No Job for a Woman

by Sallyanne Atkinson

  My immediate concern with the state government was not about corruption but about interference in Council matters. Sir Joh announced in May 1986 that Brisbane was going to get the world’s tallest building. As BCC was the planning authority this was news to us, and it cut right across our planning guidelines, so I said no. The developer, John Minuzzo from Melbourne, came to see me, and begged and pleaded. The proposed building was 108 storeys high and quite out of scale for our city. I continued to say no, but it was a worry that the state government would try to override Council on planning matters. The state did have the authority. After all, we existed under the City of Brisbane Act, but back then it was generally accepted that the state ran Queensland and the Council ran Brisbane. Our roles and responsibilities were clearly defined. Nowadays the lines are blurred and there seems to be duplication in matters such as transport and planning.

  After saying no to the building, we had to defend our decision in the Supreme Court when Mr Minuzzo appealed. I had told City Solicitor Paul O’Brien that I’d be happy to give evidence, at which he visibly paled and said, ‘No Lord Mayor has done that before.’ I said brightly, ‘I’ll just go in there and tell the truth,’ to which one of his lawyers said, ‘With respect, Lord Mayor, that’s not what the law is about.’

  It was a daunting experience, to go into the wood-panelled court, overwhelming in its atmosphere. There, in front of me as I gave my name and swore the oaths, were twelve barristers in robes and wigs. I knew one was ours but I didn’t know which one. Sitting in the body of the court was Paul O’Brien looking like a nervous parent at a school concert.

  In the end the court found that the application had not been properly made, because of various gazettal changes to the Town Plan and the building never went ahead.

  THE SECOND TIME AROUND

  In 1988 I won my second election as Lord Mayor. I had a clear win with 63 per cent of the vote and an increase in the number of Liberal aldermen to 17.

  I had already moved into my new office in City Hall, which had been opened up to the public with concerts held in the King George Square foyer and refurbished function rooms. The Lord Mayor’s office had been in the Brisbane Administration Centre (BAC), linked by an overbridge to City Hall. The BAC building had been built in the mid-1970s and all Council departments, including management, had moved there. With them went the Lord Mayor like some captive bird. When I first got there it was dingy and brown, and not somewhere you would proudly bring visiting dignitaries. It would have been pretty impossible for an ordinary ratepayer to even find it.

  Brisbane City Hall, by contrast, was and is an important building. Council literature has described it as ‘the finest civic and cultural centre in Australasia’. Its clock tower was once the highest edifice in the city, and when I was a child we would be taken up in the lift on our school-shopping days in Brisbane. Not long after I took office we embarked on its restoration, which then was really a matter of opening up more rooms and refurbishment. The structural problems requiring the building to be closed for three years were not yet evident. City Hall had been built on a swamp and 55 years later this would be a huge problem. The auditorium that had always held school speech days and concerts was acoustically defective, and the solution was large panels made of wool on the walls to absorb the sound. The 1891 Willis organ, considered one of the finest in the world, was restored.

  There was some controversy within the heritage community about taking City Hall back to its original state, but sadly this had been fairly unattractive in the financially reduced days of the depression of the 1930s. The building was in the English neo-classical style made famous by Scottish architect Robert Adam and his brother James, and the interior should have reflected this. The Adams used light colours, pale blues and greens, with cream and biscuit shades. The Brisbane Room which had already been refurbished was in pale green. We continued to use this and a pale blue theme throughout. I would say to critics, ‘This is how they would have liked it to look in the 1930s if they had had the money.’

  Another neglected asset in the city was the river. Brisbane is the only Australian city named for the river on which it sits. Both the river and the city, originally an outpost of Sydney, were called after Sir Thomas Brisbane, Governor of New South Wales and an Ayshire Scot, who is remembered in the city’s emblems by the Staffordshire knot for his regiment and stars for his interest in astronomy. Brisbane doesn’t so much sit on its river in the way that, say, London sits on the Thames. Brisbane sprawls across its river as it winds through the urban centre and out through the suburbs, as befits a relaxed subtropical city. A visiting young Englishman recently observed that ‘Melbourne is a European city, Sydney an American one. Brisbane is really Australian.’

  I believe a city takes its personality from its origins and history. Brisbane was established in 1824 as a convict settlement for the worst of the worst, to be as far away from Sydney as possible. Free settlers were not allowed until the 1840s when they came as rich squatters from the Darling Downs, or as poor migrants. It became a municipality in 1859, the same year that Queensland became a state. Most interesting to me is the fact that so many grand buildings – Parliament House, the Treasury, the Queensland Club – were built in the half century after this, showing the confidence the city and the newly gazetted state must have had.

  After World War I Queensland took some steps that set it apart from the rest of the country. The Municipality of Brisbane joined with the 26 small councils and boards around it to become the Greater Brisbane Council in 1925, the largest in Australia and one of the largest in the world. This put out of office all the mayors and aldermen from the other councils. But it was right in line with another stepping down, when members of Queensland’s Upper House or Legislative council allowed themselves to be voted out of office in 1922.

  With the advent of World War II and the threat of Japanese invasion, Brisbane saw an influx of troops from the United States, Dutch Indonesia and Great Britain and the floating population doubled. (The permanent population in fact increased by 21 per cent between the start and the end of the war.) The Brisbane Line was the farthest north that Australia was to be defended should the Japanese invade. Forty years later in City Hall I would come across elderly American couples who were making sentimental visits to the city where they had met – at tea dances arranged for the troops in the auditorium. The Brisbane-born grandmother of Kristina Keneally, the first woman premier of New South Wales, had met her American husband there and gone back with him to the US.

  Nevertheless, Brisbane and Queensland were always disparaged by the rest of the country, with Queensland called the Cinderella State. We were the capital of an agrarian economy, and a sluggish one at that.

  All this would change in the 1970s with the discovery of oil in western Queensland, the abolition of death duties and other taxes by Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen and a new attitude, born of affluence, that lifestyle was important and to be valued. There would be a great flood of southern migration.

  Brisbane’s character and personality derive from the river, but it had always been taken for granted, certainly in my lifetime. Once the river had been the lifeblood of the city – ships sailed up it, merchants built stores and warehouses on its banks, children swam in it. Yet until the 1980s, buildings along the river had their backs to it, with their windows and balconies facing away from the views.

  We designated 1987 as the Year of the River to focus attention on its recreational potential and how we developed its banks. It was a major exercise in community involvement, with groups working on riverfront parkland and developers being made aware of the importance of river views.

  We had a committee comprised of a wide range of people who would all bring different perspectives. The chairman was Jerzy Kozlowski, Head of Town Planning at the University of Queensland, and his deputy was Susan Davies, a public relations consultant. The committee included Trevor Bryan, master mariner, Gary Balkin, who gave us the Kookaburra Queen paddle steamers, Stefan Ackerie,
hairdresser and successful businessman, and many more. It produced a report The Brisbane River: A Strategy for Our Future which is still worth reading today, backed up by a whole lot of technical information.

  The river was to get even more attention in 1988, the year of the World Expo, which was centred on its south bank across from the city centre. Expo was a great party for Brisbane and much has been written about it. It was generally accepted to be Brisbane’s ‘coming of age’ and that meant different things to different people. For most Brisbane people, it meant eating later and often outside at cafes. Typically, people like my parents had their dinner which was called ‘tea’ at about 5.30 or 6 pm and then they watched television and went to bed. There were not many restaurants in Brisbane.

  At Expo, people discovered the joys of eating out, of not having to cook. Another reason for its great success was the six-month pass for public transport. You bought your pass (we gave each of the kids one for Christmas) and then you could go whenever you liked, even every day, which many people did.

  Expo also meant that the world was coming to our door, and liking it. There was a wonderful feeling of smirky triumph when southerners waxed lyrical and surprised. A city bus driver said to me, ‘Now I think I never have to travel, because with all these foreign passengers I feel I’ve been overseas.’ Brisbanites had discovered a newfound confidence, the confidence that comes with external approval, rather like a girl at her coming-out party who is surprised at being told she’s pretty. For those of us who had believed in our city, Expo was an opportunity to showcase all those things that are best about Brisbane – the climate, the friendliness of people, the river in front of the Expo site and the green hills of Mt Coot-tha that formed a backdrop to it.

  For me, the best parts of Expo were the national days; each nation brought in a special dignitary and celebrated with a lunch. So, for example, we had the King and Queen of Spain for Spanish National Day, British Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher, and Ranasinghe Premadasa the prime minister of Sri Lanka. To each lunch, which was hosted by the Commissioner-General of Expo, Sir Edward Williams, were invited local guests, and others not so local. Former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was one, just after former Labor leader and former policeman Bill Hayden had been announced as Governor-General. Someone asked Gough what he thought of the appointment. With hardly a blink he said, ‘Well, he is that rare phenomenon, an honest cop from Queensland.’ This, of course, was the time of the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption.

  I saw a different side to Margaret Thatcher from her public persona, and that extended to her husband Denis, who had always been faintly ridiculed as a meek and ineffectual figure. Towards the end of a long and tiring day we had gone back to their hotel and were having a drink. Mrs Thatcher started to complain noisily that the whisky, or perhaps the gin, wasn’t what she wanted. Denis put his hand on her arm and simply said, ‘Time for bed, dear’, and like a lamb she got up and followed him. Earlier in the day we had been in the British pub, one of the highlights of Expo and usually full of British tourists. I asked Denis if he’d like a drink and immediately he shot back, ‘If a picture appeared of me with a drink in my hand, I’d be labelled a drunk!’

  I had first met Mrs Thatcher back in 1976 when she was Leader of the Opposition Conservative Party in Britain and I was doing my stuff for the Australian Liberal. I followed her around all day on various engagements in Canberra, but waited until the end of the day to do an actual interview. Other journalists needed to talk to her and it was a case of ‘family hold back’; I was the in-house reporter. It was late in the afternoon when we sat down with a cup of tea and she asked, ‘Do you mind if I kick my shoes off?’ Of course, I didn’t. We chatted about a lot of things, including women in politics and the problems they faced. The evidence was before us. There were currently no women in the Australian House of Representatives. She pointed out that it had been easier for her because she lived in London and that’s where the British Parliament was. When she asked me, ‘Why don’t you have a go?’ I quickly pointed out that I lived in Brisbane and had five children. Nowadays it’s an accepted fact that young women with children are members of Parliament and have even given birth during their time in office. Then, it was not even a consideration; the Labor Party had used the fact that I had kids against me in my first campaign for the Brisbane City Council.

  I met Mrs Thatcher again, or rather caught a glimpse of her on stage, at a Conservative Party conference in Blackpool in 1989, the year before she stood down as prime minister. I was a guest of the British government on a trip to the UK, meeting with government people in various places. I went to Belfast and to the Sirocco Works where Dad had begun his working life, and I met interesting people across the political divide. I had input into where I would go and when I had asked if I might visit Northern Ireland the official reply was a definite yes, because no one ever asked to go to Northern Ireland.

  I was introduced to Prime Minister Premadasa as someone who had grown up in Sri Lanka. He suggested I should visit while he was still in office so he could ‘guarantee’ security. The civil war in that country was at its height. I took myself there in 1989 on a private visit, the first time I had been back since my childhood. It was very emotional and somewhat disturbing, for we were not used to personal security in Australia. When I went for a dip in the Galle Face Hotel pool where I had learned to swim 40 years earlier, a man in a suit stood on the edge, arms folded, watching me. Mr Premadasa, son of a low-caste washer or dhobi man and now president, was assassinated a few years later by a suicide bomber as he watched a May Day parade in Colombo. About ten others, including his bodyguards, were also killed.

  In my role as Lord Mayor I also hosted various members of the royal family. Some occasions were more memorable than others. We held a lunch for Prince Philip in City Hall in his capacity as President of the World Wide Fund for Nature. Before his arrival we had found, in the great caverns below City Hall, two chairs specially made for his first royal visit to Brisbane in 1954. We got them out, and at lunch I sat on one and he on the other. I said, ‘Sir, these are the chairs on which you and Her Majesty sat in 1954.’ And he said, ‘Bloody uncomfortable then and bloody uncomfortable now.’

  Prince Charles and Princess Diana made a visit to Brisbane in April 1983. We were all upset that they didn’t bring Prince William to Brisbane, and everyone wanted to talk about him to Diana at the reception. I remember Prince Charles being quite cross when they did a walkabout in King George Square. He went to one side of the gathered crowd and she the other. The crowd on his side were obviously disappointed and showed it. I was to be told by people in the royal circle that this was one of the strains on their marriage, that she was obviously more popular than he.

  The Duke and Duchess of York came to Brisbane in 1990 and to City Hall. In 1920 the foundation stone for city hall had been laid by the Duke’s great-uncle (later Edward VII and then the Duke of Windsor). The current Duke was to unveil a commemorative stone. The Duke and Duchess were a jolly couple, generally known as Andrew and Fergie. We had a lunch for the great and good in the Balmoral Room and the entrée was decorated with flowers. My son, Damien, who was sitting in for his father, said to the Duchess beside him, ‘You can eat these flowers,’ and proceeded to do so. She started to follow his lead when the Duke leaned across and sternly said, ‘No!’

  I asked the Duke to speak after my words of welcome at the lunch but he said he was speaking at the unveiling afterwards and that was enough. I was disappointed for the guests at the lunch who were not going to be outside for the unveiling, which may have explained my later irritation. The Duke said as we were walking out, ‘Why wasn’t your husband here?’ I explained that Leigh was operating. The Duke said, ‘I always thought surgeons could get someone to replace them?’ To which I replied, ‘You wouldn’t like that if it were your brain!’

  The visit had its oddities. I was told that the Duchess would want to wash her hair after she came up the Brisbane River and before the lunch. Tha
t seemed strange to me, but we dutifully had a hairwashing hose put in the sink in the bathroom off my office. When they arrived I asked the Duchess, ‘Do you want to wash your hair?’ She looked absolutely stunned, and of course I told her of the request and we had a good laugh.

  When Expo finally ended we all had withdrawal symptoms, but for those of us who had a concern for the city and a responsibility for it, the hard work was just beginning. In Council we had long been thinking about what would happen afterwards. Premier Bjelke-Petersen had made a promise that Expo wouldn’t cost taxpayers anything and its site would be sold off at a profit due to the improved value of the land. But this meant that the south bank of the river would be turned into a second CBD, another North Sydney, and we didn’t want that. The people of Brisbane didn’t want it either, because they had come to know the pleasures of parkland close to the central city where you could eat outdoors. So for a few years and through several iterations of planning proposals I argued with Sir Llew Edwards, chairman of Expo 88, and three premiers: Mike Ahern, Russell Cooper and Wayne Goss.

  The South Bank Development Corporation was established and the legacy of their work has been South Bank, that green strip of parkland with its picnic areas, swimming pool, playgrounds and cafes that make up the 40-hectare site, with the cultural precinct, including the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, state galleries, library and museum at one end. I don’t think there is another city in the world with such a green public facility within walking distance to the centre of town and bordering the river. I look out at it every day from my balcony and my heart sings.