At an International Women’s Day lunch in Mudgee on Friday, Ms Mitchell discussed her path into politics and how she balances the demands of her work as parliamentary secretary for Regional and Rural  Health and Western NSW with being a wife and mother of a two-and-half-year old daughter. 

Ms Mitchell’s work frequently takes her away from her home in Gunnedah:  In the week previous to her visit to Mudgee she had travelled to Dubbo, Port Macquarie, Sydney and the South Coast, as well as Mudgee, with a trip to Foster planned on the weekend.

However, Ms Mitchell said contrary to the perception that politics is unsupportive to women, she had found the opposite to be true since she was elected at the age of 28 years. 

“I think parliament is seen as a boys’ club but that is not what I found at all,” she said.   “I have never been treated any differently because I was a young woman. 

“I found parliament to be an accommodating workplace to be a pregnant woman and a new mother.  I went back to work when my daughter was nine weeks old, and could take her into the office.”

Ms Mitchell’s interest in politics began when she did work experience in the office of John Anderson, her local MP and leader of the Nationals.   After studying politics and international relations at the University of NSW, she joined Mr Anderson’s staff full time.

She worked for Member for Parkes Mark Coulton for five years before taking the next step into parliament, where she is the youngest member of the Legislative Council and the youngest woman in State Parliament. 

“I didn’t do it without family support and I had to be confident of that before I put my hand up,” she said. 

 “We didn’t know how we would make it work, but we do.” 

Ms Mitchell said balancing family and political commitments affected all members of parliament, male or female. 

“The difficulties of time and travel and missing home and family are something that all members struggle with, regardless of gender,” she said. 

Ms Mitchell is keen to encourage other women to get involved in politics, whether on local, state or federal levels. 

She supports the Nationals’ “Pledge for Parity” which sets a target of achieving a 50/50 balance between male and female MPs in the party by 2025. 

“We have a lot of women involved in the party in local branches but they do not seem to make the progression,” she said. 

“In the past 97 years, the Nationals have had 250 state and federal members of parliament, but only 10 have been women. 

“We need to find out what the barriers are, so we can try to get more women into parliament and dispel the myth that it is a boys’ club.” 

Ms Mitchell said as a member of the state’s upper house, she was able to look at issues such as health, education and roads on a state-wide basis rather than a single electorate. 

“At the moment we are focussing on rolling out capital works,” she said.   “We have been looking into improving hospitals and MPSes and HealthOnes, including Tamworth, Dubbo, Parkes and Peak Hill. 

“Having good public buildings for health staff to work out of helps to build confidence in the system.”