First-timers break the mould

THE new-look lower house will have more than a few firsts.

For the first time, Australians have elected a Muslim member of parliament. Ed Husic, who replaces the retiring Roger Price as Labor member for the western Sydney seat of Chifley, is the son of Bosnian immigrants and the national president of the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union of Australia, where he led strike action against Australia Post.

Speaking to the Herald from his home in Blacktown yesterday, Mr Husic was reluctant to claim his election as a victory for Australia's Muslims.

''If people ask me my religion I tell them I'm a Muslim,'' he said. ''But if they say, 'Do you pray, do you fast, do you do all those other things?' - I don't. I'm just a regular bloke in the suburbs who's trying to represent the area I grew up in.

''If people can take out of this election a small happiness that the Federal Parliament is bringing into it people from all walks of life, then I'm happy with that.''

Mr Husic made an unsuccessful tilt for the seat of Greenway in the 2004 election, and later accused his opponents of running a whisper campaign against him based on his religious beliefs.

He addressed the issue in a speech to the Sydney Institute the following year, saying: ''The biggest step Muslims can take is to recognise people are scared. They see so-called Muslims doing terrible things to others in the name of religion. People wonder if they, too, will be a victim.''

But Mr Husic said he felt religion had little to do with this campaign, despite the Liberal Party candidate David Barker being disendorsed after he posted anti-Muslim comments online.

''At that point in time [in 2004], what I was most concerned about was that people in the political process could use religion as a way to divide the community,'' he said.

''While there was an attempt this time to make it a factor in this campaign, I do congratulate the Liberal Party for moving to make sure that did not occur.''

Australia is also on the verge of having its first indigenous member in the lower house, as the Liberal candidate for the still undecided Perth seat of Hasluck, Ken Wyatt, closes in on victory.

''I think Australians have been very generous in the way we've come forward over the last 30 years,'' Mr Wyatt told Sky News yesterday.

Another Wyatt, the 20-year-old Liberal member for Longman in Queensland, Wyatt Roy, pictured below, is also making history by becoming the youngest elected member of parliament.

Mr Roy, who voted for the first time in this election, nominates Losing My Virginity by the billionaire Richard Branson as one of his favourite books on his Facebook page.

Adam Bandt, who will be the member for Melbourne, is the first Greens candidate to win a House of Representatives seat at a general election.

This year's celebrity newcomer is the former tennis great John Alexander, who wrested back control of the seat of Bennelong for the Liberals from one of the star Labor candidates in the 2007 election, Maxine McKew.

Labor ranks will be boosted by the election of the former Australian National University economist Andrew Leigh in Canberra, who replaces the retiring party veteran Bob McMullan.

But while there are new faces, this election also marks the return of some familiar ones: the Liberals' Warren Entsch, Ross Vasta and probably Teresa Gambaro, who is locked in a tight contest for the seat of Brisbane with Labor's Arch Bevis.

The longest-serving MP, Philip Ruddock, was also re-elected - his 36 years in Parliament almost twice as long as the newcomer Wyatt Roy has lived.