28-05-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
Australia's youngest-ever senator is 21 – and she wasn't expected to win
A woman who turned 21 on the day of
Australia 's federal election in May has been declared the nation's youngest ever senator.
And like many female candidates who run for election in Australia, Charlotte Walker was not expected to win.
The former union official won the governing centre-left Labor Party's third Senate seat for South Australia state in a complicated rank order voting system. A party's third choice rarely wins.
She had the lowest vote count of the six newly elected senators for the state. The Australian Electoral Commission officially declared the poll Tuesday.
The new job will be a 'big adjustment,' said Walker, who starts her six-year term July 1. A federal lawmaker's base salary is more than 205,000 Australian dollars ($133,000) annually.
'There's a few feelings. Obviously, there's a lot of pressure,' Walker told Australian Broadcasting Corporation after the results were announced late on Monday.
