Papers on Parliament No. 60
March 2014
Rosemary Crowley, Amanda Vanstone and Laura Tingle "Women in Federal Parliament: Past, Present and Future*"
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Rosemary Crowley - In the last 200 years or so, women
have campaigned to be able to vote in their relevant elections and, by the late
nineteenth century, women in the western world had finally won the right to
vote! Curiously, Australia, the British colony, was way ahead of the mother
country. But the right to vote did not improve the lot of the majority of
women-they were still second-class citizens. As our parliaments are the places
for making the rules that govern our society, and where things could be
changed, we needed women in parliament!
I acknowledge the arrival in this place 70 years ago of Dame
Enid Lyons and Dame Dorothy Tangney and the women who followed them. But
something more was needed and so emerged the women's movement of the late 1960s
and 70s. It was not the first campaign by women but it was timely. The 1970s
was a decade of great change-and/or the desire for change-in society,
particularly seen in the women's movement, the Women's Electoral Lobby (WEL)
and the development of women's shelters.
The dramatic effect of the WEL publication of the attitudes to
women by men in parliament before the 1972 election, and newspapers articles
about the same, produced a heady mix of public discussion and debate about the
place of women in our society. In Australia it corresponded with the election
of the Whitlam Government. Gough Whitlam addressed gatherings with the great
words 'men and women of Australia'. I felt very clearly that I was being
addressed! Whitlam won the election. Amongst other things he appointed the first
women's adviser-in the world, I think, and certainly the first in Australia.
Women were having a different presence in the public service and in the
community. Free tertiary education made it possible for a great increase in the
number of women going to university. Then Whitlam was sacked but the women's
movement did not die.
In the 1970s there was a small increase in the number of women
entering the parliament-and a further significant increase with the 1983
election of the Hawke Government. There were now six women in the House of
Representatives-Joan Child, Ros Kelly and Elaine Darling were elected in 1980
and they were joined in 1983 by Wendy Fatin, Jeannette McHugh and Helen
Mayer-and all six were Labor. They joined senators from all parties with the
majority also Labor-Margaret Guilfoyle, Margaret Reid, Shirley Walters,
Florence Bjelke-Petersen and Kathy Sullivan, Liberal and National; with Janine
Haines, a Democrat; and Susan Ryan, Jean Hearn, Pat Giles, Ruth Coleman, with
new chums Olive Zakharov, Margaret Reynolds and Rosemary Crowley-13 senators
and seven of them Labor.
I was one of those 1983 senators and when I was elected I was
the first woman the South Australian Labor Party had ever sent to Canberra, a
mere 89 years after women had won the right to both vote and stand for
parliament in South Australia. I believe I am the first federal woman minister
from South Australia but I do not match the achievements of Amanda Vanstone,
who served 10 years in cabinet, and is the longest serving woman cabinet
minister.
The Labor government was elected with a platform that included
the document Towards Equality.[1] That
document spelled out 42 proposals to advance the position of women in
Australian society and to give them 'a choice, a say and a fair go!' It
included sex discrimination legislation, affirmative action proposals, child
care, women's health programs, equal employment programs, anti-domestic
violence campaigns, education programs for girls, women and sports and
superannuation and Medicare and more. The document also had clear descriptions
of mechanisms to see all these things happen, including government mechanisms,
like the Office of the Status of Women and women's desks in departments and a
women's budget paper.
It was Labor senator Susan Ryan who had carriage of the sex
discrimination and affirmative action legislation. The Sex Discrimination Bill
lead to some of the most outrageous claims and contributions I ever heard in
the Senate. The bill actually made it unlawful to treat people differently in a
number of areas, like housing, education, financial matters, employment and
clubs on the basis of their sex, marital status, pregnancy or sexual
preference. According to those senators who opposed the bill, this was going to
lead to disaster-women would no longer want to stay at home, men would no
longer open doors for women, women would no longer want to have children and
much more outrageous nonsense. The major misunderstanding was that the bill was
all about women and that of course set the misogynist hares running. In fact
the bill was about removing different treatment of men and women in the
designated areas.
Susan Ryan copped an awful attack, both in the parliament and
in the newspapers, and both personal as well as political. After a lengthy
debate, the bill passed with a number of opposition senators crossing the floor
to vote with the Labor government on this bill. The world did not stop
spinning. Australia was not overrun by communists. Women did go on having
babies, caring for them, cooking, getting married, and much more. And the media
changed their stories and articles-the mad attacks stopped.
The bill was designed so that anyone experiencing
discrimination could easily bring their complaint to the Human Rights and Equal
Opportunity Commission, and it was free and complaints were mainly settled
without recourse to courts and legal expense by getting the parties involved to
sit down together and sort things out. The bill had another great design. At
the end of each year there had to be a report of the complaints brought and to
the shock of many, the first year had complaints from mainly working class
girls about wrongful dismissal and from men in the army on the grounds that if
they were single they had to live in barracks, use the mess hall and the
ablutions block but if they were married they got a four-bedroom
house-discrimination on the grounds of marriage status. No one had predicted
this outcome but it did two things-it helped men and boys to know the law was
there for them too, and it lead to the defence forces changing the
accommodation they have for all their members.
The affirmative action legislation which followed required
that companies with more than 100 employees establish affirmative action
proposals for women. An affirmative action agency was established to oversee
the changes and to assist in its implementation. The establishment of a
committee to work with business meant that there was little objection and the
bill passed easily.
In 1984 Bob Hawke recommended that all government departments
prepare an assessment of the impact on women of all ongoing and new programs
and to identify priorities for women-to go with the new women's budget paper.
I thought that when we got into government with increased
numbers of women, it would be all systems go for changes for women, amongst
other things. I have to say I was quite taken aback when I discovered many
women, not Labor, were opposed to our reforms, like sex discrimination
legislation and affirmative action. They were also opposed to Medicare, one of
the greatest benefits for women ever. Women were the ones who had to take sick
family members to the doctor and when they could no longer afford that, they
either shopped the doctors or had the family, particularly the children, get
sick and sicker. Medicare was, amongst other things, a great women's reform.
However, the Labor government was in office and all these
things happened-and much more. The women's budget paper showed how much each
department spent on women and on men. It was a huge eye opener. For example the
sports department showed that men's hockey had half the number of members as
did the women but it got twice the amount of money. That got changed. What the
Labor women and government did was to change things and change them for the
better. We put new items into the parliament and onto the agenda. I remember
Labor senator Pat Giles telling me that she had put uteruses onto the Senate
agenda.
I am not sure if it was Pat or me, but one of us asked Mr
President if he was aware that Hansard, that claimed to be a record of all that
was said in the Senate, was editing what we said into the third person
masculine. Men and women became men, he and she became he. I had learnt from
Gough Whitlam to read my Hansard every day and so I picked up these changes.
There was sucking in of breath along the corridors of power but we got that
changed. Now Hansard does record what is said.
Susan Ryan and I established early morning exercises in
parliament which were great as preparation for those very long days. Susan knew
of my interest in women's sport and so she appointed me to chair a government
inquiry into women, sport and the media. It recommended the establishment of a
Women's Sports Promotion Unit in the Australian Sports Commission and increased
funding for women's sport. I have to say that 30 years on, not much has changed
for financial assistance for our women sports champions-though the recent
netball game against the Kiwis was live on TV and that is a great advance. The
questions we asked back then are still pertinent today-women's sport does not
get fair recognition or support. But it is not riven with scandalous and
outrageous salaries or betting scandals.
Susan Ryan also established women's study courses in
philosophy departments of a number of universities. Women went into those
courses in considerable numbers. If they passed their first year, they had
automatic entry into university-and many women made the grade and got
university degrees. They then entered the workforce and contributed to the
economics of the country. They were all older and had no need of child care.
They were an economic benefit and I wonder if anyone has done the numbers and
measured their contribution.
Yes, we women changed the agenda but the changes for women and
for society were much more than items on the agenda. What changed after the sex
discrimination legislation and the other reforms was a great broadening or
transforming of society itself. We the people of Australia now had a different
way of understanding the country we lived in, and of how we talked about it.
There was a new conversation, a new language, a new culture in Australia. It
may have taken time to change but change it did.
If you find it hard to accept that claim, then look at our
society now and consider the changes for our sons and daughters, if not for our
grandchildren. We now have many more women and men working in non-traditional
jobs. The changes have expanded our economy as well as our conversation and
culture. No, the changes did not happen overnight but happen they did.
The society we now live in is so much better for expanding the
opportunities for everyone. That is why those people still missing from the
main story must have our consideration, whether they are Aboriginal, Asians,
migrants or newcomers from wherever, refugees and asylum seekers and always the
women as well as the men.
From all of this, it follows that more women into parliament
would be a good thing. But how to achieve that? There is an argument against
increasing the number of women in parliament, as we do in the Labor Party, by
preserving a number of places for women, because it leads to claims that such
selection necessarily means tokenism and picking second-rate women.
I am amazed that some of the Liberal women still persist with
this, when it is patently clear that excellent women have been elected into the
Labor ranks. It irks me that one argument says that if you have to pick a woman,
then you will only get token choices or second-rate candidates. It is not only
offensive, it is wrong. Labor people are able to do two things at once-choose a
woman and a woman of quality. These arguments sit strangely in a party which
has a requirement that 50 per cent of all their Liberal committee members must
be women. This was established by the women in Toorak in the 1940s when Bob
Menzies was trying to establish the Liberal Party and he needed money. He
approached the good matrons of Toorak who said yes, he could have the money, as
long as 50 per cent of Liberal committee members were women. And so it has been
ever since. And why is it never said of men? If we have to pick men, why is
that not tokenism?
Another important outcome of our Labor rules changes-to
guarantee 35 per cent women at that stage-was that a Liberal woman
parliamentarian said to me in the corridors of power, that our success made it
that much easier for the Liberal women. And I was able to tell her, after
Liberal women's success in a subsequent election, that her party's success had
the same sort of benefit for Labor women.
If you look at the figures today, you will find the evidence
that the number of Labor women in all our parliaments is now 41.7 per cent,
significantly more than the conservative women. There was a continuing increase
of women of all parties in the 1980s and 90s. Three Liberal women joined the
Senate, including Amanda Vanstone, Jocelyn Newman and Sue Knowles. There was
also a Democrat and independent woman from Western Australia, one new Labor
senator and also three Labor women in the House. Carmen Lawrence joined in
1994, Cheryl Kernot in 1990 and Natasha Stott Despoja in 1995. I am not going
to list all the women who have entered. That percentage is now 40 per cent for
the ALP and the figures bear out the effectiveness of this process.
Because I was the first ALP woman from South Australia, I
established a number of ways to keep in touch and inform women, from small
groups to meetings with other women's organisations and holding functions with
good and interesting speakers. I appreciated that the women were very
supportive and proud of me and of women in parliament-mostly.
There are two stories from my time in parliament. I visited
Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, and met with a newly formed women and the
law group. I was hoping to ask them questions but I never got one out. They
devoured me with their questions-'what is your parliament like?', 'Can you
describe how it takes place?' I told them how there is a very big room with a
table in the centre: that the speaker sits at the top of the table to keep
order and that one party sits on one side of the room and the other party on
the other side. They looked at me with huge wide eyes. 'In the same room?', they
asked. I regard that as one very sad statement of the effect of years of civil
war. Yes, in our country we sit across from each other in the same room,
testament to our country and its systems, with all their imperfections. It is
also a very good reminder of just what we have in this country and why we
should value it more and rubbish it less.
I went on a delegated legislation conference in London with
the wonderful Annie Lynch, Deputy Clerk of the Senate. She was very proud that
she had an all-women delegation, senators Pat Giles, Kay Patterson, Bronwyn
Bishop and me. I spoke about the Scrutiny of Bills Committee, established by
Alan Missen, a Liberal from Victoria, before I came into parliament. Annie
later sent me the speech from the House of Lords where they quoted me on their
way to establishing a scrutiny committee in their own parliament-a thoughtful
act on Annie's part and much appreciated. Annie Lynch was a woman pioneer
herself.
I mention this to remind me of how wonderful the staff of the
Senate were and I suspect still are. They went out of their ways to assist us
in the course of our work. I served on a number of Senate committees and later
chaired some and the secretariat staff, along with the library staff, were just
wonderful. I thank them all again. I also thank my personal staff again-much of
what is attributed to us is the work of so many others.
Yes, I want to see more women in our parliaments. It is beyond
debate, to my mind, that if we promote democracy, particularly its
representative dimension, then we must accept 50 per cent women in our
parliaments and nothing less. This must be the goal for the next century into
the next millennium. Until women stand equal alongside men, we will not have
achieved.
What our recent parliamentary history shows is that more women
in parliament means just that-more women-but it is no guarantee of improvement
of conditions for women.
I support the increased number of Liberal women and women of
non-Labor parties in parliament and I congratulate them and at the same time, I
oppose their policies, especially the things the Liberal governments did in
1996, and since, to dismantle the government machinery to assist policies and
programs for women. One of the women elected in 1996 was Pauline Hanson who led
a virulent and misinformed campaign against Australian Aboriginals and Asian
migrants. I strongly opposed what she said. But if men of very different
attitudes have been elected to our parliaments, then the same must also hold
for women.
Against these negatives is the excellent counter of the RU486
legislation. Women from four parties in the Senate united to submit a bill to
allow the importation of this medication for abortion. What an example, and
what a success!
I have raised the importance of the cultural change that the
women and the Labor government effected. It goes to the important point I made
earlier-that when women were able to have a voice and to be listened to, they
opened huge possibilities for the whole of society. They dramatically extended the
agenda, they broadened the topics for discussion, they increased the economic
wealth, the range of jobs, the education provision, the range of research and
the intelligence of the community. Perhaps most importantly, they opened new
areas for discussion, new items on the political agenda, and the language that
went with that. And I love that the conversations-the cultural changes for
women-are now happening in so many other countries. These changes enrich our
country; so it is for our world.
Not long after I entered parliament, I was accosted by a
Liberal man in parliament who challenged with 'it's not fair, why don't we have
a men's health program?' Back then I was inclined to say 'you have been running
the country for a century so what's stopping you!' Now I realise that back then
there was no conversation about men's health, no language about it, except
about how they got heart attacks from the pressure of their busy lives. It was
not talked about. Women started the conversation for women's health and that
has led to men's health expansion to many areas-significantly to depression and
Beyond Blue started by Jeff Kennett and prostates are now on television. See
what we started!
The parliamentary way is not the only way to advance the cause
of women, but it comes with the weight and the protection of the law and once
in place, it is not so easy to dismantle.
I want to finish with a few words about our recent prime minister,
Julia Gillard. There have been many women, on all sides of politics, who have
been ministers, speakers, president of the Senate; women as heads of banks and
on boards; women as premiers; women governors in three states, and one woman
Governor-General. All of these women have acquitted themselves very well. Never
have I read or heard any attack on those women except the premiers. There has
been some attack but nothing like the vicious, virulent, persistent, sexist
campaign waged against Julia Gillard after she became prime minister.
Some political cartoons were rough but it was the sexist ones
that reached new levels-unheard of levels-of gross and disgusting sexism. It
was fiercely overboard and it is worthy of some significant analysis-by others
than me.
I liked that Julia said that her being the first woman prime
minister has made it that much easier for other women to become prime minister
in the future. I am sure that is true and I hope that the standards set for
Julia Gillard are never repeated again. I have not checked the cartoons from
1943 but I am sure that there were never any to match 2013!
In the days after Julia Gillard was replaced I could not
believe the air space in our news, papers, television and other sources. A
letter to The Age on 16 September 2013 by Anne Cooper of New
South Wales says in part:
Since Gillard was removed as prime minister by her party
there have been no references to the sex of either of the male leaders, no
reference to the authenticity of their relationships, no mention of their male
privilege and no implication that their behaviour or performance is in any way
related to gender. Every woman and man in this country who possesses an ounce
of self-awareness has been deeply and painfully affected by the treatment of
the former PM.
The wonderful example and lead that earlier women in
parliament have provided, like Amanda Vanstone and I, has been set back by the
treatment of our first woman prime minister. I trust that her generosity and
dignity will lead to a better and balanced picture so that in the not too
distant future Australia has more women prime ministers who will be accepted in
their own country.
I had the great good fortune to be in parliament in a
government committed to improving things for women, with a number of women in
its ranks. Women in parliament made a difference and the first steps were taken
all those 70 years ago by two gracious women.
Amanda Vanstone - In looking at the records of the
number of women in parliament I was shocked to realise that up until the recent
election I had met and known reasonably well most of the ministers and many of
the members.
Anyone can look up the records and see the numbers for
themselves. What I will try and do is to give some of the flavour and feeling
of being in the parliament in the eighties, nineties and early two thousands.
In 15 short minutes it is impossible to do more than metaphorically run with a
supermarket trolley down the aisles in my brain and pick out a few products.
This is not a considered treatise.
How lucky was I to have my first years in parliament when both
Susan Ryan and Dame Margaret Guilfoyle were in the Senate. Dame Margaret, a
Liberal, was the first female in cabinet with a portfolio. There is often a lot
of focus on the first this or that which is understandable. That might mean
that the second and subsequent office holders get less credit than they should.
Susan Ryan followed her. Sure she was not the first federally but she was the
first for the Labor Party.
Margaret was an iron fist in a velvet glove. Labor senator
John Button's remarks on her valedictory, that he would look across the chamber
and amongst swine and see a rose, are testimony to her capacity. She kept
perspective.
I recall walking over with her from the old Parliament House
to the Lobby restaurant for a lunch at which some New South Wales party members
and donors had wanted to meet some of 'the women'. Our party meeting had run
over time and we were a little late. Sensing my concern about being late she
gently but firmly made the correct situation crystal clear. We were senators
doing our job, we are employed by the people of Australia and grateful as we
are as Liberals to donors and simpatico as we may be with party members, we do
not work for them, they are not our bosses.
On another occasion there was a party room debate as to
whether we would move a censure motion over the government's treatment of a
particular public servant believed by many to be Liberally-minded. Sensing an
imminent biff many were into the fray and baying for blood. Margaret sat
quietly and as the debate drew to a close made her contribution. She politely
admitted she was simply unaware of how many of the speakers had direct
knowledge of this matter (which I read as a sweet and charming code for: I am
unaware because no direct knowledge has been evident in the debate and I suspect
none of you have any). She recalled her knowledge of this person and his record
under the previous Liberal government in dealing with a minister and her
attitude was to say the least not positive. She made it clear that if there was
to be a motion she would not be supporting it. I cannot recall now whether she
said she would be absent from the vote or whether she said she would make her
views plain if necessary. Maybe nothing was said on that. Her contribution made
many who had spoken in the heat of the moment, more out of a desire to attack
Labor than out of knowledge or principle, recant. It was calm, strong, informed
and pointed. It was impressive. As I recall no motion was put.
In the old Parliament House, the architecture or more
specifically the layout and facilities ensured ministers intermingled more with
backbenchers of both sides. There was no ministerial wing. Rooms had a hand
basin, a bench, a few cups and saucers and an electric kettle. The bathrooms
were intermingled throughout the hallways. That meant the corridors had people
going to and fro from the cafeteria, the dining room and the bathroom. That
flow of people in turn meant that everyone would see each other much more
frequently than in the new Parliament House.
That is how as a relatively new young backbencher for the
opposition I ended up talking to the famous Susan Ryan whilst washing our hands
in the bathroom. I still remember her saying that when my lot finally got into
government I would be grateful for having had the experience of opposition. At
the time I thought 'this is easy to say from government', but I know it was
true.
One night I went with a staffer to her office to congratulate
her on the passage of a bill for which I had not voted. The fact I did not like
the bill did not mean it was not an achievement. Senator Crowley may remember
this night. The then Finance Minister Peter Walsh was there and there was a
justifiably celebratory mood. Her response to my arrival was not laced with the
sourness that comes from narrow world views and petty politicians. Quite the
opposite. She happily announced that perhaps tonight was a good night to break
out that one bottle of 'ideologically unsound' champagne. How could I say no?
Both Guilfoyle and Ryan are the real trailblazers for women
and for their respective parties. Neither played the victim card. They simply
did their jobs and did them well.
Neither would have had a particularly easy time of it. The
difficulty may not have been any overt discrimination. Rather it is just a fact
of life that if you are the new one in and you are from a different world you
will not feel as included as all the others do. They know each other, perhaps
have overlapping networks they share that you do not. You will necessarily feel
a bit on the outer if only in a social sense.
To the extent that agenda issues are discussed 'off line',
that can mean that you are not in those discussions, because you do not go to
the bar for a drink before dinner, or play tennis with the guys in the morning
or whatever. You may say, 'So what? In the end, agenda items have to be dealt
with at the meeting. Everyone gets to have their say at the meeting.'
But if informally, with no intention to lobby or to exclude,
over the course of a few days before a meeting, discussion has taken place that
leads many at the meeting to one particular point of view then there is much
less chance that the outsider, however informed, will get much of a chance to
sway opinion.
If Bob has already told Simon, Martin and Richard informally
over the last few days that he thinks ABC, he is unlikely to have a female come
in and occasion him to go back on what he told Simon, Martin and Richard. There
are two exceptions to this. When ABC is not very important and everyone is
happy to let other opinion hold sway is one. But if ABC is not important it
probably will not get into the informal chatter before meetings anyway. That is
more for the interesting and important stuff. The other example is where the
outsider presents compelling evidence that ABC is a bad idea.
That might need a little explanation. Compelling does not mean
strong and persuasive argument to the contrary. In politics and policy in
particular there are usually a number of possible courses of action and the
debate is about preferred direction from a range of roughly equally safe
options rather than a good vs evil option. The outsider has little chance of
changing the course of the meeting on preferred safe options. Generally to get
a look in one might need to show the preferred option is high risk or to show
that an alternative option offers much greater reward in terms of better
outcomes or electorate approval.
From my own experience over time in parliament, being the only
woman or one of two women at a meeting is a particular experience. Very few men
go to meetings where they are the only male and certainly even less male
politicians find themselves in this position. Men or women may have changed
since those days but my recollection is that men were used to holding the
floor, or to rephrase that, unaccustomed to women doing so.
At the same time men wanted to be seen to 'do the right thing'
and therefore your opinion was often sought when your perspective was not
likely to add anything new because it was an issue where different gender
simply did not bring a different perspective. Being the odd one or two out
is not particularly difficult, it is just that the constancy of it is a bit
wearing.
We all understand that a lot of small talk goes on before a
meeting, whilst awaiting everyone's arrival or during a coffee or lunch break.
Where this is focused on the issue of the day or politics generally there is no
issue. But a reasonably sized group of men, predominantly from the eastern
states might want to talk about rugby union or rugby league or cricket or
racing. That can leave many women out in the cold. (At least Victorians
understand AFL.) It is important to note that no one is trying to be
exclusionary.
I am certainly not suggesting that women, when together will
focus on recipes and handy housekeeping tips. I am simply pointing out that
left to our own devices any large group of one gender will not necessarily be a
comfortable place for one or two of the opposite gender.
Every now and then I would have women MPs and senators and
sometimes just the women senators for end-of-session drinks. We would laugh and
tell stories about the guys who took themselves too seriously on both sides,
the ones who were a bit slow off the mark and one who would often be so openly
fake with his compliments that we were all revolted. All parties were there and
nobody was, shall I say, indiscreet. I can assure you no man would have felt
very comfortable and the reverse applies when the boys get together.
Guys are just going about their business and being themselves.
They have grown up in a culture that led them to be in all-male meetings that
led them to talk blokey talk when they are together. Having women around was as
new for them as it was for the women.
Even in the late eighties and early nineties when there were
significantly more women, albeit still, as now, a minority, women were seen as
being 'new'.
Some of the men would seek to make light-hearted jokes if two
or more women were dining together. 'Ah ha, the sisterhood are dining tonight!'
It was ridiculous. Was it out of the need to appear savvy or did they feel a
little unsettled? Who knows? But what I do know is no one would seek to make
either a comment or joke about a group of guys eating together. Some would stop
by the table and make useless idle chatter. Perhaps to be nice, condescending
as that attitude is (poor women they need a bit of TLC) or more likely to
confirm in their own minds and that of colleagues that they were SNAGS.
This reminds me of the story of the woman who says when she
wants to go out, have a few drinks, relax, take in a movie and have some chat
about interesting issues she goes out with the girls. When she is looking for a
man she looks for a DIMBO (deliciously inviting male (brains optional)).
It is important to focus on the history of women moving into
parliament as we are doing today. Nonetheless one way to help women
parliamentarians is to stop asking them in the electorate to talk about being a
woman in parliament. Stop tying them to that goldfish bowl. If we want to help
them we will ask them to talk about the economy or taxation or industry. Stop
making them the issue and give them a platform for the hard issues of the day.
Women will succeed by doing their job well, not by being seen first as female
and second as competent.
Reg 'the toecutter' Withers once responded to a question from
me about what he thought by saying, 'You're paid the same as me, elected by the
same. You figure it out'. He may have been attempting to be rude, surely not,
but I did not take it that way. To me it was an affirmation of equality.
One of the difficulties for women in politics then was a
particular weakness of many men. Ego is very important to them. Unlike women
they have not been toughened up with centuries of being the downtrodden
underdog. Their egos are thus particularly fragile.
A young man who worked for me was kind enough to point out to
me what is now glaringly obvious. He said I thought if I went into a meeting
with all the facts and figures and a well thought-out argument that I stupidly
expected to win the day. He pointed out that if in his time in the public
service another bloke had 'showed him up' at a meeting it would not be
forgotten. The male ego, he pointed out, just hates others looking smarter. In
front of other men, a woman being the perpetrator would be regarded as much
more humiliating.
A road test confirmed that if I used almost the same strong
language a male colleague had used when 'going around the table' I would be
seen as being a very aggressive female whereas he would be simply making a
strong point.
Here is a tip for dealing with those old world guys, young as
they may be, who just have not moved into the century where women are equal.
When they say something you think is ridiculous, do not verbalise it. He will
go straight into defence mode, which sets up barriers. Just say, 'that's a
really interesting idea' (as you tell yourself how crazy is interesting), then
say you know lots of people who would agree with that (there are lots of
crazies out there). He will feel relaxed, not under attack. Then say something
like 'Just before you make your mind up on this €¦' (He thinks this affirms him
as the decision maker) 'there are just a few risks to watch out for, so as to
ensure you don't end up getting burned' (He is thinking you want to help him).
He will be ready to listen.
Much is said about women being able to achieve their full
potential. We see in the paper today women who have made tremendous
contributions across so many fields. It is tempting to think that it is a
little easier for women in fields outside politics because of the nature of
politics. It is a bit clubby, very competitive and combative and very public.
In reality every industry has its peculiarities and the women recognised today
have surely each faced their own set of problems.
Much is also said about selection on merit, both for
preselection and for becoming office holders. A former senator and then MP,
Kathy Sullivan, used to often respond to that remark with the question 'Really,
how did you get here?'
On that topic the real benchmark is not whether effective
women get their due. The truest test of equality is whether, if you think of
the least effective man in a job, an equally ineffective woman could get that
job?
A parliament, a ministry and a cabinet must reflect the
community. The Liberal organisation gave John Howard a victory that swept many
women into parliament. The time is obviously here to regain that focus and as
MPs and senators retire make special efforts to entice competent women into
taking on the role.
There are so many issues where gender perspectives are the
same and others where they are not. I can recall a bill to deal with the sex
slave trade which was necessary because Australia's slavery laws were the old
adopted English laws. We can forgive lawmakers for not imagining that we would
need new ones in Australia.
As the then Justice Minister I was able to introduce such
legislation and finally it was passed. No doubt it has been amended and amended
since the late 90s. I am not sure how quickly a male would have done that. In
any event if you want to understand how sexist and shallow our society can be,
consider the media's first response to the release of some intelligence
highlighting the problem. The phone calls came thick and fast: 'Have you got
one, have you got one we can interview?' She would have been just a piece of
meat for the media machine.
Just a few products from the supermarket aisle.
Laura Tingle - When Bill Shorten's election as leader
of the federal parliamentary Labor Party was announced, the Sydney Morning
Herald columnist Mike Carlton, with tongue in cheek, tweeted:
Mr Shorten looked radiant in a tailored charcoal suit, crisp
white shirt and crushed mulberry tie.
A younger female tweeter responded, also with just a touch of
irony:
I thought his hips looked big.
It is true, isn't it, that what male politicians are wearing,
or whether it makes their bum look big, is not always the first port of call in
the way they are portrayed in the media, though there are exceptions such as
Bob Katter and his very large, very Queensland hat.
It is hard not to start a review of the way the media has
portrayed female parliamentarians on the very sore point of the obsessions with
what they look like, if for no other reason than we have just gone through a
tumultuous period in federal politics where what the prime minister was
wearing, what she looked like, became an essential part of the daily political
discussion.
Images are so powerful and the media, both because it works in
shorthand and because it reflects back on us the views in our community, is
prone to stereotyping.
A UNESCO report in 2009 described the common images of women
in the media: 'the glamorous sex kitten, the sainted mother, the devious witch,
the hard-faced corporate and political climber'.[2]
Perhaps one of the reasons the media has had such trouble over
the years-not just here but around in the world-in finding a way to portray
women in politics is because so many of those stereotypes do not quite work.
And of course, that may be partly because none of those stereotypes go to basic
questions of competence and properly won authority.
I am going to talk a lot about stereotypes, and how the ones
applied to women in federal parliament by the media have evolved over the
years. But if I was to only venture down that path, I would be doing a
considerable disservice to the history of women in the federal parliament. I
sometimes think that the frustration with dealing with the stereotypes
overlooks both what actually happens in the parliament, the considerable
advances that have been made by women in becoming accepted in parliament, their
enormous contribution to policy and politics and also the positive changes that
have taken place in the way the media portrays women MPs, certainly during the
almost 30 years I have worked in the Canberra Press Gallery.
The thing that struck me when I started preparing this paper
was how utterly shocking the numbers were-and had been-when I arrived in
Canberra. In 1987, it was not only unusual for there to be female ministers, it
was still astonishingly unusual for there to be federal politicians. There had
only been 25 female senators since federation. But more extraordinarily from
the perspective of 2013, just 11 female members of the House of Representatives
elected in 86 years.
When I arrived in Canberra, there had been one Liberal cabinet
minister-Margaret Guilfoyle-and one Labor cabinet minister-Susan Ryan. I remember
when Ryan was appointed education minister by Bob Hawke in 1983. The cartoonist
Patrick Cook drew Hawke saying something to the effect of 'I have already made
my biggest decision €¦ finding a job important enough for Susan Ryan'.
It was light-hearted but the cartoon reflected the mood of the
times. Women in parliament were a trend that male politicians knew they should
ascribe to. We were still talking serious novelty value in the media. It was
post women's lib but a time when the media went out looking for stories about
successful women in business and politics but found them quite thin on the
ground. The issue of the role of women was, by 1983, part of the fabric of the
new government. Anne Summers was poached to head the Office of the Status of
Women in the Prime Minister's Department.
Yet I remember very well from this time the conundrum faced by
my good friend Jillian Broadbent, who went on to be a member of the Reserve
Bank board and the Chair of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. In the early
1980s she was a director of one of Australia's most successful merchant banks.
Invariably, when journalists wanted to write a piece about women in business
they went to her, because they had found earlier profiles in the clippings.
Broadbent got to the point where she declined, in her wonderfully gracious way,
to be part of any more of these pieces. 'If people just keep seeing me and a
couple of other women in all these pieces', she said, 'they'll come to the view
that we are the only ones who have actually made it'.
So the more sophisticated end of the media was a bit stuck: on
the one hand you wanted to profile prominent women where you found them. On the
other, there was always the risk that by writing 'gee and she's a woman'
pieces, you were continuing the idea that it was unusual for women to be in
such roles. Which at the time it was! And whether it was male politicians
coming to terms with female arrivals, or the media, it was a little unclear how
to proceed.
When I arrived in Canberra, the numbers of female senators was
starting to grow but the number of MPs in the House of Representatives was
still relatively small. There were 15 senators but just five female MPs. One of
the first MPs to get a lot of media attention was Ros Kelly, the Member for Canberra.
Ros got a lot of media attention. Not a lot of it was positive. A 1995 profile
of Kelly notes that:
From the press has come allegations of using her children,
her dog, her football team (the Canberra Raiders), a cooking book she wrote for
constituents, her hair and more to further her political career.[3]
Her travails in dealing with the attitudes of her fellow MPs
were also recorded:
In 1981, she won an apology from Sir Billy Snedden for a
sexist innuendo in parliamentary debate. Two years later, the Coalition MP
Bruce Goodluck suggested neglect in her return to work within a week of the
birth of her first child.[4]
Mick Young was said to have commented when he was stood down
as Special Minister of State during the Paddington Bear affair in
1984 that 'Within half an hour, Ros was in my office taking
measurements for curtains'.[5]
In 1987, Woman's Day ran a profile of Kelly when she
was appointed a junior minister. The heading? Ros Kelly: 'I'd quit politics for
my family'.
Why have I spent so much time on Ros Kelly? Partly because she
was becoming a minister at the time I arrived in Canberra but importantly she
was the first Labor woman from the House of Representatives to become a
minister.
As I mentioned earlier, there had always been more women in
the Senate than the House and there is a very different atmosphere in the red
chamber which I think was reflected in the way women in the parliament were
portrayed. The more civilised nature of the Senate, its less gladiatorial atmospherics,
its focus on the details of policy, tended to filter down to the way women
senators have been portrayed over the years. If you think of the names that
come to mind in terms of prominent federal female politicians in the last 30
years, so many of them are senators: Margaret Guilfoyle, Susan Ryan, Janine
Haines, Cheryl Kernot, Rosemary Crowley, Amanda Vanstone, Bronwyn Bishop, Sarah
Hanson-Young, Penny Wong. It is not a question of 'softer' treatment in the
media, just the likelihood that, earlier on, the substance of what they were
saying was likely to be able to cut through, rather than the stereotypes about
the fact they were women.
It has been different in the House. I have always thought that
there is no tougher test for a politician than standing at the despatch box in
the House of Representatives. My personal view is that few women over the years
have actually been able to muster the sense of authority and control over the
chamber that you need to really pass that test. (Of course, not all blokes
manage it either but it has been even harder for women and it has influenced
the way they have been reported on in the media.)
Ros Kelly, for example, never quite conquered the House from
the despatch box. The women who have managed it who immediately come to my mind
are Carmen Lawrence, Bronwyn Bishop, Julie Bishop, Julia Gillard as deputy
prime minister, and Tanya Plibersek.
I have also talked about Kelly because I think the 1980s
really started to see the long road proper travelled upwards by women in
federal politics in Australia. We had moved on from militant feminism to a time
when women were seeking to get into politics simply because they wanted to do
it and had the qualifications for the job.
There is a fascinating Canadian study from the 1990s that
reviewed the changing media portrayals of women. There are lots of similar
studies conducted in Europe and the US more recently with very similar
findings. And it is a depressingly similar story to the Australian one, showing
a certain lack of creativity in media stereotypes, and I think gives us some
insights into the universal roots of the recent debate in Australia about the
treatment of our first female prime minister.
The Canadian study argues that in the first two-thirds of the
century, two strategies were used to 'normalise' women in politics, for which
the authors of the study mean a woman's 'femaleness' was neutered. The
stereotypes were built around a female MP's family relationships. Various
examples given were women elected to parliament who were represented as the
wife/widow, and thus as appendages of powerful husbands whose seats they had
inherited. 'This implied that they held power not in their own right but in
someone else's name', the study said,
Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi, two powerful prime ministers,
in contrast, were degendered in a different way: as 'grandmother Golda' and
'Nehru's daughter' respectively. Their political status was lowered because
their actions were viewed through a family lens.[6]
The other set of stereotypes focused negatively on a female
politician's sexual capacities. For example 'spinster' was a stereotype with a
pedigree going back to the suffragette movement of the turn of the twentieth
century.
The study argues that one of the things that changed the
stereotypes was neither changes in the way female politicians operated nor the
way the media operated but the fact that, in many democracies, a gender gap
started to be observed between the voting intentions of men and women which
forced both the political establishment and the media to rethink the way
politics worked.
The result was a whole new set of stereotypes emerged in the
1980s and 1990s, the most spectacular and most visible being that of the
'superwoman', applied to a 'young, intelligent, active and ambitious woman who
succeeds on €œall levels€ and €œhas it all€ '. She combined a family with her
career, and was seen as being 'as groomed as she is competent' in her
ministerial responsibilities. The superwoman embodied both 'traditional characteristics
(family and children) with the modern traits of the businesswoman (superior IQ,
enormous capacities for work, an iron constitution as well as charm and
generosity)'.[7]
A second stereotype was that of 'the champion', which tended
to be applied to women politicians 'of a certain age' who had led a more
traditional life:
Often a woman narrated in this way has come to politics after
she has proved herself in another domain, perhaps business, sports or various
charitable organizations. Her children are usually older, and her family
obligations more compatible with her public representation duties. She, too,
pays attention to her grooming, is open to the media and aware of her previous
accomplishments.[8]
There were others as well including being 'one of the boys'
who benefit from a kind of acceptance but are, at the same time, 'continually
reminded that they are an anomaly and may be placed in the unenviable position
of being used as an alibi against women's interests'.[9]
The study noted that the important difference in the two eras
of stereotypes was that, at least, the stereotypes had moved from women
politicians being defined by what happened at home to being defined by their
relationships in the public domain.
Built upon those stereotypes were narratives that applied only
to women and which, amongst other things:
- tended to ignore the substance of a female MP's speeches in
favour of her personal characteristics (like her looks, dress, hair)
- made women politicians responsible for women as a class and
- used 'feminism' to denote a negative personal characteristic.
The study argued that women MPs were evaluated differently to
men:
- Women had to live up to a considerably higher standard of
excellence than do men.
- The political performance of women was judged only by the
extremes of the scale (good and bad), while men are evaluated across the whole
scale, including the mediocre middle range.
- Women politicians had to live up to a moral code of sexual
abstention not imposed on men.[10]
I have to say that all these things sound exceptionally
familiar to me.
Ros Kelly observed at the end of her career, 'The media either
absolutely loves you or absolutely hates you. There's no in between. Carmen
[Lawrence] called it the Madonna-or-the-whore approach. I think it's absolutely
right'.[11]
Cheryl Kernot was often described as a 'superwoman' in the
years when she was at her political peak as leader of the Australian Democrats
because she had a young daughter. But the number of female politicians in
Canberra in the 1980s and 1990s who were younger and had small children was
still reasonably limited.
The prominent women who received a lot of focus as
personalities-rather than as ministers-in the 1980s and 1990s tended to be a little
older. Think Bronwyn Bishop and Carmen Lawrence. Bishop cut through in her
early days by breaking the more polite habits of the stereotype and monstering
public servants in estimates committees. It was this aggression which helped
cast her for some as a potential future prime minister. She brought this
aggression to the House and has always applied it, along with her experience as
an amateur thespian, at the despatch box.
Lawrence was a competent minister but she brought a
politically lethal history of ugly controversy with her from her time as
premier in Western Australia. When the relentless pursuit of her over those
events by the Liberal Party led to a state Royal Commission, we saw one of the
stranger episodes unfold involving the role of women in politics. Lawrence
would attend the Royal Commission each day, surrounded by female supporters,
bunches of flowers thrust at her like some feminist martyr. Female journalists
in Canberra suddenly seemed under pressure to take Lawrence's side because they
were women, rather than report the unfolding controversy for what it was:
another nasty political contretemps in which Lawrence's hands were not entirely
clean.
In 1996 and 1998, the surge of younger women coming into the
parliament really started to take off. Female MPs with little kids became less
of a novelty, just something that posed even more challenges for hard-working
politicians. The women MPs tended not to plaster their kids all over their
politics and media profiles. The number of female cabinet ministers increased
and became less of a subject of controversy. They were written about for
delivering, or not delivering, on their jobs.
But the real challenge came as women started to move into
leadership positions. Julie Bishop ascended to be deputy leader of the Liberal
Party. This put her at the centre of tactics meetings and shadow cabinet
deliberations. But she sometimes found herself not written into accounts of the
machinations of these bodies. And her ability to survive a cavalcade of opposition
leaders passing through the top office between 2007 and 2009 tended to be
written in negative rather than positive terms.
Julia Gillard was well liked as a deputy leader and deputy
prime minister and reported on positively in the media for her competence and
hard work. She was a strong performer in parliament. At the same time, it is
hard to forget that an image that had a powerful effect on people's view of
Gillard was the one of her sitting in the empty kitchen with the empty fruit
bowl.
But the events of 2010 and her rise to the prime ministership
saw all the stereotypes come screaming back, though Lady Macbeth seemed to be
the dominant one.
It is worth noting that it was not just in Australia where the
media had trouble making the leap from the general proposition of women in
politics to the idea of a female political leader. In the US, the 2008 election
campaign saw both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin drawn using different
stereotypes.
One review of the campaign noted that it took a while for the
media to really investigate the largely unknown Palin's record as governor of
Alaska, or her view on important, controversial issues. Instead they focused on
her unconventional family, beauty, and her intelligence or her lack of
intelligence. She was asked inappropriate questions about her breasts and
wardrobe. One spokesperson from CNBC stated, 'Men want a sexy woman €¦ Women
want to be her; men want to mate with her'.[12]
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, was already a well-known
figure in politics. Newspapers often drew man-like features or Clinton as an
army general, poking fun at her powerful presence. In one extreme case
displayed on the YouTube internet website a KFC bucket read, 'Hillary meal
deal: 2 fat thighs, 2 small breasts, and a bunch of left wings'. (Sound
familiar?)
The weird thing about all this to me is that while all these
things happen here and overseas, the electronic media in particular has an
insatiable demand for women, particularly women who speak with authority on any
subject, either on television or the radio.
Even after twenty years, I am still shocked when I have to
turn down a radio or TV producer's request to appear on their program because
of other commitments and they ask whether I know of another woman who could do it,
even once another blonde woman.
This brings us to changes in the media that have in turn
affected the way our federal politicians are portrayed. Once again we are not
just talking about Australian phenomena. Media scholars refer to the
'tabloidisation' of the media. That is, a journalism that thrives on sensation
and scandal, personalises, simplifies, ignores the public issues in favour of
private ones, and favours striking visuals over serious analysis.
That process in Australia has been fuelled by the decline of
the broadsheet papers and print media generally and in federal politics by the
crossing of the Rubicon by Laurie Oakes in 2002 when he criticised Cheryl
Kernot for failing to mention in her autobiography her extramarital affair
while leader of the Democrats with Gareth Evans, then deputy Labor leader and a
key figure in her move to Labor.
Some claim that this passed the legitimate public interest
test since it cast a new light on Kernot's decision to change parties. I have
never been completely sure about that. What it certainly did was make our
politicians' private lives fair game. This had not generally been the case
before this. And going back to the Canadian study, I believe it has revealed a
different media standard for the way the media expect women to conduct their
personal lives to the way it treats men.
Extensive revelations of male MPs' travel rorts in the late
1990s rarely explicitly mentioned, for example, that the wrongfully claimed
expenses sometimes, but not always, involved the fact that the MPs were not
sleeping in the beds they were supposed to be sleeping in.
More recently there have been cases of coy stories appearing
suggesting federal ministers are having affairs with their staff with no names
given, but rather threats that they will be exposed if they do not desist.
All this brings us to Julia Gillard. Nobody quite put the role
of Gillard's gender in the nature of her prime ministership better than she did
on the day she lost the leadership of the Labor Party: 'It doesn't explain
everything, it doesn't explain nothing, it explains some things'.
Julia Gillard worked unbelievably hard and achieved a lot. She
gave it her all. But my own assessment of her was that she was always a deeply
flawed prime minister, even before she had to confront a wall of media and
public hostility and craziness.
Certainly the circumstances of her rise created a new
hostility to Gillard and awoke what turns out to be an element of appalling
misogyny in Australian society to which I can attest from the emails and
letters I have received about the former prime minister over the past few years
which have been truly shocking in their nastiness. And I am not easily shocked.
But beyond the really crazy level of abuse, I think the former
prime minister's portrayal in the media suffered because it affronted almost
all of those too easy stereotypes I spoke of early. She was not married. She
did not have kids. She could neither be cast as some bloke's female relative or
as superwoman. When the media did discuss her relationships with men it was
either to use them to ascribe sexually transmitted criminality to her, or to
implicitly question her own sexuality.
And of course most noticeably, there were no limits put on
either the comments or the aspersions cast on Gillard, even if she held the
most powerful job in the country. So it was okay to suggest she be drowned in a
sack, stand in front of signs saying 'ditch the witch', or ask her whether her
partner was gay. It did not even stop after she left public life.
I am ashamed to say the Australian Financial Review ran
a gossip item just last month, on the back of a piece in Woman's Day,
for God's sake, which asked whether Gillard and her partner Tim Mathieson had
split up. The former prime minister was furious about the piece.
I found it objectionable for other reasons. On Friday, our
Rear Window gossip column sanctimoniously thundered:
why the hell haven't any other media organisations chased
this huge story? Surely, the immediate breakdown after losing office of the
former prime minister's seven year de facto relationship is news of national
significance? This is a bloke who lived in the Lodge, stayed at Kirribilli
House and did the First Bloke thing with enthusiasm.[13]
Four days later, after Gillard had angrily denied the story
and demanded, unsuccessfully, that it be removed from our website, Rear Window
wrote this piece as it noted Gillard's appearance at the Opera House with Anne
Summers:
We wondered a few weeks ago whether Gillard might use the
venue to unleash. We just hadn't thought it would be on us. It was a piece in
Bauer Media rag Woman's Day that did that damage.[14]
How utterly gutless and pathetic. All that brave journalism
demanding someone chase this 'huge story' of 'national significance' had simply
become an innocent report of what a woman's magazine had said. What is
certainly true is that if you inserted 'John and Janette Howard' into that copy
it would not have got into the paper.
I will conclude on that career enhancing note but simply observe
that one of the changes that is taking place with social media and the internet
is that our politicians-both male and female-have more ability to portray
themselves as they wish to the public.
It is worth looking at the websites of our MPs and senators
and see how they are choosing to do so and whether, even there, they are able
to escape the stereotypes.
Question - I do not have a question, I would just like
to make a public acknowledgement and a thank you to Rosemary Crowley. You don't
remember me Rosemary. When you were the Minister for the Status of Women in
1994, you and I met and discussed the possibility of having a national day that
focused on breast cancer awareness and research, and you were very enthusiastic
about it. I had been lobbying for three years, unsuccessfully, all of the
politicians, and they were supportive but no one would take any action. You
told me to write the proposal, and the subject for the proposal and the budget.
It was accepted and in September 1994 Mrs Keating launched Australia's Breast
Cancer Day. She announced the establishment of the Kathleen Cuningham
Foundation, now known as the National Breast Cancer Centre, for breast cancer
awareness, and the National Breast Cancer Foundation for research. So because
of your action, you have been responsible for saving many women in Australia
from developing breast cancer and making them more aware of the disease. So
thank you very much.
Rosemary Crowley - Thank you so much. I didn't expect a
plaudit. But one of the things I did want to talk about was changed language,
and one of the best examples I know, is that men had no health problems, except
heart attacks, up until very recently. There was no language for men to talk
about men's health. I think it is absolutely critical that blokes now learn to
talk about health and that they are encouraged politically to do what women
very comfortably did. So thank you for that support. So prostates, and probably
a few other things besides, will soon hit the agenda.
Question - I have questions for Amanda Vanstone and
Rosemary Crowley. Amanda, I have just been re-reading Tony Abbott's Battlelines.
I note his comments on the Howard cabinet, that they could always rely on
Amanda Vanstone to put a woman's perspective when needed. Otherwise she
'brought a practical common sense to the consideration of political problems'.
So I'd like to ask you for a couple more examples of the women's perspective
that you brought to cabinet, apart from the very good example of sex slavery,
which you did talk about.
And to Rosemary Crowley, you emphasised the importance of
measurement of the impact of policy on women and of decent data for this
purpose. So I wonder why you think that the Australian Parliament, unlike
parliaments in other Western democracies, has never had a standing committee on
gender equality to oversight gender analysis of policy in government and the
collection of adequate data. It seems to me if we had such a standing committee
it probably would have pre-empted what happened this year, which was the
dropping of the time use survey, the only ABS survey which measures women's
unpaid work and its intersection with paid work and its contribution to the
economy. We lost that this year. We didn't have a standing parliamentary
committee with a mandate to keep an eye on things such as that. Thank you.
Amanda Vanstone -Look I don't know that I can help,
because while some people do keep diaries, I never did. When I started in
parliament, there weren't computers and I was terrified that if I kept a diary
people would nick it, and if you told the truth in it-and why would you keep a
dairy if you didn't-your colleagues might find out what you thought of them! It
might not be such a good idea for all relationships. As we all know, it is best
sometimes to keep some things to yourself. But I think there would be plenty of
occasions on a day-to-day basis where gender perspective might make a
difference and be different, but I didn't try and keep a list of them. The
welfare area would be an obvious one. There might be one in health. Perhaps
there would be in sport. There would be a whole range of them but none
particularly stand out.
I haven't read Battlelines. I do not read political
commentary books because I think I am too busy saying what I want to say. To be
frank, I am not terribly sure about them. In fact I was harassed by a publisher
today who has been at me about writing a book. I am just not comfortable about
it, because I know that if I sign on the dotted line-they send you letters
with, you know: 'Money; sign here'-I will produce something and then they will
try and goad me into telling stories I do not want to tell. If you have made a
part of your political life being the good team player, I do not see why you
would chuck that away for a lousy book where you pontificate on other people. I
might do it, but that means I would have to avoid that, and that means they may
not be interested in the book.
Rosemary Crowley - One thing I know about Amanda, it
would make a good read whatever she wrote.
As to the data, about disaggregated data, I think it is
terribly important and I was really very disappointed that one of the first things
Mr Howard did was to do away with the women's budget paper. That was an
amazing, interesting thing. I finished up at the United Nations shortly after
that and I was approached by South Africa and Japan-because you have had a
women's budget paper, we are planning to introduce those and would I care to
support it? I was delighted to support it. I think South Africa has succeeded but
Japan has not or the other way round. And it might be very interesting to do
what you are proposing, which is to have something other than party political
people who might set up the requirement for the data. The data from the women's
budget paper was extraordinary. It really quite shocked people. The example
about women's sport is to the point and very easy to understand.
If you looked at social security, which spends a lot of money,
I would suggest more than 50 per cent, certainly, would go to women. Whether
you talk about aged pensions and so on, they would be much more fifty-fifty.
But the data was really very interesting. People were shocked when they had a
look at the disaggregated data, and I think it actually allows for more
considered future policies in certain areas. So I would strongly support some
way of getting back to collecting or having that kind of data and any other
disaggregated data about men and women. It saves a lot of stupid arguments, and
that is one of its very best reasons. So thank you for the question, I wish we
had it still, one way or another.
Question - How can we encourage and empower more ethnic
representation in parliament and particularly ethnic women?
Rosemary Crowley - In a way, what I would say was
powerful about the women's movement was that it was started by women outside of
parliament and so I would have thought that the best thing would be for ethnic
women-and I don't know whether you would say all ethnic women, or whether it
would be this group and this group and this group. But I think that the
powerful thing about the women's movement in the sixties and seventies was that
it was women who started it and women from across the board. In fact, I do not
know how many of you were alive in the seventies. Very few; you are all too
young. But I had lived in America in the sixties, where I learnt to riot with
the best of them, and I think one of the things they had was the burgeoning
women's movement. And it began to be in all places, everywhere. Would we go and
protest at supermarkets at the price of goods? Would we protest at universities
about something? Would we protest in schools about education and so on? But it
was from the women themselves, and I would suggest that that would be one
awfully good way to start. But you also might find a political group that was
sympathetic and you might want to see if you could get some support and help in
that direction too. What I do say is: we need more representation. Until we are
actually in our parliaments talking about all the people in Australia, for and
on behalf of all the people in Australia and, more importantly, listening to
them all, then I think we are still short of what democracy really means.
Amanda Vanstone - I would like to add to that. I think
it is a difficult road, and the reason I think it is difficult is this: unless
you are a full-blood Indigenous Australian, you have got migrant blood in your
veins. That is what we are: one of the big three migration nations-us, Canada
and the United States. And so really, if you rephrase what you have said, it
comes down to a representation of newer migrants here rather than older ones.
Then that leaves you being seen to represent a smaller proportion of people.
And the reason I think it is hard is, we are having trouble enough getting 50 per
cent women in, so if you want to get more in from a smaller cohort it is going
to be harder unless you run, in the end, on the basis of capacity. I think that
is the way, always, to get in.
Laura Tingle - I was just going to add at the end, I
was at a diplomatic function last week where a group of businessmen from
another country were talking not about the lack of ethnic women in the
parliament but the lack of ethnic diversity in the parliament. I think there is
that broader point. Rosemary and Amanda know much more about the machinations
of parties and how they choose people, but it seems to me that we are still
stuck in a bit of a period of tokenism about these things. Where people say:
'Oh look. We've got a Vietnamese person. Oh, actually, no they're not, they are
Chinese. You know, same sort of thing', or whatever. It was the other way round
during the election campaign, I think.
I think that the reality is that it goes to the way the
parties choose people and that in the same way they do not see women as tokens,
as our representatives, they sort of say 'We are a much more diverse society
and we should represent all of those diversities in the parliament'.
* These papers were presented in the Senate
Occasional Lecture Series at Parliament House, Canberra, on 18 October 2013.
The lectures marked the 70th anniversary of the election of the first women to
the federal parliament and the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to
vote and stand for election in Australia.
[1] The Australian Labor Party and the Status of
Women: Towards Equality, ALP, Canberra, 1982.
[2] UNESCO, Getting the Balance Right: Gender
Equality in Journalism, International Federation of Journalists, Belgium,
2009, p. iv, http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/files/28397/12435929903
gender_booklet_en.pdf/gender_booklet_en.pdf.
[3] Sunday Age, 10 September 1995, Agenda, p.
3.
[4] ibid.
[5] ibid.
[6] Kathy Megyery (ed.), Women in Canadian
Politics: Toward Equality in Representation, vol. 6, Dundurn Press, Toronto,
1991, p. 136.
[7] ibid., p. 143.
[8] ibid., pp. 143-4.
[9] ibid., pp. 144-5.
[10] ibid., pp. 151-2.
[11] Sunday Age, 10 September 1995, Agenda, p.
3.
[12] Donny Deutsch interviewed on CNBC program Squawk
on the Street, 4 September 2008.
[13] 'Strange silence on Gillard status', Australian
Financial Review, 27 September 2013, p. 37.
[14] 'A night at the opera with Julia Gillard and Kim
Williams', Australian Financial Review, 1 October 2013, p. 45.
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