Nova Peris can definitely walk and chew gum.
She's appearing on the new season of Dancing with the Stars, which starts on Channel Seven tonight, and can talk about sequins with the best of them.
But she can also get serious. Very serious about her support for Israel and her disgust at some of the antics of pro-Palestinian protesters in Australia.
We're speaking on Thursday afternoon, as Senator Fatima Payman has resigned from the Labor Party over her support for Gaza and protesters have scaled the roof of Parliament House and unfurled pro-Palestinian banners down its facade.
The same building where 53-year-old Peris spent almost three years as a Labor Senator for the Northern Territory, the first Aboriginal woman elected to federal parliament.
She's livid. About the Parliament House protest. And the pro-Gaza graffiti that has defaced war memorials on Canberra's Anzac Parade three times this year.
"Eight thousand Jewish people fought for the freedom of every single person in this country and how anyone can attack the War Memorial? Really?" she said.
"What happened today? The politician's job is to represent the constituents of this continent. This continent. I am so ashamed and I'm disgusted. This is a kick in the guts for all Australians who have enjoyed the freedoms and liberties of this country."
Peris, who was the first Indigenous person to win an Olympic gold medal (for hockey) and the first person to make back-to-back Olympics finals in two different sports (hockey and athletics) says she loves Australia deeply and "represented this country with pride".
She's walked the Kokoda Trail more than once in honour of her great-grandfather Jack Knox, who served in the 2nd/16th Battalion AIF in the Syria/Lebanon and Kokoda campaigns from 1942 to 1945.
And she's been very public about her support for Israel and its right to exist since the October 7 massacre by Hamas terrorists.
"I went to Israel four days after I finished filming Dancing with the Stars. It was an incredible trip. I cried every day. I went to Kibbutz Be'eri. And spoke to family members, family member still with hostages. You want the war to end? Release the hostages. That's what we should be chanting, 'Release the hostages!'," she said.
And she is not bothered by any blow-back about her support for Israel.
"I don't care. Every day of the week, I stand with the Jewish people Every day," she said.
"Because I know my history and I know what they've done for the Aboriginal people. They've litigated some of the biggest lands rights cases. My country in Arnhem - that was the Jewish bar. The freedom rides with Charlie Perkins - six Jewish people were on that bus. Who helped end apartheid? Jewish lawyers. Who helped the civil rights movement in the United States? Oh, that's right, the Jewish people."
There's a steeliness to Peris, as well as a no-nonsense attitude.
She says she went on Dancing with the Stars to help promote "Aboriginal people in a positive light" and encourage health and fitness.
Since moving back to her hometown of Darwin, she says she's gone to way too many funerals of people dying way too young.
"I've been to a number of funerals where Aboriginal people are dying in their early 50s. People I went to school with who have passed away. and people are passing away from curable, preventable illnesses. But our people, Aboriginal people, is 10 to 15 years less than non-Aboriginal people," she said.
Even well before the show, the mother-of-three had got match-fit for her Kokoda campaigns. She is still in demand as a public speaker and says Australians still wants to see the fit young woman who won her gold medal in hockey nearly 30 years ago at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. And she says that's not a bad motivation. Dancing with the Stars just took her fitness up another notch.
"I'm glad I did it. I had a great time and met a whole new family," she said.
"I knew a few of them before going into it, like Shane Crawford and Ben Cousins. But, yeah, it was an incredible experience.
"The extent of my dancing before then was mostly with the Hockeyroo girls after we'd won several tournaments," she added, with a laugh.
And she will be involved with the Paris Olympics as an expert commentator for the hockey and athletics. She'll be doing it from a studio in Melbourne but the Peris family will be well-represented in Paris.
"My younger cousin Brooke Peris, this is her third Olympics with the Hockeyroos. My daughter and my sister and a heap of family members are all going over to the Olympics. So we'll be cheering her on," she said.
- Dancing with the Stars starts tonight at 7pm on Channel 7 and 7plus.
