Laura Gerber MP: Local, loyal and leading for the future

“I grew up here, around Terranora, Elanora, Palm Beach, Currumbin,” says the Liberal National Party’s State Member for the Gold Coast seat of Currumbin.

“I passed my Bronze Medallion with the Currumbin Beach Vikings Surf Life Saving Club as a teenager. My work experience was in Coolangatta, my husband Dan and I were married on Currumbin Beach, and we are raising our children here. I started my law career and my political career on the southern Gold Coast.

“I always wanted to stay local, including with my choice of university, which was always Southern Cross. Once I was accepted into the Bachelor of Laws degree, I could not wait to start.”

With her study based at the University’s Lismore campus – this was before the Gold Coast campus was built and before the upgrading of the M1 highway – Laura commuted between the Gold Coast and the Northern Rivers. To her credit, the demands of the daily drive never altered her vision of where the road would eventually lead.

“When I was about 10 or 11, I had a one-track mind about wanting to be a lawyer, being in court and running trials. My mum likes to remind me that I was also hooked on the TV law drama Ally McBeal at the time, so let’s not discount its influence,” says Laura, rolling her eyes and laughing at the memory.

“When I came to Southern Cross University, that sense of something ‘meant to be’ was so strong. I could see my law career in front of me. It really set me up with the right values, skills and self-belief needed for the transition into professional practice.

“I also remember there were several women in my cohort. Many had families and were travelling day after day to study. Southern Cross had its own childcare facility at the Lismore campus, and I remember just how forward-thinking this was at that time.”

Laura fast-tracked her degree by attending winter and summer school – “it helped that the summer school was in Byron Bay” – graduating in three years and launching her professional career with Attwood Marshall Lawyers in Coolangatta.

“I started out doing the bread-and-butter legal work – learning my trade through conveyancing, commercial law, wills and estates,” she says. “Then came the opportunity that really was the culmination of all my childhood imaginings. It was a leap of faith, and I took it.”

Just four years after graduating from Southern Cross University, Laura was appointed to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) as a Federal Prosecutor.

Though based in Brisbane, the challenging role intensified Laura’s local focus as the impact of major crime on victims and their communities became abundantly clear in the cases she took on, and the criminals she so vigorously pursued.

“This was heavy subject matter,” she says. “I was investigating and prosecuting bikie gangs, people trafficking, crimes against children. It was dangerous, but also exhilarating as we worked to seize assets, end criminal operations and bring perpetrators to justice.”

After four years with the Commonwealth DPP, Laura left in 2015 to work as a disciplinary prosecutor with the Office of the Health Ombudsman, where she became a barrister and in-house Counsel. Then in 2020, another leap of faith presented itself.

“If you had told me five years ago that I would be a local member representing my own community in the Queensland Parliament, I would not have believed you,” says Laura.

“I mean, I was at the height of my legal career and could easily have stayed on that path. Yet even before I stood for the electorate of Currumbin, I was concerned that issues and outcomes were not meeting community standards or expectations.”

Elected in March 2020, Laura is determined to deliver sound representation and informed guidance in the creation of good legislation, particularly in relation to her community. Youth and social justice, victim support and community safety are priorities.

In so doing, she still draws on the lessons from her years at Southern Cross University.

“My degree gave me a wonderful grounding in the law,” says Laura.

“It also taught me to trust and apply my own forward-thinking as a local MP, to better understand and meaningfully respond to the needs and issues affecting the people in my community and, by extension, every community.”