Wyndham is a long way from the Northern Territory, but it’s for service to the latter that Williams Landing’s Trish Crossin has been recognised in the Kings Birthday honours.
“I have to thank (husband) Mark and my children, this is as much an honour for them as it is for me” said Ms Crossin of news that she’d received an AM for serving the NT as an ALP Senator from 1998 to 2013.
“You do a lot of that work because you have a love and passion for the community and your reward is just to improve people’s lives” she said of an honour that left her humbled and surprised.
That passion for improving the lives of others was how a young teacher born and raised in Melbourne’s west ended up representing a vastly different community, a vast distance away, in Federal Parliament.
“Mark and I decided to take our teaching career to the Commonwealth Teaching Service in the Northern Territory in a remote community called Yirrkala, which is the home of Yothu Yindi and where the Yunupingu family is from,” said Ms Crossin of why she and her husband moved to the territory in 1981.
From there she progressed through the NT union movement before being selected to fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Senator Bob Collins in 1998.
Of the next 15 years in parliament, only the final five would be spent in government, which unsurprisingly, Ms Crossin nominated as the highlight.
That’s a night i’ll never forget,” she said of the moment in 2007 when Kevin Rudd swept Labor back into power.
“We were able to get the extra money to finish an oncology unit, get a major arterial road in the territory, we were one of the first places to get the NBN, so much happened in that five years,” recalled Ms Crossin of what the Labor government achieved for the NT during its time in office.
“It was the most remarkable experience.”
Like the government, Ms Crossin’s political career ended in 2013 when the ALP controversially replaced her with former Olympian Nova Perris.
Soon after the Crossin’s returned to Melbourne’s west and while still serving on a few boards, she is now mostly retired.
However her background in the NT and ALP means Ms Crossin is paying close attention to the Voice referendum which she strongly supports.
“We have to stop creating policies without truly consulting about how it will impact their (Indigenous peoples) lives.
If it’s not gonna affect you, why would you not say yes?”
