The Labor MP's arms were shaking, her heart racing. "I thought there was a danger I might pass out," she says. "I got a headache from trying to stop myself crying."

The member for the western Sydney seat of Lindsay had decided to tell the nation something she had never revealed to many of her closest friends and colleagues: her experience, over 29 of her 36 years, with domestic violence. She spoke of her dad hurling food at the wall and damaging the family car so her mum couldn't escape. And of how she and her children became entangled in violence just as her own mother had.

Around Parliament House on Wednesday, people stopped and listened. If an MP had given such a personal speech before, no one could remember it. Her colleagues stood to applaud, tears running down their cheeks. With a speech written in an hour before question time that day, the backbencher from Penrith had catapulted herself to national attention less than six months since being elected.

"I had no idea when I wrote the speech that it would have the impact it has," Husar tells Fairfax Media in her office on Thursday. "I certainly wasn't ready for it. It's 24 hours later and still the swirl of nausea is quite strong."

After the speech, some of her parliamentary colleagues whispered to her that they too had experienced domestic violence. Political staffers told her the same thing. Emails and Facebook messages from people telling their stories are still pouring in.

"I got a message from someone I went to school with who said, 'I wish I'd known you were going through that because I was too and it would have been nice to have a friend who knew'."

At an event that night for domestic violence prevention group Our Watch, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten threw away his prepared remarks to focus on Husar's speech.

"You get moments in Parliament where the contribution of an individual takes it from being a place of work and law making to a place of inspiration," he said.

"What I suspect, Emma, is that other women will feel the power to leave relationships, other kids will be able to talk about what's happened ... you were simply magnificent and you reminded us all not only of family violence but why we do our jobs."

Born and raised in Penrith, Husar worked at McDonald's, Foot Locker and trained as a primary school teacher before becoming an adviser to Labor MP Ed Husic. Just two years after joining the party, she was selected to run as the ALP's candidate for a state seat at the 2015 NSW election. Husar scored a 10 per cent swing against the Baird government, a result that convinced Labor to run her as their candidate for the marginal Liberal-held seat of Lindsay at the July 2 federal election.

NSW ALP general secretary Kaila Murnain says: "Emma is one of the hardest working candidates I've ever seen. She is a single mum with three kids and she campaigned her heart out."

While playing basketball halfway through the campaign, Husar badly injured the ligaments in her knee and had to hobble around on crutches for the final four weeks. "I think people expected I would give up," she said. But after a day of rest she was back on the trail and unseated Liberal MP Fiona Scott. ("It's still pretty shithouse," she says of her knee.)

Husar says her mum was "very proud" of Wednesday's speech; her dad was "ok" about it but worried about the attention it would bring. While she says she's not a "one trick pony" - health, disability and education policy are particular passions - she plans to leverage the attention her speech has garnered to argue for more funding and better training for courts to deal with domestic violence. The presumption that men and women should have equal custody of their children also has to go if it puts kids at risk. And she says the trend for employers to offer domestic violence leave should be encouraged rather than denigrated.

"The people who are campaigning against it have probably never had a need to use it," she says.

While leaving a violent home is fraught, she hopes her story will convince other women to find the support they need to get out.

"We try to convince ourselves we stay for our children," she says. "As a child who went through it - and seeing my children go through it - I'd recommend against that. It's not healthy to witness that stuff."

Her story wasn't just her own, she says, but "thousands of people's stories" that deserve to be heard.

"I've tried to teach my kids to always tell the truth even if it makes your voice shake," she says.

If you or someone you know needs assistance with family violence call 1800 RESPECT. In an emergency, call 000.

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