Federal Member for Page Kevin Hogan was first elected during the September 2013 federal election, making this year his 10-year anniversary as our representative in Canberra. He has seen a lot during this time – drought, fire, flood, and a once-in-a-generation pandemic.

Kevin sat down with Dylan Butcher to tell his life story before politics, what drove him to his current role, and some things he has learnt along the way.

I was born in regional South Australia. My family were very community orientated, so all the sporting clubs and the community groups that my Mum and Dad were members of, they were very much part of my life too.

We were always very active - playing sport, volunteering, or doing things with the numerous community groups that Mum and Dad were members of. So, country rural life is what I know, and how I grew up.

The year I left school my Dad was actually unemployed, so I worked for a year at the Commonwealth Bank branch to save enough money to be able to go to university.

I went to the city to go to university, and after going to university, I ended up in Sydney, and got a job within the financial markets. This was when the financial markets were being deregulated, so the dollar got floated, interest rates were deregulated - the whole financial system was really deregulated.

So, because of that, there were lots of jobs, and that industry just burgeoned. I was very fortunate, as a young person in my early 20s to end up in that industry.

Karen and I both worked in that industry at the time. Karen was born and bred here in Lismore, she grew up in Clunes, which is where we now live - but she trained as a nurse at Lismore Base Hospital, in this hospital system, and then went to Sydney.

We met in Sydney, in the financial markets, and we both lived there for a bit over 10 years - loved it, but then when we started having children, we said that we wanted to bring our children up with our families, well with one of our families, and in a smaller community.

Because we grew up in the country, we wanted them to grow up in a rural or regional setting, where one of our families would be around. So, we came back here in the late 90s.

We have three children – Bridget, Sean and Rosie. Our first two children, Bridget and Sean, were born in Sydney, and we had our third child, Rosie, when we moved here.

They all went to Clunes Preschool, they went to Clunes Primary School, and then went off to high school at Woodlawn.

I loved bringing them up here, it was a great place to bring them up - we are fortunate enough to have our own property just outside of Clunes, so we have cows and motorbikes, and we gave them the childhood that we wanted, and that all worked well for them.

My job in Sydney was obviously very financially rewarding, being a bond trader and a fund manager, but when we came up here, I really wanted to be of service. I just had this thing in my head saying I need to be more of service.

So, I became a school teacher, and ended up in Casino, which I really enjoyed. I did that for probably seven or eight years, over there at St. Mary's. I got to know the Casino community very well, and more specifically the parish school community, which has been wonderful too now being the MP, because Casino is in the electorate, so I now represent that town.

At the time, that was a good mind shift for me, just to reorientate me back into living in the country - what we are in the country, who we are in the country - and I obviously know a lot of young people in Casino too which is lovely. 

How I got involved in politics, was really through community stuff, I was on a Lismore City Council subcommittee about wastewater for Clunes, I was coaching Sean's cricket team, I was an active member of our tennis club, and a lot of other things around our community. Karen was also doing a lot of things through the local preschool, as well as many other organisations.

Through that, I started to meet lots of politicians and community leaders around here. I had a chat with Thomas George, well over 10 years ago now, and we had a chat about potentially putting my hand up for The Nationals, and I did in the 2010 election.

I naturally radiated towards the Nats because of their rural and regional focus, we only have MPs that sit in the country and represent rural constituents, so that appealed to me.

(Kevin Hogan and supporters on the night of the 2013 Federal Election)

I've been in this job since 2013, and it's been the greatest gift. The greatest gift I've ever had is to be a community representative, and to be a public figure for our community, and to try and advocate for our community.

The wonderful thing about this job is you meet everybody, and there are so many wonderful people, doing so many wonderful things in our community, and it's quite inspiring to meet them.

I get time in Parliament each sitting week in Canberra, that I can use to celebrate local people who do local things – and while they’re both important – it gives me more pleasure celebrating local stories and local champions, than it does debating bills.

If I look back on my career, I suppose there's been some significant events for me, and I think it shows why you need to be true to yourself in this role.

I credit my parents to this, especially my mother actually, who was a very religious woman, and had a lot of integrity herself. She said people need to know what you stand for, what your opinion is on something, and you can't flip.

One example was when I was a candidate, and coal seam gas was the major issue in our region. I went up to Dalby and Chinchilla, and there was a debate raging here. I don't believe everything I read on the internet, so I did go up and have a look.

I saw big compression plants up there, I saw the piping involved, the flares, and the big trucks that were using the roads – and I literally sat up there and said, how can we replicate this here – the answer was simple, we can’t, for a whole lot of reasons.

It just didn't fit our region; the infrastructure didn't fit our region. So, I came back and said as a candidate for the Nats in this seat, I'm anti-CSG in this region.

That was a very difficult time for me internally within the party structure – even though most members of the Nationals actually supported me – but that wasn't easy. I was nearly disendorsed as the candidate because of that. But I stay true to that, it’s what I believed and still believe.

(Kevin Hogan after announcing he would move to the crossbench)

The other one significant moment was going to crossbenches temporarily. I did that because of the revolving Prime Ministers. Things were just getting Canberra silly.

Labor had done it with Rudd, Gillard, Rudd - and we were then going, Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison. I said I think this has really got to stop, out of principle, and believe me that was not a walk in the park either. That was a very difficult time in Canberra, things were fine at home, but not good down there.

Even post-flood, I’ve spent many hours on the phone with quite heated, really expletive conversations a lot of time, just getting people to understand what was going on.

I would often say to my staff or people I've worked with, we're not in this game to make friends, we're in this game to deliver for our community. So, if we're going to be at the Lismore Square in 10 years’ time and run into someone, we can look at them and say we did everything we could.

This role will obviously always be dominated now though, by the event that we had last year. That was, let's hope, the most signature event that any of us will live through.

Being the MP through that event was traumatic in itself – it was minor really that I lost my office - but just traumatic in the sense that we all have families and friends who were devastated and traumatised by this.

We had a lot to do very quickly, and is still ongoing, but that will always be the event that will define this job for me.