Elizabeth Kikkert doesn't drink coffee. Which seems odd for a woman who has five children, wakes up at 3am most days and has just been elected to public office.
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But the new Liberal Member for Ginninderra said after years of sleep deprivation, that quiet hour of the morning is the only time she can get anything done.
"3am is just a magical time for me," Kikkert said.
"I think about things and to ponder about my day ahead and the day before and use that time to really meditate on what has happened and how I can improve things."
As one of 12 new politicians entering the ACT Legislative Assembly, Kikkert has a lot to ponder.
Born in Tonga, she moved to Adelaide aged eight.
Australia seemed like a magical place to her but she struggled with the language and school yard bullies in her early years here.
"When we first moved here everything was bright, we had street lights, our toilet was flushing, we had hot water, it was just beautiful," she said.
"At the same time it was difficult because I didn't know any English. The only words I knew was yes and no. And so I was teased a lot in primary school."
Domestic violence marred her parents' marriage and after they broke up, her father moved back to Tonga.
Her mother worked the graveyard shift at a nursing home to keep food on the table for Kikkert and her four siblings.
Kikkert and her husband Sean started their own family young, and have five children - Cormac, 15, Utopia, 14,Virtue, 12, Manti, 10, and Laneah, 8.
"It's beautiful chaos. You know I love the noise. I love the footsteps. I love the screaming. I love the 'I can't find my other sock! Where's my shoe?!'.
"I love that noise because I know that within 10 years time I'm not going to be able to hear that because then they'll be old enough to look after themselves and leave home."
She spent much of her time volunteering and raising their growing brood once they moved to Canberra in 2005, but said politics was not really on her radar.
"If you were to ask me about five years ago if I wanted to become a politician my answer would be quickly no," she said.
"But if you were to ask me a different question in five years' time do you see yourself serving the people of Canberra I would immediately say yes. And the way I look at it as a politician, that's what you do right?"
Finding a way to serve Canberrans was an idea she arrived at as she turned 30.
"A lot of people do the big dirty 30 party but I wanted something different," she said.
"I was starting to think about what babies bring into the world because that's necessarily what you're celebrating with your birthday, the day that you were born into the world. Babies bring joy to their family and happiness and so I wanted to continue that."
Instead of receiving gifts on her birthday, she started giving them, and performing acts of kindness around her home suburb of Charnwood.
It's an approach she has already brought into the assembly, collecting tins of canned food and bags of rice underneath a tiny Christmas tree in her office to pass onto less fortunate families at Christmas.
"When we first moved here to Canberra we didn't have any money whatsoever and we didn't know anyone," she said.
"One morning there was a mysterious knock on the door and there was no one there but a big box of groceries.
"I had three kids at the time and I was pregnant with my fourth child and that just meant the world to me, that really touched me and I want to be able to do the same thing to other people who are in need."
