Why this skateboarding MLA can thank her daughter for landing her a new job

Joining the Greens had always been somewhere on her to-do list but she had never gotten around to it.

That was until her high school-aged child told her she was signing up for the party.

"That's when I joined to make sure it was a safe place for her to be a part of," she says.

Just a few years later, Davidson had won a seat in the ACT Legislative Assembly and been catapulted into Cabinet as a first-term minister.

She is one of six Greens members after the party won 13 per cent of the vote at the October territory election.

Davidson, a former community sector worker and software developer, grew up on a farm near a small town west of Wagga.

Politics was not something her family discussed and to this day she still has no idea who her father voted for.

But it was this rural upbringing that lit a political light in her.

When she was about eight, Davidson's home town was in the midst of a once-in-100-year drought and farmland had turned into arid wastelands.

"It was a horrific drought, it really was," she says.

"We didn't have water to drink, we had to truck it in."

At the same time, a sheep shearing strike was dividing the town in two: workers on the one side and land-owning producers on the other.

"It was at that time I realised, actually who you pick for government makes a difference," she says.

"On TV you'd turn on and see this news footage of Franklin River and these guys saying, 'If you vote for us, we'll save the river'. I had never seen so much water in my life. That was an age that I couldn't even understand party politics, I just knew there was a role for governments to take care of communities."

Davidson moved to Canberra straight out of high school.

She briefly lived in both Melbourne and Sydney but neither of them really felt right.

"I knew I needed to be in a place where there were job opportunities," she says.

"At the same time I knew that that country town kind of feeling means something to me. Canberra had it and still does."

The new MLA may be one of the only politicians in the country who rides a skateboard to work.

On days she catches the bus to work, she can be seen skating from the stop to home.

She roller skates for fun, but her skateboard is the most practical way of getting around.

Before she was heavily involved in politics she was a keen roller derby participant.

These days she skates for fun and is sometimes spotted around Lake Burley Griffin.

Davidson knows there is a lot of pressure for the Greens to deliver on their raft of election policies.

As a first-time minister, with portfolios including mental health and community services, she will be expected to deliver.

But she's confident her life experience and the now strong voice of the Greens in Cabinet will lead to real change.

"I think we're going to see a quantum leap ahead in what we can do in the next four years, because there's more of us and we've got more experience," she said.