Jason Virgo told South Australia’s parliament in his first speech that he had been openly gay throughout his entire adult life, then paused in the chamber as he teared up while speaking about the path that brought him there. The newly elected MP for the South East seat of MacKillop used the address to say he would rather his community hear about his sexuality from him than from an opponent or from whispers.

Virgo, who was elected at the March election, said he began organising rallies for marriage equality 17 years ago, when he was still a teenager, and added that he did not wave the flag in the air as he walked down the street. He thanked his partner, whom he called the love of his life, and said the man was born in Indonesia, is Muslim and is now a proud Australian. He also said his friendship circle was largely made up of Chinese immigrants.

The speech carried weight because it came after reports resurfaced his earlier campaigning for same-sex marriage and his past runs for the Australian Sex Party at the 2010 and 2013 federal elections. Virgo did not try to hide that history. Instead, he framed it as part of the public life that led him to the chamber, saying that if someone did seek to weaponise who he is, that said more about them than it did about him.

He also folded in a broader argument about migration, saying he loved migrants but believed the levels were too high. Virgo said he had worked on Christmas Island and described people arriving in spray overalls after their boats had sunk, with some having lost the shirts on their backs. There were drownings and deaths, he said, adding that people he asked would never take that journey again. He said “two things can be true at once,” a line that summed up the balance he was trying to strike between sympathy and restriction.

Virgo’s speech was not only about identity. He said he would be the loudest voice in the chamber defending regional industries, farmers, fishers and families in the South East, and he used the size of the challenge facing the region to underline the point, saying the area was “bigger than Belgium.” For a first-term member, the mix of personal disclosure and local pitch was unusually direct, but it also matched the political brand that helped carry him into parliament in the first place.

His address came one day after Labor MP David Wilkins delivered an emotional maiden speech of his own after winning the metropolitan seat of Lee. Wilkins said his voice was not heard and said the abuse he experienced only came to light because of mandatory reporting laws passed by parliament. He said he had tried desperately to convince others and himself that he was not gay, and later reflected that he often returned to the experience because a jury had found the evidence did not meet the criminal standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt. Together, the two speeches turned a routine parliamentary milestone into something more personal, placing sexuality and shame, in two very different ways, at the centre of the chamber.

The contrast matters now because Virgo has already signaled that he intends to speak plainly about who he is while also pressing the case for his electorate. He opened that argument with his own life, not with politics, and closed by promising to be “the loudest voice” for the South East. That is the standard he set for himself on day one, and it is the one his constituents will now measure him against.