.
• Language
  English
• Copying Conditions
  In copyright:
  Copyright holder:: State Library of New South Wales
  Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
• General note
  
  Recorded at Forbes Street Studios, Woolloomooloo, New South Wales, on 23 January 2024.
• Creator/Author/Artist
  Sharpe, Penny, 1970-
  
• Subject
  Sharpe, Penny, 1970---Interviews.
  Politicians--New South Wales--Interviews.
  Gay parents--New South Wales.
  
• Open Rosetta viewer
  IE20856192

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