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Person: Joan Kirner First woman Premier of Victoria.
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Q1 Originally, why did you find yourself drawn into political life?
Well my definition of political life is not Parliament. Political life is making decisions with other people about other people. So using that definition, I probably grew up with discussions of politics. Both grandfathers were union men. My father was never a card-carrying member of the Party [the Labor Party], but interested. And then I got active in various Church youth groups on things like peace and justice, and so forth, had good friends in the Labor Club at Melbourne Uni. I was fortunate enough for the last two years of schooling to go to Uni High from a little girls' school called Penley, and there I met all these refugee kids who were refugees from the Holocaust etc and so that gave me some interest, but it didn't give me an active involvement. It wasn't until I took my eldest son to school (Michael, who's now 40), when the Principal told us - and this is out at North Croydon: a rapidly expanding suburban area at the time, 1965 - the Principal told us that our kids were going to be in a class of fifty four students. So legend has it that I said, "Not my child!" and there my political action began, my community activism began, because we set about getting the classrooms and getting the teachers. I'd never set about taking a political action before in my life. So I learnt it on the ground, basically. And then, I realised I suppose, looking back, though, I was an extraordinarily fortunate working class girl. I was an only child. I was the only girl in my block who went to University. My parents didn't have much money. Dad was a fitter and turner, mum was a music teacher, and Nan a kindergarten teacher by trade. And they were determined that I should have a good education. So I benefited from that, and then I trained as a teacher - did an Arts Degree - and became equally committed to give my kids a good education. But I didn't just believe you should provide for it. I believed you should participate in it. In a sense I suppose participation and equity are my second names. So from there I learnt, when we started off doing the normal things, the petitions etc and deputations to ministers and all that, so it took off from there. And then probably I learnt the second lesson of politics which is, if you want to change something for yourself or your own children, you have to change it with other people and for other people. So that's where it all began, way back in 1965. And then in about '69 I realised there's a big picture: this is not just Croydon North Primary School. This is schools across Victoria, possibly across Australia. So I took my first meeting at the Federation of Primary School Parents - they were called the Mothers' Clubs - Conference. And there they all were, discussing the bust sizes of school uniforms and fund raising: four hundred women. I couldn't believe it. I thought, 'Hello, my kids and other kids haven't got enough qualified teachers, enough classrooms, and here we are, working out how we can be the hand-maidens, and not the shapers, the decision-makers.' So I spoke up and made my first grab in The Age the next morning, which was "It's no good just baking cakes any more." And of course when you speak up at a meeting like that you get put on the Committee, so I became the Publicity Officer. Had many grabs in the paper as Mrs "Rhonda" Kirner, and then became President and Executive Officer at the State body and the National body, and was President eventually of that, and in between times, Gough Whitlam [Prime Minister of Australia 1972 to 1975] appointed me as the Parent Representative on the Schools' Commission, on the advice of his wife and his Private Secretary, both of whom I had met and knew. So Margaret [Whitlam] said I was a good young thing and Race Matthews who was his Private Secretary - later to become a Member of Parliament - said I was committed on education, I would take the parents with me. So from '73 to '78 or something I was on the Schools' Commission. Took me around Australia. I learned about bureaucracies, I learned about different governments, I learned about negotiating, I learned about guys who assumed they knew everything even if they didn't. I learned about being the one out of, or two - out of ten or twelve - women on the Committee, and managed that. I learned about how you manage to balance work and family - well I'm still learning about that. Q2 Do you think that your involvement in community politics strongly influenced your style or approach in the Parliament? There's no doubt about that. Just one example: I suppose the reason I moved from community politics to Parliamentary politics was - partly because the Labor Party asked me, because I was a member of the Party but not an active branch committee member - but also because I was sitting one day in a meeting lobbying Malcolm Fraser [Prime Minister of Australia from 1975 to 1983] for more money for State Schools and he was showing such an obtuse lack of understanding, I thought to myself as I walked out of the meeting, 'I am sick to death of telling these guys how to do it. Why don't I get in there and do it myself.' So that was way back in about '79 I think - at the same time that coincided with the Labor Party here in Victoria looking for women, community-based women, to broaden their interest, their base, rather than to be seen as union men and lawyers. So that was the change-over. Q3 Did you find the Labor Party accommodating and inviting in terms of bringing women on board, or did you find that caused difficulties for you within the Party? I don't think any power structure is accommodating in terms of bringing women on board if that's not the norm. There were some people who were fantastic, but I think all of us who arrived in the Parliament, and quite a few of us in '82, into the Labor Party - and a few were already there, but very few, Labor and Liberal - all of us found that we had to understand and change the power structures to have any sense of partnership at all; and change the language for that matter. Q4 Do you think there have been any significant improvements in terms of those early days compared to now? Oh, huge, absolutely huge. One of my current roles is to be co-convenor of Emily's List. Now in 1994 when I left Parliament, I looked around, literally as I walked out, and thought 'My goodness, there are fewer women here, now, than when I came in '82. That's not good enough. I've got to the top.' And partly because most of our women were in marginal seats and were defeated in the '92 election, the numbers of women had been decimated. And there weren't too many Liberal either, although there were a few more because they'd won some marginal seats. So I realised that we really need to change the rules of the Party, and that's when we worked very hard to get the Affirmative Action rule in for the Labor Party, at the Hobart Conference '94. And then we sat back and waited for this to happen, and it didn't: the '96 pre-selections were worse than ever. And so we thought, 'Well, that's not enough: you have to change the culture as well as the laws, rules.' And so we set up Emily's List to be the network that would change the culture - or help change the culture - from the outside. It's not owned by the Labor Party. So that we operated on the Party and within the Party to show women how the power structure was organised, and how they could influence it, benefit from it, and contribute to it. And then of course when I finally left the Parliament, so many young women asked Moira Rayner [former Victorian Commissioner for Equal Opportunity] and myself to write down our experiences and answer their questions, that we wrote 'The Women's Power Handbook', which I am pleased to say, and amazed to say, has finished up a best-seller in Australian non-fiction terms. Q5 In terms of your experience as Premier of the State, did you find that the media treated you very differently from the way you would have expected a male Premier to be treated? Well they actually treated me differently from when I was a Minister, that was the amazing thing. Once I got what they saw as real power, and there was this danger that a community-based politician might turn the feeling of the community against Labor, around; while the Age and the ABC were always very fair, the Herald Sun decided to depict me as this frumpy constantly-harassed housewife in polka dots. And that really affected me: for about six months I took that personally, which of course you shouldn't do. And then I thought 'No, this is not good enough. I'll turn this back on them', and so we made polka dots a bit of a badge of courage, really. And having asked the cartoonist why he did it to me, he basically said, "Oh, well, I know how to draw John Cain [former Labor Premier of Victoria] and I know how to draw Bob Hawke [former Labor Prime Minister of Australia] and Henry Bolte [former Liberal Premier of Victoria], but I don't know how to draw a woman in power." And so I said to him, "Well, do you think you could learn," but of course he never did, because his editor wouldn't let him, because this is the way that they wanted to see me depicted. So we went outside the Herald Sun, to the TV and to communities, and to the Age and the Australian, and basically it worked, I think. By the end of a two year term people knew who I was, and it certainly wasn't the polka dotted housewife. "Housewife" is a contradiction in terms for me, and polka dots, I've never owned a polka dotted dress in my life - not that it matters. Who cares. I don't care. It was just this - what shall we say - reducing-type view of women. And interestingly enough, it's not new. That's exactly how the Suffragettes were drawn way back in the 1890s. Q6 Do you see any improvements in the present day media treatment, or do you think that females in power get 'as rough a trot' now as then? I think that there's no doubt that women get much more personal treatment. I don't think there's any doubt about that, whether you are Natasha Stott Despoja [Federal Leader of the Australian Democrats Party] and her blonde hair, or Amanda Vanstone [Federal Liberal Minister] and her size, or Cheryl Kernow [Federal Labor MP] and what are perceived to be personal tantrums - I don't think it matters what side of the House - Bronwyn Bishop [Federal Liberal Minister] and her hair-do. I mean who's ever made a signature issue over the hair-do of a bloke, except perhaps Jeff [Jeff Kennett, former Liberal Premier of Victoria]. Jeff's toothbrush hair probably did. But I think there's much more attention on the personal, and there's much more singling out of women because we're still unusual. Woman leaders, since we got the vote - we got the first woman into Parliament in 1926 - there's still only been two woman Premiers, and one woman Chief Minister. So we're still a rarity, and I think rarities always attract attention. But it is very interesting here, you see once we have the first woman Prime Minister, that will really break that barrier, which hopefully will be in the next decade. And certainly the young group that is coming on now is just fantastic. The thing that is changing is the numbers. We're actually supporting thirty eight progressive Labor women, most of whom could win in the next Federal Election, and the Liberals of course have got a significant number too. You've got to have a critical mass of numbers for women not to be singled out as different, because you notice in the Cabinet here in Victoria, eight out of eighteen of the Cabinet are women, and you don't get people saying, "Oh she's a woman Minister." You still get a bit of singling out of Mary Delahunty [State Labor Minister, Victoria] not because she's a woman so much, but because she's an ex-journo, and the journos like to have a go, some journos - especially male journos like to have a go - but by and large it's a matter of critical mass and it's also a matter of women understanding how they need to relate to power in order that they can be seen to exercise it properly. Q7 Is there any particular advice that you would give a woman who was considering entering political life? Oh yeah, there's a whole book ['The Women's Power Handbook']. But I suppose basically you've got to believe in yourself, you've got to be clear about your set of values. You need to, in my view, write those values down, because they are going to be constantly tested, constantly tested. And you need to be able to justify yourself to yourself, as well as to the community, about what you say you stand for. You need to be clear about your long term and short term targets. Don't go in there if you don't want to make a difference in that sphere - you may as well do it in another sphere. And get plenty of life's experience before you get into Parliament, because I don't like the career politician version; nor do the public. Maintain your links with the community, because they actually elected you, you didn't elect them. Respect the people you work with, including the Opposition. Keep your sense of humour and have a sense of balance. Q8 Do you think there are any fundamental differences in terms of male politics and female politics? Do women have a different approach in general from men? I think it's too hard to say that as a generic category. However, I think politicians are shaped, like everyone else, by the experiences that they come from. And I think because a lot of women's experience is family and community as their prior commitment, in a way, then a lot of the ways that women operate are more co-operative and collective within their own Party - and sometimes across Parties - than a lot of men. My experience is that by and large women are more task-oriented rather than ego-oriented in politics. Now that's by and large: it is not true of everyone. And I think there is a bit of a difference between women who are feminists, who are in Parliament, and women who are not. I mean Maggie Thatcher [former Conservative Prime Minister of Great Britain, and the first British woman Prime Minister] used to say quite clearly - untruthfully in my view - but quite clearly, that women could look after themselves because no woman had ever helped her get there. Well, I think she should examine her history. But I would not have been in politics, survived in politics, or had whatever success I've had in politics - and that's in the Parliament and community - unless I'd had the support of women, starting with my grandmother and mother, and then with all the various women I've worked with over the years. And now I spend a lot of my time mentoring young women, and young women who are standing for Parliament, so that I can make the bridge back again in a way, and say 'Thank you' for all the things that have happened to me - well, most of the things, not all of them. Q9 Do you see things trending in the right direction now, or is it still a pretty up-hill battle? Oh yes, I think there are trends, certain trends in the numbers. But things tend to be a bit cyclical. And one of the reasons we had this magnificent 'Women Shaping the Nation' evening in the Parliament [of Victoria] of May the 7th, celebrating the 1891 petition and tabling our new petition, 2001, and had the extravaganza on the front steps of young women, and then the Honour Roll, is unless you understand the history of the struggle - some of it which is very recent - then you are inclined to just assume that these things will go on forever, and also not to understand that it is an on-going struggle. No power group - in this case we're talking about males - has ever donated to another power group, power. So you have to understand that, and you have to be organised to say we want a share of that thank you. We don't have to have the lot, just a share on equal terms. Q10 Do you think there's any danger now, as progress is made, of younger women becoming complacent? Well I don't know that they are complacent. They're certainly not complacent, most of them, about their own futures, or their own families if they have them. They are probably facing more challenges than we did in balancing work and family life. The expectations are so high; it's harder to get a house, bla bla bla bla. But if they don't know, then how can they appreciate, and mostly the history of the struggle is not taught. With my daughter the other day - she's thirty five - and we were out doing some shopping, and something came up about expenditure, about superannuation, actually, and I said to her, "Well, the reason I'm on limited superannuation is because I didn't start getting it till '82." She said, "Why not?" thinking this is pretty amazing. And I said, "Because when I was a teacher, way back in 1960, I married your dad; women had to resign from the superannuation fund. Married women were not allowed to have superannuation." Now my husband was also a teacher, and he happened to marry me. He didn't have to resign from his superannuation fund. So his super is twice mine, even though I've been here in Parliament. So Kay said, "I didn't hear about that." Yet we'd lived in the same house for a long time. So I think it's really important to show the history of the struggle, as well as to claim the achievements, and note the weaknesses, and plan the future. Q11 In terms of your role and achievements as a Premier, what's the thing that you are proudest of, or that you would hope to be most recognised for? Oh, I think being the first woman Premier. If I hadn't decided - even though it was extraordinarily tough, and I was to find out how tough, I didn't realise how tough it would be - the fact that I decided I'd contest the Premiership, because it wasn't just handed to me, and win, and then do it in a way which tried to take the community with me, that has to be number one. Otherwise we would not still have had a woman Premier in Victoria. There's a couple who'd be able to do it, but not on the horizon at the moment - we're talking about the Labor Party now - and we'd still be waiting, like all other States are still waiting other than, of course, Carmen in WA [Carmen Lawrence Federal Labor MP, and former Premier of West Australia]. So I guess I'm proud of that.
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