Person: Jan Wade Former Liberal member of Parliament.

Q1. The first question we would like to ask you, is why did you get into politics and what were you hoping to achieve?   JW: I was a senior public servant and had been for about 20 years before I went into politics. I had been closely associated with the Parliament because I had been a legislative draftsperson for 12 years and then I went on to other senior positions. I was Commissioner for Corporate Affairs and President of the Equal Opportunity Board. I was pretty disillusioned by the Labor government during the 1980s. I think round about 1984 or 1985 I could see a lot of things going wrong and I thought that as a senior public servant there was not much I could do about it. I was approached by the Liberal Party to seek preselection and I decided to give it a go. They said to me that they were hoping to win the 1988 election which in fact the Liberal Party of course lost, the Labor Party got back in again. They wanted people with administrative experience because they felt that they did not have many people with administrative experience in the Parliament party and so that is why they approached me. I thought I am not going to do much where I am, even if there is a change of government I will be better off to be in the Parliament, and so I decided to give it a go.   Q2. How difficult was it in the first instance to get into Parliament.   JW. From my point of view it was easy, I perhaps did not realise that there was quite a lot of downside that in fact did not come about. I had to stand for preselection. I had been approached by the Liberal Party in 1987. I was not a member of the party. I decided to join just in case I did want to go into politics and I joined I think in about December 1987. I stood for preselection when there was an unexpected vacancy in Kew at the beginning of 1988. I think 26 other people also stood for preselection and I was lucky enough to get in. At the time I thought because I had support and assistance from people who had approached me that it was not going to be all that hard but actually in retrospect I think I was very lucky because you can never really anticipate the outcome of a preselection which involves a very large number of people on the preselection committee and local aspects. I was not a local here in Kew - I am now - so I was extremely lucky.   Q3. Did your party support you or did you have to go it alone?   JW. I had a lot of support from the party because they were keen to get somebody with my experience, but there would have been other people in the party, I suppose, who were supporting other potential candidates. I think at the time some in the party also wanted a woman. There was a beginning to be an appreciation that a largely male Parliament was not a good thing. When I got in I was the only woman on the opposition side of the Legislative Assembly, but fortunately I was joined by other women as time went on.   Q4. Are things better now for women and are there more political opportunities than there were?   JW. I think they are substantially better. There are now quite a large number of women. I have not counted them after the last election but there are a large number of women now on both sides of the House. Not enough! I feel there should be 50 per cent women. I am not sure that there are enough even now to really make their presence felt in terms of changing policies and attitudes. That is going to be very difficult. Attitudes, particularly in Parliament itself, need to change but there is a conjunction of different people and organisations that make it very difficult for those changes to take place. I am largely talking about behaviour in Parliament which I think generally speaking is a fairly male type of behaviour that is difficult for many women. But the men who do that well want to preserve that and I think the media wants to preserve it because it makes good media and so there is a reward for bad behaviour. Until that changes it is going to be more difficult for women and it will be some time before it changes, if ever. Can I just add to that about political opportunities. Both major political parties, or all political parties,are endeavouring to get more women into Parliament because they perceive that to be good electorally. The Liberal Party is conducting forums for women each year; they conduct forums for women who are interested in going into Parliament to give them some ideas about how they may best succeed in the preselection process and how things are in Parliament, if they eventually get there, and what sort of skills they should be pursuing. I think that is a very good step in the right direction.   Q5. Have women changed the culture of Parliament and politics?   JW. I don’t think so. I have not been in for the last year or so but I would be very surprised. It is a pretty entrenched culture. It is a boys-school culture - it is a culture that rewards bullies. Unfortunately I think it is also a culture that rewards some other undesirable forms of behaviour such as accusations that have no basis, and again I think the media supports that. People who indulge in that sort of behaviour get the press coverage and that in many ways is what is important to a person's career. Nobody seems to follow up whether or not the accusations were correct so there is no downside for people who make false accusations or who behave in a bullying fashion. I would like to see some disincentive for that sort of behaviour in Parliament, but again it is difficult to work out how that can be done.   Q6. Do you feel that women have a special contribution to make as women or just simply as people?   JW. I think women have got a very important contribution to make as women largely because they are there in the minority. The Parliament and government itself has been largely a male domain, and while I think that men don't as a rule intend to discriminate against women in formulating policy they have had different lifestyles and they don't always appreciate what is important to women. Therefore, we need to get a significant number of women in Parliament - as I said, preferably 50 per cent or more - so that issues relevant to women's lifestyles are taken into account when policies are formulated. That is very important. It is not to say, of course, that you don't represent the whole constituency but that goes without saying. But men cannot properly represent women if they have not had women's life experiences. We need, in fact, a wide range of people from different backgrounds and we need to have more people with different ethnic backgrounds. We also need to have people from the country, which we have at present, but when people start talking about the country being over-represented there is going to be a real issue, as more of the population move to the city and there is less in the country, to ensure that country people get proper representation.   Q7. Do women in Parliament support each other or deal differently with each other compared to the men?   JW. I think women deal differently with each other compared to men wherever they are, and it is no different in Parliament. However if people assume that women are going to be friendly across party boundaries, that is not the case, in my experience. Women generally are I think, supportive of each other within a party, or within the Liberal Party - I cannot really speak for the Labor Party because of its factional nature. But I don't think there is anything else that leaps to mind in terms of women behaving differently.   Q8. Are you happy about the rate of change or do you feel disappointed that we have not come further.   JW. I am reasonably happy. The world has changed significantly during my working life. I started work in the early 1960s and there is no doubt there has been an enormous change in women's life during that period. It was very unusual for women with children to work full-time at that time and now, of course, it is quite normal. I think now most women see themselves with a working life, maybe not full-time but maybe from time to time or part-time, and that has made an enormous difference to society generally.   Q9. What do you feel is the greatest challenge facing women today in terms of their political environment?   JW. I think that is the challenge - that women have a different lifestyle now than they had in the past. That is not reflected in our laws or in our work practices. We have still got a hangover from the period where women were not expected to be employed full-time. Gradually changes have been made to things like superannuation, but that has not gone far enough and it is very important to have women in Parliament looking at these issues and ensuring that the changes in society are catered for in the laws that are being passed by the Parliament and in government practices. In some ways government departments have been ahead of the private sector in terms of employment opportunities for women and fitting in with women's lifestyles. Things like women being able to take time off during school holidays, staggered hours, all of those sorts of things are extremely important if we are going to have a society that can cope with the changes that have occurred and where everyone should be able to get some benefit from them, including men. It should also be possible for men to have the advantages of being able to take time off during school holidays and staggered working hours, being able to work part-time, those sorts of things. I think we would be a much better society, and women are more likely to turn their minds to those issues perhaps than men are, particularly older men. Maybe as time goes on and more young men come into Parliament they will be interested in these issues.   Q10. What would you like to see happen in the future?   JW. I have been very interested in possible changes to our institutions. I was of course the Attorney-General for seven years and I turned my mind to issues relating to our court system and whether or not it was meeting the needs of everybody in society, particularly women. I think in a number of respects it was not, that it was not recognising some of the changes in women’s lives. Also, women were not really making headway as judges because of the way in which the judiciary is appointed. I think some of the same issues are also there in Parliament. It occurred to me that with the judiciary part of the answer might be training for people who are interested in going into judicial careers. That of course takes place in Europe where women have been far more successful in obtaining careers in the judiciary. I have wondered whether Parliament might not be interested in running courses in conjunction with maybe a university for people who might be interested in a political career and maybe before people go into Parliament turn their minds to what sort of institution we want, whether we do want the boys boarding school environment to continue, what is the proper way to behave in Parliament, whether or not there could be some downside to unacceptable behaviour. Those sorts of things would be worth pursuing, but I am not quite sure who is going to take the initiative in pursing them.   Q11. Do you feel there is enough education and motivation for today's youth, particularly women, to move into politics?   JW. Some people want to move into politics. It surprises me sometimes that they do, but there is a lot of interest among both young people and women. When I have attended the Liberal Party's forums for women there have been quite a number of women there who indicated they are interested in going into politics. Certainly talking to young people they seem to be very interested in politics itself. There is a downside too, which is the perception of politicians these days which has been contributed to by the factors that we have already discussed - unfortunate behaviour in Parliament, the emphasis given by the media to that sort of behaviour. In fact, most people in Parliament are no different from anybody else in the community and they are mostly working quite hard, and that goes for people, from all political parties. If this sort of attitude to the members of Parliament continues that people, particularly people who have already established themselves with a good reputation and a solid career behind them, are going to wonder if they want to throw that out and embark on a career in politics where their reputations may be totally lost notwithstanding they have behaved absolutely impeccably, because that is the situation. So I think there will be some people in the community who will turn away from politics for that reason but on the other hand, as I say, there are many others who are keen to get in there. Perhaps we need to concentrate on who we want in our parliaments and how do we best encourage those people with the appropriate qualifications and experience.   Q12. So if you could do it again, would you move into the political scene?   JW. I would have to say that I had a very interesting political life. It was 11 years and it was sometimes great fun. I would have to say there were down sides to it. I particularly enjoyed the government administration side of it because that is where my expertise is and so, I suppose, that made up for any downsides. I certainly do not in any way regret it and, yes, I probably would do it again if I was offered that sort of opportunity at that sort of age. If I were talking to my children about it I think I would make sure that they knew the downside as well as the upside before they decided to embark on a political career.   Q13. Are there any advantages to being a woman in politics?   JW. I think at the moment there is the advantage that you are more obvious perhaps than a man because women are still in the minority. That definitely has advantages in bringing you a certain amount of attention. I think it also has disadvantages in that any mistakes you make or perceived mistakes get more coverage than they would if I were a man. Yes, I think the other possible disadvantage - the other thing that a woman must come to grips with in Parliament - is this issue of whether she wants to be perceived as a woman in Parliament or a person in Parliament. There are some women who take the view that they do not want to be associated with women's issues because that might in the future mean that they don't get the sort of portfolio that is perhaps perceived as a male portfolio. I don't myself subscribe to that view. My view is, as a woman in Parliament, it was my duty to take up women's issues and it is important that women do that, although I do sympathise with the other point of view. The fact that you have come here to talk to me this morning about women in Parliament indicates that women are perceived as somehow having a special interest in women's issues. I don't know whether when you talk to male members of Parliament you talk to them specifically about men in Parliament. It is a problem if women get sidelined all the time to talk about women in Parliament or specific women's issues. That can be a danger. So what you have to do as a woman in Parliament is, I think, take a very serious concern regarding women's issues and make sure you speak on them but at the same time take up something else or other things that are not necessarily seen as women's issues and also pursue those with at least the same degree of enthusiasm. I was lucky because I was a lawyer. I became shadow Attorney-General, and shadow Minister for Fair Trading fairly soon after I got into Parliament and subsequently Minister for Fair Trading and Attorney-General as well as being Minister for Women's Affairs. I was able to balance those things and not be seen as only interested in women's issues although I was Minister for Women's Affairs. It is quite a difficult balance to achieve for women.