Person: Joan Coxsedge Former Labor member of Parliament.

Q1. Why did you go into politics and what were you hoping to achieve?   JC. I hope you are not looking at politics in a narrow parliamentary sense. Politics is life and I have been involved in politics probably since the moment I drew breath. What people don’t seem to appreciate is politics is where you were born, what your father did, what school you went to and everything. As far as, say, more direct action politics was concerned I first became publicly involved during the Vietnam War and I was very active during that time in opposition to that war, which of course brought me into contact with the wider political arena. At that time we believed we could not only stop the war but we could change the world. We were a very wide diverse group of people. It was about that time that I joined the Labor Party and so the two were intertwined. I was an artist and was working at various part-time jobs with a husband and three small children. As you can imagine I did not exactly have a lot of spare time on my hands. I was virtually on the run. But I joined the Labor Party, when I’m normally a non-joiner, and got very heavily involved, starting in a very humble position as Assistant Secretary of the local branch and over the years, working my way up through policy committees. Which was why I joined the Labor Party in the first place - to bring about policy. I was the founding president of the Status of Women and Anti-Uranium Policy Committees and active on the Civil Rights Committees. Eventually, quite soon actually, State Conference delegate, a position I held for about 20 years. And then I became a national conference delegate. So if you like I went right through the party from the bottom to the top. I was invited in 1977, I think it was, to stand for Melbourne West, which was a safe Upper House seat. I had already served my apprenticeship and was very well known inside and outside the party because there had been a lot of publicity over the years about many of the campaigns I was involved with. I had earlier stood for the safe Liberal seat of Balwyn in 1973 and run a fabulous campaign because you could do what you liked. Nobody gave a stuff one way or the other. I ran a socialist/feminist campaign and my vote had gone up against the state average, which had tended to go down, so I think you could say that I had a reasonable track record.   Q2. How difficult was it in the first instance to get into Parliament?   JC. Winning the preselection was hard and getting chosen by my faction - we are after all talking about a faction based party. I was a founding member of the Socialist Left - as a by the way I would consider there is not a genuine left inside the Labor Party - anyway, back then there was a Socialist Left and there were plenty of people who had a very strong social conscience about the society they wanted to live in. One of the leading lights in the union movement suggested that I should stand. And they gave me lots of support, very strong support although nobody really thought that I would win in the preselection battle which took place at the Trades Hall. There was a deal cut between two other people that didn't involve me, so I just went in and took my chance. And I got in by the narrowest of margins. I think it was one vote in it. All hell broke lose once I actually got pre-selected. It's very important to understand that it wasn't because I was a woman, but because of my left-wing brand of politics. I was assailed. It was just incredible the attacks I encountered in the national media and in the local media. I had every Right Winger coming out of the woodwork - including some who pretended not to be very right winged - attacking me as being the most unsuitable candidate. For God's sake. This was a seat in an Upper House, hardly the be-all and end-all of parliamentary politics. I found it quite incredible. I had to really fight hard and I regard one of the pluses is when you are attacked it gives you a chance to answer where you stand on policy questions. That meant in a way that it opened up the debate in ways that you rarely see now because you hardly ever hear from candidates, never mind the issues being discussed. In that sense it was a very issue-driven campaign. It was very positive because one of the things that happened which was fairly disgusting was they started a whispering campaign against me in the pubs - which is a most insidious thing to counter - inferring I was a prostitute. This was because I supported decriminalisation of prostitution that meant I could raise the issue at least. But it was an example of the sort of underhand methods that were used. I even had death threats flying around . On the actual day of the election, I had two members of the Painters and Dockers who stayed with me to offer bodily protection, making a fairly unique day. I got in quite comfortably, despite all the attacks. I think people were starting to react against them, as much as anything else. So there you go.   Q3. Did your party support you or did you have to go it alone?   JC. I have just answered that really. You could say sections of the party supported me. When the chips were down towards the end, some neutralised their aggressiveness. I would not say they supported me, but they neutralised their aggression. The party officially supported me. It had to, didn’t it? I was the officially endorsed candidate, but I would say there were elements that were very strongly opposed to my candidature.   Q4. Are things better now for women for political opportunities than they were at that time.   JC. I suppose yes and no. But then again you have to differentiate between women and feminists. You get women who go in there and behave as men do, but what is the point? I would not support Margaret Thatcher in a million years, nor would I support a lot of the Right Wing Liberal women in a million years. I recently returned from the UK, about six weeks ago. And one of the interesting phenomena was the number of women who were elected into Blair's government, mostly in marginal seats that previously had been conservative. They are known as Blair's Babes and will disappear at the next election but won't be missed one way or the other. They just tag along behind him and do exactly as they are told. I think it is rather sad, so I think it is important to make that distinction. I am now talking about feminists and perhaps an older definition in the sense that feminists are in the second wave. In the mid-1970s, when I really got going on that level, feminists wanted to change things. They didn't want to walk into jobs on a male basis. As you know, Parliament is an entrenched patriarchal system from its language to its dress to its modes of operation. It is alien to most people and I think particularly alien to women. A lot of women, and it is surprising how many, get into politics and realise they don't really like it very much. They feel put off by the bullshit that goes on, and a lot of it just goes right back to the early days. It has always been thus and therefore it always shall be! God only knows what the public thinks when they wander in and listen to the peculiar modes of address and they see blokes with buckles and wigs. For heaven's sake, it is just so alien. Sometimes, you’ve had weird situations in a parliamentary debate where members of Parliament have not quite voted the right way they intended because they did not understand the modes of address. They were so mangled they would end up voting for the wrong side. I know of at least one case where that happened and it was because it was so convoluted nature of the motion was put that not even the members of parliament understood what they were voting for. What hope has the general public got? What hope have ordinary people got? Again you are appealing to the elite, the lawyers, the academics, the ones who are used to the sounds of their own voices. It is getting increasingly difficult, I think, for ordinary people of both sexes to get into Parliament unless they have got some academic background. In the old days, you used to be able to attract people who were just ordinary people representative of the community. I don't think it's happening as much nowadays.   Q5. Have women changed the culture of Parliament or politics?   JC. I don't think so. Marginally perhaps. On the fringes. For example, when I entered the Legislative Council, it didn't even have a women's toilet - they have one now. But I haven't seen any other changes. They still have their wigs and buckles and their weird forms of address. You also have to understand that the Liberal Party is much the same as the Labor Party. The women who get in are selected by faction warlords and are generally women who will do as they're told. You're not likely to get feisty, independent women breaking through that particular barrier. For example, we had Bracks' astonishing and outrageous statements about the World Economic Forum protesters. I might have missed it, but I don't recall one female member of parliament coming out and saying he had said the wrong thing. In Britain, you have male left-wingers like Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone actually going public in the media attacking Tony Blair, which we don't seem to get here. Until perhaps one day we will get freer spirits moving in. Even then, they are up against concrete, the Establishment ceiling that parliament represents. It was set up to represent the interests of the Establishment, the ruling class. I am using Marxist terms here. It was never meant to be a democratic institution, nor ever will. They should get rid of the Upper House. That used to be Labor Party policy and while I was in there, I actually espoused that view. I was on the committee that brought down the policy, but then some deal was cut and it hit the wall. Just like now, when they are talking about proportional representation. I don't think the Upper House will lead us out of the wilderness. It is my opinion they should close it down. In any case, we have too many parliamentarians. Maybe we should get rid of State Parliament altogether. Now that's a thought. But certainly the Upper House. It is a luxury we cannot afford.   Q6. Do you feel women have a special contribution to make as women or simply as people.   JC. Well, we are people. If women are honest to themselves, then I believe they have a basic humanity. Let's face it, it's women who bring up children and have to deal with running a household and making sure there is food in the family's bellies and the rent is paid and all the rest of it. To a certain extent, men do too, and are more involved than they used to be, because once it used to be entirely the women's domain. But yes, women can make a special contribution. They can be more down to earth, but then that has a worrying aspect as well. If they reach the higher echelons, they are invariably handed portfolios designated 'female'. Now I would like have a go at Defence and see what I could do with it. You know what I mean. There is a danger of putting women into slots. I also think you need to look at class. The position of wealthy women and the privileged in our society compared with powerless women who have very little clout, economically or politically. We need to differentiate between them. To just arbitrarily divide people in parliament between male and female is very simplistic and we need to go a lot deeper than that.   Q7. Do women in Parliament support each other, or deal differently with each other compared to the men?   JC. Some give support, but then you get the ambitious ones who, if you take a position that's considered a bit radical, would be frightened of supporting you in case it damaged their future career opportunities. I struck some of the most obnoxious women in my life. Members of the Right to Life who were anti-feminist. They weren't even neutral, they were actually aggressively anti-feminist. I had absolutely nothing in common with them at all. I wouldn't want to pass the time of day with them. So, it really depends on the women. Whereas, if the men are reasonable human beings I'm happy to have a drink with them. It's not just a matter of one's sex. It's looking at all the other factors you share when taking part in the parliamentary game.   Q8. Are you happy about the rate of change or do you feel disappointed that we haven’t come further?   JC. Frankly, I think we've gone backwards. I'm very happy we've got rid of Jeff Kennett. I loathed him, I really loathed him. But I haven't found Steve Bracks a great inspiration. He is known variously as Jeff Bracks or Steve Kennett because it's almost business as usual. I think he is very disappointing. But if you were referring to the impact women have had, I haven't noticed much difference at all. Again, the institution is very strong. People should understand that the important decisions are made outside parliament. They are not made inside. Parliament is a debating shop, a talking club. So people like to rabbit on for hours and hours about all sorts of things, when the big issues have been decided in the boardrooms of Tokyo, New York and London. Don't forget we are also bit players when it comes to other big issues, which are decided in Canberra. There are some things we are involved in that matter, but basically we depend on budgetary hand-outs from Canberra. There is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing that says what you can and cannot do. But parliament as an institution more or less operates at a level of decision-making that I believe is fairly low down the scale. There used to be a group called the Committee for Melbourne, God knows what they call themselves now. And you had these high-fliers, the Ron Walkers and so on, who I reckon had far more political clout than the Premier. All the Premiers used to listen to them and I'm putting Steve Bracks in that category, because I've noticed the same sort of people roll up on the same committees. What is it the French say? The more things change, the more they stay the same.   Q9. What do you feel is the greatest challenge facing women today in terms of our political environment?   JC. Survival. Particularly for poor women who've seen their job opportunities eroded. There is enormous pressure on women, enormous pressure. More on women than men, because the poorer sections of our society are definitely female. With pensions cut and always under the hammer. Older women couldn't work long enough to get superannuation and many are living right on the edge of dire poverty, especially if they don't own their own homes. It's come down to survival. A society like ours seems to think that anything with public in front of it is bad. There are cut-backs in public health, public education, public housing. These are the lifelines for a society to look after its most fragile, the people who are least able to look after themselves. I measure any society in any civilisation by the way it looks after its most vulnerable and I think we fail there. Women are usually the most vulnerable.   Q10. What would you like to see happen in the future?   JC. A different type of society. A totally different type of society. I would like to see one that doesn't base everything on profit, where the market dominates, where everything seems to depend on the 'bottom line'. I am sick to death of it. I can barely read the newspapers without getting angry because all you ever hear about is 'Oh, we've got to worry about our shareholders. And how the shares shot up.' I think one creep, I forget the name of the firm, said I will sack 1500 workers', and the shares went up immediately on the stock exchange. It is immoral and absolutely outrageous. Yes, I would like to see a society where people are looked after and the environment is looked after. The two go together. We're run by lunatics. They talk about growth. In today's paper we read about how many species we're losing due to the loss of forests, due to over-population, due to our practice of growth and ever more growth, and buggering up the environment wherever we go. I travel and see it everywhere. There's hardly any place left in the world now that isn't environmentally messed up. The sort of society we have is crazy. We've got polar ice-caps melting and what do these idiots say? They say, 'Oh yeah, it happens every so often'. For heaven's sake, you won't get a clearer example of global warming than that. The implications for our survival are immense. Therefore it's a matter of survival that we should dramatically change our society and start to protect our environment and start to use less of our resources, to look for alternatives. For example, why are they still building freeways? This again comes back to the State Government. A short distance from here, we destroyed a beautiful valley, gum trees and a creek, and put up a monster. All done to bring more cars in, not more people, more cars - which they are now going to extend! When we all know the best form of public transport are trains, public trains. Why aren't they spending money on that, which would help cut pollution? One small thing that the State Government could do. I am saying let's change our focus completely and let's take a good look at the rest of the world, because we are all inter-related. It's not much good looking at Victoria as a separate entity, because we're not. What is going to happen to all the little islands in the Pacific if the ice caps melt and water levels rise? We will say, 'goodbye Tonga, goodbye Cook Islands, Fiji and all the other low-level places around the world. Goodbye Netherlands and goodbye to half the species that we should be protecting. We should be looking after everything for the next generations coming along and not stuff things up and say 'Well, we don't care, we just want to get elected in two years time. Bugger the environment. It is wrong, very wrong'.   Q11. Do you feel there is enough education and motivation for today's youth, particularly women to move into politics?   JC. I think they're put off, actually, because they've seen so much corruption. What I'd like to see is more emphasis on Australian history because I think you can make a better contribution in parliament if you know where you're coming from, if you know the great gains that were made in this country. Most young people don't know our history. They don't realise that Australia was in the forefront of social struggles last century for the 8-hour day, for all sorts of great gains. We were seen as a social laboratory. If people could understand the enormous contribution we made to improve the lot of ordinary working people, there would be more excitement and stimulation to pick up the struggle and move it along. It's nearly all been forgotten now, of course, because we're going in the opposite direction with working conditions and wages. But it's one way of educating people to the political possibilities. I don't believe having a course to tell you how to get into parliament, how to network and having x number of people to vote for you is going to help you make much of a contribution.   Q12. If you could do it again, would you move into the political scene?   JC. I'm not out of it. I'm still there. I am the President of the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society and madly writing all sorts of things and speaking to various groups on a range of subjects. I think it should be understood that the parliamentary arena is only one strand of politics. It is not the be-all and end-all. Far from it.   Q13. Are there any advantages to being a woman in politics?   JC. It gives you a higher profile - sort of freak value, I suppose. I was one of the first two women ever elected to the Legislative Council. God knows what they expected. These silly men were married after all, presumably to women! I felt like an alien walking into something they couldn't quite handle. Actually, it was very odd. For the early part there was the advantage that I could get publicity for various issues that I was concerned about, simply because of my high profile. It tended to diminish as more women came in. I think there is still the possibility that women can use their voices much more effectively than they are doing. I don't believe that the women in the Victorian Parliament are doing a great deal at all actually. A reactionary woman is a reactionary woman. Let's have some progressive women. Then we might sing a completely different song!   Q14. They are all the questions I have for you. Is there anything else you would like to talk about?   JC. I think that covers most of the stuff.