General News
9 August, 2025
From the pollie’s heart
NEW Member for Leichhardt Matt Smith – during his maiden speech to Federal Parliament last week – has revealed the depths of despair after his Taipans basketball career ended.
He also urged his constituents, especially men, to seek mental health help as early as possible and to end domestic violence.
“My NBL career came to an end in 2008/09 when the Taipans went broke,” Mr Smith said.
“Post-basketball, like many athletes, I was a bit lost,” he said.
“I worked a while for the former member for Leichhardt Jim Turnour, who at the time held the seat of Leichhardt, and former Senator Jan McLucas before making my way into the sport and rec industry.
Depression
“Without the structure and identity that basketball gave me I quickly spiralled into depression.
“I will not pretend that it was fine. I lost five years of my life wildly oscillating between flight or fight and a numb blankness. I looked at every possible option to make it stop.
“In the end salvation came from three things … professional help, a renewed focus on my physical fitness and a return to the sport.
“With the encouragement of my friend Jamie Pearlman, a former Taipan player turned state league coach, I found my way back into the Queensland Basketball League, and then I re-discovered me.
“I found the strength I needed to get out of depression in asking others to help, not in drowning in my own ego and weird perceptions of masculinity.
“Professional sport asks you to be an invulnerable, unbeatable hero and people will love you for it. And you will love you for it.
“But when it’s all over and the crowds go away it is hard for Superman to be only Clark Kent.
“I said goodbye to elite basketball on my terms in 2018. We’d had a beautiful run of over 20 years together.
Kindness
“As my body aged and my skills diminished, I learned that it’s nicer being vulnerable, being available, being a real person, being kind, being Clark.”
In his 3649 word speech he also referred to climate change and the region’s potential as a renewable “global powerhouse”.
“The Far North represents 10 per cent of all domestic violence call outs for all of Queensland,” Mr Smith said.
Calling out DV
“We’ve had enough tragedy. I was deeply affected by a murder-suicide that rocked our region.
“I attend many rallies calling for an end to domestic and gendered violence, events like Reclaim The Night. Too often I am one of very few male voices in the room.
“Men of Australia, I challenge you to step up on this issue. Recent statistics say that 32 per cent of men confessed to using coercive control on women, 10 per cent copped to using physical violence.
“To put that into perspective, on any cricket team statistically one teammate beats his partner.
“Far too often violence begets violence, intergenerational trauma is real.
“For children witnessing domestic and family violence the prism through which they see the world is darkened. Sons are taught to be perpetrators and daughters taught to accept it.
“As men, we have to call out this behaviour, protect those we love and help other men to break the cycle and deal with the mental health issues that exacerbate violence. We owe this to our children and ourselves.”
Beautiful tropics
Mr Smith described Leichhardt as “a place of unfathomable beauty and diversity”.
“It is the most Australian place in Australia. Leichhardt is the home of two ancient and distinct cultures (Aborigines and Torres Strait islanders),” he said.
“Climate change is hurting the Torres Strait. On the island of Masig the bodies of the ancestors and more recently departed family members, including babies, are being washed out to sea as the cemetery is inundated.
“I have spoken to members of the threatened communities who have told me quite clearly that they will not leave their babies and when the sea comes for them they will sit and accept their fate.
“For saltwater people the sea being a threat is an existential crisis of its own. This is the stark reality: the first lot of climate refugees won’t come from the South Pacific but from our own country.”
Mr Smith also paid tribute to Cairns and that was why he stood for parliament.
“I have been in Cairns for 20 years and I owe Cairns a lot,” he said.
