by Julia Baird
34Quoted by Michael Millett, ‘Voters: Women want Bishop’, SMH, 4 Feb. 1994, p. 1.
35This is not actually correct. Bishop was preselected on 11 December. Carlton left on 14 January. Reporters wrote at the time that a by-election was not expected until February or March. It occurred on 26 March 1994. At the time of this interview in 1992, according to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Handbook, there had been six occasions on which the gap between the vacation of the seat and the by-election date had been longer than Bishop’s.
36Ellis agreed the swing against Bishop was exaggerated in the press, but claims he had a ‘considerable impact’ on her campaign: ‘With a high-profile candidate you’d expect a swing to her of 3 to 4 per cent. On first-party preferred there was a swing against her of 5 per cent, overall there was 1.5 per cent against her, which was fuck all and had me quite depressed on election night. It was exaggerated in the press; they were sick of her and needed a moment like that. But . . . it could have been better.’
37Staley now says that while he was not certain she would have become leader, he recalls sympathising with Bishop and saying, ‘If she’d had a huge win and pulled the votes, you never know.’ He told me he was supporting John Howard but said to her something like, ‘Bad luck. If you’d pulled a bigger vote you never know.’
38Kate Legge, ‘The making and remaking of Bronwyn Bishop’, Australian Magazine, 2–3 Oct. 1993, p. 14.
Chapter Two: Housewife Superstars
1Henrietta Dugdale, A Few Hours in a Far Off Age, Melbourne, 1883, p. 67.
2Doris Blackburn, MHR from 1946 to 1949, had left the ALP over her involvement in the International Peace Campaign, and stood for federal parliament as an Independent Labor candidate.
3‘Labor’s woman MP flies banner for PM’, SMH, 20 May 1974, p. 2.
4Marilyn Lake, ‘Feminist history as national history: writing the political history of women’, Australian Historical Studies, vol. 17, no. 106, 1996, pp. 154–69.
5Pat Mainardi, ‘The politics of housework’, in Ellen Malos (ed.), The Politics of Housework, Allison & Busby, London, 1980, pp. 99–104.
6Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, Penguin, Ringwood, 1963, pp. 13–29.
7See Catherine Hall, ‘The history of the housewife’, in Ellen Malos, op. cit., pp. 44–72.
8Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, The Labour Force, ABS, February 1975, p. 16.
9K. Richmond, ‘The workforce participation of married women in Australia’, in D. Edgar (ed.) Social Change in Australia: Readings in Sociology, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1974, p. 269. In 1947, 8.6 per cent of married women worked outside the home, while 18.7 per cent did in 1961. By 1971 it was 32.7 per cent. Note these statistics are based on women who were employed full-time or part-time, or looking for employment.
10‘Winds of change in the suburbs’, SMH, 1971, Federal Parliamentary Library press clippings files. See also Rosemary Mayne-Wilson, ‘Lonely, out in suburbia’, West Australian, 25 Aug. 1973.
11Stanley Hurst, ‘The lone woman helping to change South Africa’, West Australian, c. 28 Aug. 1973, Federal Parliamentary Library clippings files.
12Peter Blazey, ‘Battler Joan Child still takes it all in her stride’, Australian, 20 July 1983, p. 9.
13‘Angry alderman hits back at home role for women: mother attacks bachelor’s view’, Daily Telegraph, 23 June 1975. Note: Taylor later received the 1975 ‘thumbs down award’ in the ‘LOOK!’ awards, SMH, 1 Jan. 1976, for these comments.
14Pix, 2 Oct. 1943, p. 5. Note: Cathy Jenkins, in a study of the press treatment of Dame Enid Lyons and Dorothy Tangney in 1943, argued that while their private lives were not emphasised, newspapers contained references to their roles as wife, mother and — in Tangney’s case — aunt. (Cathy Jenkins, ‘Press coverage of the first women in Australia’s federal parliament’, Australian Studies in Journalism, no. 5, 1996, pp. 82–100.)
15Quoted by Marian Sawer & Marian Simms, A Woman’s Place: Women and Politics in Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1993, p. 83.
16‘Woman for polls’, Mirror, 21 Oct. 1961.
17‘Candidate is a housewife, but not a superstar’, SMH, 28 May 1979, p. 2.
18Sue Johnson, ‘Women go for a share of politics’, Sun-Herald, 21 Sept. 1980, p. 11.
19Interview with the author, 21 Feb. 1997.
20Transcript, Pru Goward interview with Janine Haines, ABC Radio, 5 Nov. 1990, Federal Parliamentary Library clippings files.
21Interview with the author, 19 Nov. 1996.
22Malcolm Mackerras, ‘Do women candidates lose votes?’, Australian Quarterly, Sept. 1977, p. 7. After further research from subsequent elections, Mackerras argued in 1980 that ‘it makes little difference whether the candidate is a woman or a man . . . women will be elected when parties select them for safe or winnable seats.’ (Malcolm Mackerras, ‘Do women candidates lose votes? — further evidence’, Australian Quarterly, summer 1980, pp. 450–54.)
23See table in Marian Sawer, ‘Two steps forward, one step back: women and the Australian party system’, in Joni Lovenduski and Pippa Norris (eds), Gender and Party Politics, Sage, London, 1993, p. 23.
24David Hickie, ‘Women: the housewife is still the dominant image in Australia’, National Times, 3–8 Oct. 1977, p. 10. Hickie concluded that this poll, conducted among 1000 city dwellers over 18, both male and female, showed Australians had ‘significantly more male chauvinism in their attitudes than their British counterparts’. The major areas of difference were beliefs about non-discrimination against women, and whether children suffer if they have working mothers.
25Interview with the author, 20 Nov. 1996.
26Interview with the author, 17 Feb. 1997.
27Lillydale and Yarra Valley Express, 16 May 1979, p. 12; interview with Gracia Baylor, 20 Feb. 1997. Baylor was still accused of neglecting her children because her youngest child was 18 months old when she was elected in 1979.
28‘Women go for a share of politics’, Sun-Herald, 21 Sept. 1980. There were some men who gave out recipes when asked; for example, Andrew Peacock’s recipe for Nut Crust Apple Pie. (Woman’s Day, 14 Jan. 1985, p. 27.)
29Interview with the author, 27 Aug. 1997.
30The caption informed us that during her campaign ‘her sons helped with the housework, including cooking’. Selena Summers, ‘The lady of the house’, Australian Women’s Weekly, 5 June 1974, p. 2. Interview with Joan Child, 27 Feb. 1997.
31Lorraine Palmer, ‘The new blonde Senator with “plenty of fight”: “Women need women in parliament”’, Woman’s Day, 15 July 1974, p. 16.
32Interview with the author, 27 Oct. 1997.
33Interview with the author, 2 Dec. 1997. Elliott was a member of the WA upper house for the ALP from 1971 to 1986, and was deputy ALP whip from 1976 to 1978.
34The Australian Women’s Weekly was the oldest — first published on 10 June 1933 — and most widely read women’s magazine in Australia. McNair Print Readership Survey, National Magazine Readership Survey, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, 1972. Briefing papers in the Women in Politics Conference files claim there was a significant growth in the readership of women’s magazines in the early 1970s, from 2 per cent in 1962–67 to 33 per cent of women in 1968–73. The source cited was J. S. Western, Australian Mass Media Controllers, Consumers, Producers, AIPS Monograph No. 9, Women and Politics Conference, Canberra 1975 papers, NLA.
35According to the Age, in 1971, women spent approximately $325,000 each week on the three major women’s magazines. By 1975, Australians spent $43 million per year on 13 million locally produced women’s magazines. (Dennis Minogue, ‘A war for women’, Age, 31 May 1975, quoted by Anne Summers, Damned Whores and God’s Police: The Colonisation of Women in Australia, Penguin, Ringwood, 1994, p. 482.) At the time of the first publication of Media Tarts in 2004, New Idea averaged more than 400,000 copies per issue, Woman’s Day was purchased by more than half a million people, and the Australian Women’s Weekly was still Australia’s bestselling magazine, w
ith an average 688,000 buyers a month. (David Dale, ‘We love our celebs, but not naked or gardening’, SMH, 16 Feb. 2004, p. 3.)
36Interview with John Hill, then a reporter at the Sun, 20 Apr. 2001.
37Gay Alcorn, ‘Women make their mark: trio enjoys battle in the House’, Living and Leisure section, Courier-Mail, 14 May 1986, p. 13.
38Letters to the editor, ‘Happy in the kitchen?’, Courier-Mail, 6 Sept. 1988, p. 8.
39Australian, 8 Feb. 1990.
Chapter Three: Florence Bjelke-Petersen: pumpkin politics
1‘Senator Flo is feeling scone-hot for Canberra’, Daily Telegraph, 14 March 1981.
2Jane Cadzow, ‘The ebb of Flo’, Age, 14 Sept. 1991, p. 12.
3Clive Hale, ‘Nationwide’, 7 Oct. 1980, transcript, Federal Parliamentary Library Current Information Service.
4Bob Hawke was prime minister of Australia from March 1983 to December 1991.
5It should be noted that Flo Bjelke-Petersen continued a long tradition in Australian and international history of women who were elected to parliament by virtue of being related to politically prominent men, although most had gained a reputation for talent and oratory in their own right (see Melville Currell, Political Woman, Croom Helm, London, 1974, pp. 167–72). Of the nine women elected to state parliaments in Australia prior to World War II, four were political widows or daughters. The first woman to be a member of the House of Representatives, in 1943, Dame Enid Lyons, was married to the former prime minister of Australia, Joe Lyons, who had died in 1939. Lyons had established a reputation as a popular speaker before entering parliament, and had travelled widely campaigning with her husband, despite the pressures of illness and the responsibility of raising 11 children. This syndrome, which implied women’s work as politicians was legitimised by their relation to — or representation of — their husbands or fathers, has become known as ‘male equivalence’. The first three women to sit in the House of Commons and the first woman to be a member of the New Zealand parliament were political widows. Of the first four women in the world to lead their countries, two were widows of former leaders (Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who became prime minister of Ceylon in 1960, and Isabel Peron, who was president of Argentina in 1974) and one, Indira Gandhi in India, was the daughter of a former prime minister. (Marian Sawer & Marian Simms, A Woman’s Place: Women and Politics in Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1993, p. 75.)
6Margo Kingston, ‘The Boswell files’, SMH, 3 March 2001.
7See discussion in Donald Horne, A Time of Hope: Australia 1966–72, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1980, pp. 2–3.
8Editorial, ‘It’s the go of Flo’, Herald (Melbourne), 13 March 1981; Jacqueline Rees, ‘Joh’s Flo — firing with both barrels’, Bulletin, 1 Oct. 1977.
9In a study of the Australian Women’s Weekly, Shirley Sampson found women existed only as wives and mothers in the pages of the popular magazine: ‘They are not portrayed as active and independent units in an economic system, and so provide no choice of role models for young girls. The image of the role of women is of home duties as central.’ (Shirley Sampson,‘The Australian Women’s Weekly today’, Refractory Girl, no. 3, winter 1973, p. 17.)
10Hugh Lunn, ‘Flo solves Joh’s ticket problem’, Australian, 29 Sept. 1979, p. 1.
11Columnist Tess Lawrence argued Bjelke-Petersen’s political future was assured ‘for little reason other than she beds the Premier of that State’. (Tess Lawrence, ‘Must Women Come Third?’, Sunday Press, 21 Oct. 1979.)
12Editorial, ‘It’s the go of Flo’, Herald (Melbourne), 13 March 1981.
13Hugh Lunn, ‘Flo’s political recipe’, Australian, 2 Oct. 1979, p. 9. This copy was also used in the Sunday Mail, headed ‘Flo ready to tackle the Iron Lady’, 7 Oct. 1979.
14Peter Trundle,‘The female of the species:Yvonne: I believe in consensus, Flo: I try to be nice’, Courier-Mail, 2 Aug. 1980.
15Janet Hawley, ‘A day in the life of Florence’, Courier-Mail, 24 Sept. 1980.
16Jane Sullivan, ‘Mrs Bjelke may get $150,000 Senate windfall’, Age, 2 March 1981.
17Editorial, ‘The fortunes of politics’, Australian, 17 March 1981.
18Florence Bjelke-Petersen, ‘Mr dear Mr Mitchell’, Australian, 12 March 1981.
19Don Dunlop, Herald (Melbourne), 2 June 1981. Note the Courier-Mail published a highly positive review by a staff reporter, ‘Having a go at Flo’, 13 June 1981.
20Hugh Lunn, ‘Pikelets and politics! Senator elect Flo will still feed the chooks’, Sunday Mail, 10 Aug. 1980.
21Tess Livingstone, ‘Flo gets her unit in Canberra’, Sunday Mail, 15 March 1981.
22While reporting her complaint, Sally Loane pointed to the fact that the press also reported on her becoming an honorary Avon lady in February 1985. This, she wrote, was an unprecedented award given because ‘although she has never sold an eyeshadow or demonstrated a lipstick, she has true Avon characteristics: a high achiever, who had successfully combined being a wife and mother with a career.’ (Sally Loane, ‘‘Honorary Avon lady’ too busy to sell lipstick’, CourierMail, 7 Feb. 1985.)
23Being married to her husband had given her 30 years of political experience, she said, denying that she was politically naive. (Laura Veltman, ‘Flo’s rising faster than pumpkin scones’, Daily Telegraph, 28 March 1981.)
24‘Senator Flo is feeling scone-hot for Canberra’, Daily Telegraph, 14 March 1981.
25Philip Castle, ‘Senator Flo: half of a formidable combination’, Canberra Times, 19 April 1981, p. 7.
26Quoted in John Lahr, Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilisation: Backstage with Barry Humphries, Bloomsbury, London, 1991, pp. 21, 66, 82. Edna Everage was often photographed reading the Australian Women’s Weekly.
27ibid. Note Humphries, on p. 184, argued that Thatcher had come to resemble Edna: ‘First she was a housewife, then the politician, then finally she became the star. And now she likes to show that she’s still a bit of a housewife.’
28Christabel Hirst, ‘I don’t mind the pumpkin scone image: Flo’, Advertiser, 20 Sept. 1982.
29Laura Veltman, op. cit.
30He also said she reminded him ‘in a rather chilling way’ of Margaret Thatcher. Barry Everingham, ‘Flo flies in with a cause’, Sunday Mail, 29 March 1981.
31Alan Reid, ‘The Flo dough show’, Bulletin, 31 March 1981.
32Neil O’Reilly, ‘Flo loses a mentor’, Sun-Herald, 5 May 1985; Sally Loane, ‘The Queensland puppets and their puppeteer’, Times on Sunday, 12 April 1987.
33David Broadbent & Michelle Grattan, ‘Bjelke is gloating over talks with PM’, Age, 15 May 1981; Michelle Grattan, ‘Premier’s wife makes her presence felt’, Age, 16 May 1981; Wallace Brown, ‘Flo the peacemaker ends bad blood of states funds wrangling’, Courier-Mail, 16 May 1981.
34Anne Summers, ‘Senator Flo confounds her critics’, National Times, 21 June 1981.
35Wallace Brown, ‘Flo supports Democrats in tax vote’, Courier-Mail, 17 Sept. 1981; Warwick Costin, ‘Flo becomes the battlers’ friend’, News (Northern Territory), 24 Sept. 1981.
36Michelle Grattan, ‘The Canberra–Bjelke power game’, Age, 16 Nov. 1981.
37Jane Cadzow, op. cit., p. 15.
38Michael Gawenda, ‘A home-made homily: ding dong, Flo calling’, Age, 19 Feb. 1985.
39The legislation was the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) and the Affirmative Action (Equal Employment Opportunity for Women) Act 1986 (Cth). Significantly, the SMH, in an editorial that supported the legislation, reminded Bjelke-Petersen she was there not because of who she was, but because of who she’d married. That she had proved to be a shrewd, populist politician only provided proof of the discrimination women faced: ‘. . . without her husband’s name and influence, she would never have had the chance to show her qualities. Yet as her vigorous opposition to the sex discrimination legislation indicates, she has political talents that would have blushed unseen.’ (‘Women in the House or home’, SMH, 17 Sept. 1983, p. 12.)
40Most commentators believed it was
Joh’s idea, and Hugh Lunn, in his book Joh, The Life and Political Adventures of Johannes Bjelke-Petersen (University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1978), argues it was Joh’s press adviser Allan Callaghan. However, one journalist argued Lunn was culpable for breaking the story that Flo was going to run, which, Flo said, put the idea into their heads (Philip Castle, ‘Senator Flo: half of a formidable combination’, Canberra Times, 19 April 1981, p. 7).
41Sylvia Costa-Roque, ‘Gough leads cheers for Flo’, Sunday Mail, 20 Dec. 1981.
42Joh Bjelke-Petersen narrowly escaped a jail sentence after a jury was unable to reach a verdict at his trial in 1991 for perjury and allegedly accepting $100,000 from an Asian developer. There was some controversy over the fact that one of the jury members was a Young National and member of the Friends of Joh support group.
Chapter Four: Political Superwomen and MP Mums
1Letters to the editor, SMH, 14 May 2004, p. 12.
2Bettina Arndt, ‘Combining motherhood and politics harder than a triple twist with a flip’, SMH, 10 Sept. 2002, p. 11.
3Reported by Kate McClymont, ‘Sauce’, SMH, 23 Aug. 2003, p. 24.
4Melbourne Punch, 14 April 1887.
5In Australia, there has been a higher proportion of women in ALP ministries (13.3 per cent) than in other ministries (7.3 per cent) since 1970. However, there was some discrepancy between individual governments. The 1972–75 Whitlam government had no women ministers, although the preceding and succeeding Liberal–National governments did. (Jeremy Moon and Imogen Fountain, ‘Keeping the gates? Women as Ministers in Australia, 1970–96’, Australian Journal of Political Science, vol. 32, no. 3, p. 460.)
6Andrew West, ‘Gabrielle, MP: politics is not a place for a mother’, Sun-Herald, 25 Nov. 2001, p. 30.
7Elizabeth Gosch & Adam Cooper, ‘MP kept baby news a secret to save her job’, Daily Telegraph, 11 Dec. 2001, p. 9.
8Elizabeth Johnston, ‘The grind of electioneering pregnant with possibilities’, Australian, 17 Oct. 1983, p. 11.