“I remember driving up the freeway one day and there was a storm behind me,” she said.

“Every few minutes there was a phone call. There had been a pipe burst, a sewage overflow at one place, and a whale entangled in a net. 

“Then there was something else on fire and an issue with an animal at the zoo.

“Every day in the environment portfolio – because you are dealing with marine issues to ­hazardous industry and even the zoo – it’s as much about understanding that things go wrong and having the people and structures in place to deal with that.” 

But what about the media storm of three years ago at Kooragang the MLC turned MP stumbled through?

Few didn’t feel some level of sympathy given her obvious distress trying to answer questions about the ammonia vapor leak that forced the ammonium nitrate plant to close temporarily.

“It’s interesting that people still talk about it. I guess with the benefit of hindsight and a little more experience I wouldn’t have been the person who accepted being pushed out front for what was really a public health issue,” she said.

“But it really gave us the very good opportunity to say this isn’t good enough and that industry had been getting away with it for far too long.”

If there was a silver lining, it was the oppor­tunity for the new minister to work even harder.

“Within a week we had an independent audit happening [and] the audit of those 44 hazardous sites we identified meant we had a much better ­picture of what had to be done.”

Her personal response and feelings on the ­matter remain guarded, much like her recent ­ejection from cabinet, which is perhaps a defence mechanism after 11 years in parliament.

 Asked if her rejection came down to performance her answer was a resounding “No”.

Behind her stands a proud family including Robyn’s daughter Chelsea, who at age 24 knows more than most about the barbs of politics.

“There’s a lot of misinformation out there and a lot that happens behind the scenes that people don’t know about,” she said. 

“Most people will go through difficulty in their career but [politics] is a very public thing and you go through it in front of everyone.”

Chelsea works in the top tier of law firms in Sydney as a recent graduate and will be a solicitor next year.

Like her mum, she  enjoys family time but it’s not the manicures and lattes one might expect mother and daughter would bond over.

“It’s the most interesting thing to see her going from wearing stilettos and a suit to jumping up and down in a mosh pit wearing gumboots,” she said. “Our whole family is very musical and we have this annual pilgrimage to Byron Bay for the blues and roots festival.” 

Robyn said family helped her to put recent events into perspective.

“We haven’t always had an easy time and my son was sick at one point,” she said of Dylan’s brain tumour and subsequent recovery which was documented in Australian Story.

“I guess people are expecting me to be miserable about losing the ministry and it is disappointing. 

“But there are people out there without no roof over their head, then there are people out there like my friend with breast cancer, or the families like mine that have been through a child being unwell. 

“In the scheme of things if I was asked to be a minister again I would and looking back I think I did a good job.”

It’s a job Robyn hopes to reprise one day.

“[But] ... you can’t be a minister until you’re a local member or a member of the upper house first and that’s really your first priority.”