[1] At the time of her election to parliament, she managed a counselling service supporting the employees of two coal mines at Middlemount and Tieri outside Rockhampton, along with their associated communities.
[6] As a new MP, Henzell described Question Time as "a bit of a boys' locker room" and described her own approach to parliament as a woman as "I won't sit around being patted on the head.
"[7] She publicly criticised senior colleague John Dawkins for referring to opposition MP Kathy Sullivan as "sweetheart" in parliament in 1993.
[5] In 1994, she questioned her own party's Prime Minister, Paul Keating, about his decision to personally take over the women's affairs portfolio following the resignation of Ros Kelly, asking him if he did not believe anyone in the caucus was sufficiently able; an angry Keating claimed Henzell was sexist, and Henzell expressed her annoyance at not being taken seriously over the issue.
[9][10] In October 1994, in relation to a contentious debate on a sexual privacy bill, Henzell claimed in parliament that "we are all born bisexual", which made front-page news in the Rockhampton newspaper The Morning Bulletin and led to her receiving many angry letters from constituents; she subsequently clarified that her comment "was not referring to people's sexual orientation; it referred to the fact that we all have male and female traits and hormones and that human sexuality is a widely misunderstood subject".