Last Friday, the Labor caucus elected her as leader, after Braddon MHA Bryan Green retired from politics.

Despite having spent seven years in Parliament, Ms White acknowledged that, as leader, she needed to reintroduce herself to Tasmanians.

“I do understand that people want to understand who I am, where I come from, what my values are, what drives me,” Ms White told Fairfax Media.

Ms White grew up on her parents’ dairy farm in Nugent, situated in the south-east of her electorate of Lyons.

While her family was not necessarily a political one, Ms White said they would often sit around the kitchen table talking about issues facing their community.

“The things that started to make me challenge the accepted norms were the sorts of things I saw in our community that didn’t seem fair,” she said.

“My parents liked to talk about what was happening.

“So those sorts of things shaped my thinking around key issues in our community.

“And then as I grew a bit older, I started to question why certain things happened [in] certain ways.”

Ms White said growing up in the country instilled in her the value of a hard day’s work.

“Since I could walk, really, I’ve been put to work by my parents,” she said with a laugh.

It was when she entered the workforce as a college student that Ms White’s connection to the Labor cause really began to manifest itself.

After working the checkouts at Woolworths, she paid her way through university with jobs in hospitality.

Ms White joined the Labor Party when John Howard was Prime Minister.

“The real catalyst for me joining the Labor Party was the ‘Your Rights at Work’ campaign, and the push that was made at that time, particularly under Kevin Rudd,” she said.

Ms White said she was galvanised by federal Labor’s campaign to reform the nation’s industrial relations laws to ensure fair outcomes for as many workers as possible.

Labor’s values of equality and social justice resonated the most with the young Ms White.

After graduating university, she took up a full-time position as a staffer for the former federal member for Denison Duncan Kerr.

Having purchased a block of land, however, Ms White juggled her new role with stacking shelves at Woolworths, so that she could pay off her mortgage.

As vice president of Young Labor, her path to Parliament became clearer.

Joining the youth wing of the Labor Party, Ms White said, was a great opportunity for young people to “test their ideas” and thus determine which aspect of public life was best suited to them.

When Ms White stood as a candidate for Lyons in 2010, her campaign attracted some controversy from within the ranks of her own party.

Running a video advertisement depicting a Polly Waffle wrapper being discarded, Ms White’s campaign was perceived as a slight to Labor’s other Lyons candidates at the time, Michael Polley and David Llewellyn.

Mr Llewellyn lost his seat, but in an ironic twist, found himself sitting next to Ms White in Parliament upon being reelected in 2014.

Ms White denied she campaigned against her fellow party members.

“It was about renewal for the Labor Party, but also for the electorate of Lyons,” she said.

“I stood as a candidate from the south-eastern portion of the electorate, when all of the sitting members had been from the north. 

“So I thought it was about time we had fair representation across the electorate.

“We need to have generational change, too.”

When she won her seat in 2010, Ms White began her parliamentary career working under then Premier David Bartlett.

But it was not long before Lara Giddings assumed the leadership mantle, and Ms White took note of their differing styles of leadership.

When Labor lost the 2014 election, and Mr Green became leader, Ms White continued to take notes.

“I have been fortunate to have been able to work under [Mr Bartlett, Ms Giddings and Mr Green] and [to] see how they engage with their caucus and different stakeholders outside the party,” Ms White said.

“Thinking about all of that, the type of leader that I’d like to be is one that’s inclusive.”

She said she wanted to be seen as someone who was honest and trustworthy, who could inspire loyalty within the caucus, and, indeed, the party as a whole.

“I want to surround myself with people who really believe in the Labor cause and who want to work really hard,” Ms White said.

“Because my expectations are that people are here to do the right thing for Tasmania, and I expect them to work with that in mind at all times.”

Preselection for the next election opens on May 8, and Ms White is calling for new faces to stand up and be counted, just as she did seven years ago.

“If you’re going to have a party truly represent the community, you need to have all sorts of different people in there,” she said.

“Because then you’ll have a much deeper and better understanding of the different communities and their issues.”