by Anne Summers
‘It’s just local stuff,’ Smith assured me. ‘You can’t expect us to ignore that the Prime Minister is visiting our area.’
It got worse. The house had been freshly painted, inside and out, and did not even remotely resemble the run-down place I’d described to Paul. The bedraggled backyard had been transformed into a gaily decorated party scene: umbrellas provided shade to brand-new wooden tables that were stacked with party pies and cupcakes and glasses of orange cordial. There were balloons everywhere. The children who a few days earlier had been sullen or aggressive, now tore around with the excitement that all kids bring to parties. As for their mothers, they were all in their best party frocks, most had had their hair done, they wore makeup. They looked nothing like the defeated women I’d met just the day before. Most of them had cameras.
‘I told you there was no need to go to any trouble,’ I said weakly.
‘Do you think I wanted to meet him looking the way I did the other day?’ one of them said to me. ‘I’ve never met a Prime Minister before.’
She had a point. Paul was soon posing with them, cup of tea in hand. Later I was able to get him to one side with a couple of the women.
‘Just tell him your stories,’ I encouraged them. ‘He wants to understand domestic violence.’
But these women did not want to sully their meeting with the country’s leader by sharing their painful stories. The festive atmosphere was totally at odds with the private terrors they had experienced. How to convey on a sunny afternoon against the laughter of, at least momentarily, happy children the sickening sound of a fist to a face, the screams, the bruises and broken bones, the despair?
The whole exercise was a total failure, I thought. I had not enabled Paul to hear the stories that I thought would aid his understanding of what was happening with so many Australian women and why it was so urgent that we do something.
Developing a childcare policy was almost simple, by comparison. Mary Ann and I began brainstorming. We asked OSW for policy options and informed PM&C and Treasury that we were looking for ideas to reduce the cost of care for families on moderate incomes, who did not qualify for fee relief. We were not attracted to the idea of tax deductibility of fees which was being pushed by the Women Lawyers’ Association and other high-earning professional women. Heather Carmody, from the Business Council of Australia’s Council for Equal Opportunity, told me that everyone she talked to in private industry wanted tax deductibility. I was sympathetic to their argument that childcare was an essential expense in earning an income, and to the double standard whereby men could claim professional expenses on their taxes. Nevertheless, Mary Ann and I felt equity principles took precedence. This issue had long been debated within the women’s movement and the lines were clearly drawn. Full deductibility was hugely expensive and would divert too much of the childcare dollar into the purses of high-earning women. At the same time, we both thought that if we could somehow use the tax system to recompense at least part of the cost of childcare, that would be some acknowledgement that it was a work-related expense. We were determined that childcare should no longer be seen—by the government or the community—as a welfare issue. Childcare was an economic issue, a necessary cost to women’s ability to earn an income, either through employment or preparing for work through study. We also wanted to take away from childcare the inevitable stigma that attached to welfare programs.
Early in September at a meeting with Don Russell, Mark Ryan and Ric Simes, Mary Ann and I put on the table the bones of a possible package. I loved working with Mary Ann. Not just because she had such an acute social policy brain and could always figure out a solution to what we wanted to do, but she was always so exuberant. With her, doing wonky policy was never boring. It was fun. Our proposed package would include a major expansion of supply—that is, more places, a rebate for childcare spending above the level of current fee relief, an accreditation package, and the possibility of a fee-relief credit card. We had figures that showed that of the 1.8 million families with children under twelve, only 230,000 were in the government childcare system, and there was an estimated unmet demand for 540,000 places. The Tax Office had provided an estimate that as many as 200,000 people would be likely to benefit from the tax rebate. At the same time, I raised the possibility of cashing out the Dependent Spouse Rebate (DSR), converting the tax rebate men received for their stay-at-home wives to a cash payment for the women. The DSR was loathed by feminists, because it was a deterrent to women working; it gave high-earning husbands a tax benefit (in addition to the benefits they received from having a full-time wife doing housework, childcare, shopping, etc.). We also included a proposal for a $1000 one-off payment to new mothers; ‘the baby grand’, Mary Ann called it. That one did not survive the cut, but the meeting did agree we would have departments look at the cost of providing total coverage: childcare for all who needed it by 2000. We were going to do something very big.
But it had to be kept secret. There was enormous opposition within the Labor Party to the notion of a tax rebate because it was seen, erroneously in my view, as the thin end of the wedge towards tax deductibility. In fact, it was the opposite. A rebate was a flat amount and thus of greater benefit to lower-income earners, whereas tax deductibility, especially for the total costs of childcare, could significantly reduce the overall tax burden of higher-earners. I hoped the rebate would come to be seen as a more equitable alternative that would take the heat out of the push for full deductibility. Some purists thought that the only policy solution was to simply directly fund more centres. I had lunch with Neal Blewett, an old friend and a former political scientist—he had taught me politics at the University of Adelaide in the 1960s—who had been given the big ministry of Social Security by Keating. He reminded me of how toxic childcare politics still were within the Labor Party: ‘I suggested there is some hangover from ferocious Walshian attitudes,’ Blewett wrote of our meeting in his political memoir, ‘but pointed out also that childcare is an expensive program and in these tight budgetary times restrictive attitudes still predominate.’9 I told him that, given the views of women across Australia that affordable childcare was needed, the government had to do something substantial. When I mentioned we were thinking of a rebate, Blewett responded that his ‘worry’ was that a rebate would benefit the better off and leave no funds to expand fee-relief. I explained this was not the case but Blewett’s reaction was salutary. If someone of his progressive views, whose portfolio required him to support disadvantaged groups, had qualms about our proposal, how would we fare with the full cabinet? Contrary to the myth invented by some on the right of the ALP, that Labor governments were putty in the hands of feminists, when it came to childcare policy, almost the reverse was true. We were portrayed as ‘special interests’, on a par with lobbyists for business or mining, annoying intrusions into the political conversation. Anyone would have thought that the evil feminists wanted to put those childcare billions in their own pockets. In fact, we were trying to make women’s lives easier as they contributed to the economy—and kept the population going and the home fires burning. Our only leverage was the need to attract votes from women, and we had to make that case to the PMO and, of course, the Prime Minister. If he was on board, everyone else would fall into line.
We had the support of the ACTU which, without knowing the details of what we were planning, argued strongly for more support for childcare. The ALP was another matter. There was no love lost between the National Secretariat and the PMO. Bob Hogg, the National Secretary, was concerned that no one in the PMO had any campaign experience. The PMO felt Hogg was too negative and not willing to cut Keating any slack. Nor did the ALP see any need to conduct a special campaign for women; there was not a single woman on the ALP Campaign Committee. My activities were dismissed with derision. But, the government was seeing some light. Wayne Swan, the Queensland State Secretary of the ALP, who would successfully contest the federal seat of Lilley in the next election, reported to the PMO that the Goods and
Services Tax (GST) was turning out to be a major negative for the Liberals. Keating’s image was seen as softening somewhat (I liked to take a little credit for that), and he was benefiting from a ‘devil you know’ feeling, as voters contemplated the unknown terrors of John Hewson’s GST.
I consulted widely, while not being able to say exactly what we were considering. The word had got out, though, so while I would not confirm that a tax rebate was on the table, I was willing to canvass the views of key constituencies. In late September I met with Eva Cox and Helen Leonard from the Women’s Electoral Lobby. Eva was very opposed to a rebate. Instead, she suggested, why not have a tax credit that could either be added to a woman’s Family Allowances or deducted from her tax liability. I could not see a significant difference between a credit and a rebate, especially as we were hoping to be able to offer it as a fortnightly cash payment (perhaps able to be collected from Medicare offices) for women who did not want to wait until tax time to claim the benefit. But I was encouraged that there might be scope to reach an accommodation with the women’s movement.
On 9 February, just two days after he’d called an election for 13 March, Keating launched his economic policy at the National Press Club in Canberra. It was a major set-piece speech of the campaign, as important in many ways as the formal campaign launch that would come a fortnight later. The central announcements were a total surprise, even to some of his cabinet colleagues. There was a dramatic cut in company tax, development assistance for business—and a major boost for childcare. The Prime Minister announced a tax rebate of 30 per cent of the costs of childcare, up to a maximum of $28 a week for one child in work-related childcare. Commenting in his diary, Neal Blewett described the policy as ‘not a particularly egalitarian proposal’ but ‘electorally smart’.10 I thought he was flat-out wrong in not seeing that it was an egalitarian response to how to reimburse women for their childcare costs. There were other elements to the package, including a cashing out of the dependent spouse rebate (which was never to happen; the DSR was one of those policies so beloved by senior bureaucrats, many of whom were beneficiaries, that no matter what governments promised, it never went away). Mary Ann and I were ecstatic. We had got what we thought was a fair and sensible policy and it had been announced as economic policy. This was in some ways as significant as the policy itself.
In his book about Keating, Don Watson writes that the Prime Minister complained that I ‘forced’ him to do things he did not want to do. I’m still deciding whether to be offended or complimented by the notion that I could ‘force’ Paul Keating to do anything, but perhaps what he had in mind when he said this was the speech to launch the National Agenda for Women on 10 February 1993. What had been intended as a routine speech had taken on a new significance once the election was called; it was now a major campaign event. I had written a speech that made several announcements we hoped would appeal to the women in the focus groups, including one that tangentially addressed the issue of violence. The night before, Mark Ryan, Don Watson and I had gone over the speech and decided what the ‘grab’ should be. This is the section of the speech that would be highlighted for the television cameras. There was no guarantee they would follow our advice or, if they did, whether their news directors would put it to air, but it was usually a safe bet that the television-watching population that night would see on the news the ‘grab’ we had selected.
Mark wanted us to go very hard on some remarks made in January 1993 by Judge Derek Bollen, of the South Australian Supreme Court, who when instructing the jury in a rape in marriage trial had said: ‘There is, of course, nothing wrong with a husband faced with his wife’s refusal to have intercourse, in attempting in an acceptable way, to persuade her to change her mind, and that might involve a measure of rougher than usual handling.’11
‘I was shocked,’ I had written into the speech, ‘to hear …’ and I’d quoted the latter few words and then put in our announcement about gender training for members of the judiciary.
When Paul read the speech at Kirribilli House, just a couple of hours before he was due to deliver it, he baulked at this section. He did not want to discuss it with me, but he told Mark in extremely colourful language that he would not say it. After some to-ing and fro-ing, Paul said to me:
‘I don’t want to say “shocked”. That sounds too strong. Can’t I say “surprised”, or something like that?’
‘Say what you like,’ I said.
I was angry that he had not read the speech sooner, giving me no time to rewrite it. I was also angry that he was unwilling to strongly condemn the judge’s atrocious comments. I did not tell him that the speech had already been distributed to the media. That would have meant another fight as we were supposed to have the PM’s clearance before release, but when he was late reading them we often had no choice. All speeches were marked ‘To Be Checked Against Delivery’. I just had to hope the media would not make a big deal out of the Prime Minister watering down his comments on the subject of rape.
We arrived at Bankstown where the place was absolutely packed, and the goodwill towards Paul was palpable. Quentin Bryce, the Sex Discrimination Commissioner and Elizabeth Evatt, who was President of the Australian Law Reform Commission, as well as a group of Labor women MPs and senators greeted him. I hung back at the rear of the hall as he was guided to the stage. I began to tense up as he got to the key part of the speech:
‘I was shocked,’ he said.
I relaxed. He’d said it. Thank goodness, I thought to myself, no chance the media can make anything of this now. But then I realised that the room had erupted and it was quickly apparent that Paul really was shocked: by the cheers and wild applause that greeted his comment. He went on to read the lines about gender-based training for judges and magistrates and the room went crazy again. He looked out at the sea of yelling, clapping women and said it again, only this time with the kind of pizzaz that only Paul Keating can produce:
‘It’s back to school for judges and magistrates.’
I wish I could have written a line like that. It got the crowd on its feet again. Paul smiled, repeated the line—and went on with the speech. The ‘grab’ was all over television that night, and women columnists and opinion makers responded positively to Paul’s comments on the recalcitrant judge.
When Keating went on to say that while he could have made his major childcare announcement today, rather than in his economic statement, he had decided ‘it is time childcare was included amongst our mainstream issues’, there was further wild applause. Then a standing ovation at the words: ‘The time is long past, as far as I am concerned, where childcare was tagged as “a women’s issue” or a “welfare issue” and only attracted the crumbs from the table where the budget banquet was enjoyed.’ I felt hugely vindicated. Not only had Keating agreed to the massive childcare announcement being included in the economic speech, but now he was getting almost hysterical applause from a crowd of 600 women. It was a big moment. We had succeeded in wrestling women’s policy away from welfare and into the economic mainstream, where of course it belonged, and the significance of this was certainly not lost on the audience.
Today, when talk about childcare and paid parental leave is mostly couched within the debate about women’s workforce participation, this does not sound like a big deal. In the early 1990s, there was still far from a consensus that mothers even be in the workforce, let alone that policy could boost economic activity by facilitating this. The Australian editorialised in response to Keating’s announcement that encouraging women into employment, as this policy was designed to do, was ‘a strange argument to make at a time of record unemployment’.12 Nor was there support from the media for treating childcare as an economic policy lever. I’d travelled on the press bus a few days later and was challenged by the Sydney Morning Herald’s Tom Burton. He first berated me for including childcare in the economic statement, and then he got stuck into me for steering Keating towards ‘middle-class welfare’. This would not be the last time
I would have this argument with journalists, but that day while I tried to maintain a sunny exterior, inside I seethed with anger and frustration. What was behind this savage opposition to including women’s work, and its necessary supports, in a mainstream economic policy? Why were these journalists so obtuse that they could not see the broad economic benefits of supporting mothers returning to work? How come they never denounced benefits such as tax-deductible conferences in places like Venice, or barristers being able to depreciate their libraries as ‘middle-class welfare’? Why was it only policies that benefited women that were disparaged in this way? I could not answer these questions—and neither could they—because there were no rational answers. It was prejudice, pure and simple.
I’d also included a couple of other announcements in the women’s speech. The most important, to my mind, was the establishment of a longitudinal study of women’s health. I’d heard about a similar study in the United States and it seemed to me that gathering vital data about women’s health and well-being, over time, would provide an invaluable tool for informing policy for decades to come. I worked closely with Jenny Macklin who was the senior adviser to Brian Howe, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Health, to ensure the project had the backing of all the right people in the health field. Jenny, of course, went on to become a distinguished federal member of Parliament, a senior member of the Rudd and Gillard cabinets, and the first woman deputy leader of the ALP. This was not an announcement that would bring an audience to its feet, or even be reported in the press, but it was a solid and important initiative and a further response to women’s expressed concerns about health issues. It is one of the things I accomplished during my time in the PMO of which I am still the most proud. The Australian Longitudinal Study of Women’s Health (ALSWH) is now run as a collaboration between the federal Department of Health and the Universities of Newcastle and Queensland. Since 1996, it has tracked the physical and emotional health and important life-events (marriage, birth etc.) of 58,000 Australian women throughout their lives. A new, younger cohort was added in 2012.13 The data is shared with 650 researchers and is linked to Medicare and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme usage, to test take-up of services and medications relating to health issues ranging from depression to weight gain. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the ongoing benefits for Australian women’s health of this research. Fortunately it has won international acclaim for successive governments which have funded its continuance for more than two decades.14
