By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
OBSERVANT readers may have noticed a subtle change on Judith Graley’s Facebook page, emails and press releases in recent times.
The Narre Warren South MP, who has held the seat since 2006, is now using her full name – Judith Couacaud Graley.
But why the sudden change?
Well it turns out it’s not as sudden as it appears. Couacaud – which she pronounces ‘Co Card’ – is Mrs Graley’s maiden name, a Mauritian name steeped in history. And one she wears with pride.
“My ancestors, my great, great, great grandfather and his family came here to Australia to flee political persecution,” Mrs Graley said.
“They left Mauritius and caught a boat across the Indian Ocean and turned up in Melbourne, and my great, great, great grandfather walked up a dirt road to the Ballarat gold fields and started panning for gold.”
For Judith, the name Couacaud was an important family tradition but when she put up her hand for the seat of Narre Warren South in the mid-2000s, after a stint as a councillor and mayor with the Mornington Council, aides within the Labor Party urged her to drop one of her surnames.
She said ‘Judith Couacaud Graley’ was viewed as too cumbersome a name on the campaign trail.
At the time, Mrs Graley went on holidays with her husband Stephen, and when she returned to contest the Narre Warren South seat, the decision had been made for her.
“We had to win Narre Warren South to maintain Government, so you sacrifice a few things, I was asked which name I would take,” she said.
“When I got back from my vacation flyers were going out with ‘Judith Graley’ on them, someone else had decided for me.
“So I became Judith Graley for political campaigning purposes.”
But 10 years later a lot has happened.
It’s a decade in which Judith has won the Narre Warren South seat three times, while fighting breast cancer in 2008.
The cancer was successfully removed following an operation and successive bouts of chemotherapy, but Judith said understandably once you’ve suffered cancer “every time you go to the doctor you feel nervous”.
Another change is that Judith is again using her Mauritian name regularly.
It’s something she views as important to her identity.
“When we started doing a lot of campaigning on Facebook, I had it set up as Couacaud Graley and I went back to using it a little bit more when we went online,” she said.
“To tell you the truth I really liked it again, it’s something I became comfortable with, and my children like that name and that’s me, that’s who I am.”
