Social Democracy, the “Fair Go” and Gender Wars: Women Under the Rudd and Gillard Governments (2007–2013)

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Australian government policy but also provides relevant international examples. The Rudd Labor government’s support for equal opportunity for women was incorporated into the framing of supporting a “fair go”. However, government plans were impacted by the Global Financial Crisis and rising deficits. As was the case internationally, the resulting government stimulus policies were often relatively gender-blind with a focus on areas such as the construction industry that had relatively low levels of female employment. Nonetheless, there were feminist achievements, such as the belated introduction of paid parental leave. The government remained friendly towards feminism rather than antagonistic to it as under Howard. When Julia Gillard displaced Rudd as Prime Minister she supported a number of feminist agendas, especially supporting equal pay for low-paid women in caring work. However, Gillard faced gendered, culture war attacks on her Prime Ministership that revealed similarities with the way that women leaders and potential leaders have been treated internationally. Gillard has gone on to become a major proponent of women’s equality internationally, particularly regarding the issue of women and leadership.

General Rudd Government Policy Initiatives

Labor came into office after a small target election campaign that had sought to defuse Howard’s economic and culture wars rhetoric by convincing voters that they would be a safe pair of hands.¹ Indeed, Labor had been so cautious about alienating blue collar male workers in particular that, as Marian Sawer points out, “it was the first time for more than 20 years that the ALP had gone to the polls without a women’s policy” and “the word ‘women’ did not actually pass the Labor Leaders’ lips during the 2007 campaign launch”.² Nonetheless, Rudd had committed to a “fair go for all”, especially “working families”, and had openly critiqued Howard’s neoliberalism, arguing that governments had a key role to play both in civilising markets and providing public goods and services.³ However, the use of the term “fair go” evoked Hawke and Keating gender equality policy.⁴ A deeper examination of Labor policy and the Labor platform does also reveal gender equality measures, including a commitment to improving domestic violence policy, strengthening the Office of the Status of Women and Sex Discrimination Act and tax policy, as well as signing up to the Optional Protocol of The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).⁵ Furthermore, as noted in the last chapter, Howard’s conservative “family values” had been challenged by suggestions that his government’s neoliberalism, including in industrial relations, had impacted negatively upon women. Indeed, Labor believed the appeal to women in the campaign against Howard’s industrial relations policies had been “instrumental” in helping to defeat the Howard government.⁶

Whereas Howard had tended to construct feminist demands for gender equality as those of a “special interest”, this was not Labor’s view.⁷ As Rudd and his Minister for the Status of Women, Tanya Plibersek stated:

Australia is a long-standing supporter and advocate of women’s rights, being one of the first countries to grant women’s suffrage and the first country where women could stand for election for national parliament. This year also marks the 25th anniversary of Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act.

While our history is strong in this respect, we continue to pursue three key priority areas – improving women’s economic security and independence, ensuring women’s voices are heard at all levels of decision-making, and reducing violence against women.⁸

Importantly, Rudd agreed to assent to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women which the Howard government had refused to do, saying it was “high time”, while clarifying that (unlike Howard) he had a favourable view of the UN’s human rights measures.⁹ Indeed, in 2009, the government also provided 17 million to UN agency UNIFEM to improve gender equality internationally.¹⁰

While Howard’s ministers for women had often been constrained, Labor’s Plibersek expressed strong feminist views once Labor was in office, pointing out that despite significant advances “we cannot yet say equality is won”.¹¹ Plibersek outlined many of the barriers that many women still faced, including the “glass ceiling” women wanting to progress higher up in organisations encountered; the “glass walls” reflecting beliefs that women could not handle policy or budgetary issues; and the “sticky floors” that kept women stuck in junior positions.¹² Nonetheless, she hoped “we’re at the beginning of a new era of community discussion around gender equality” canvassing issues such as both men and women balancing work and family life, businesses encouraging women’s leadership and men speaking up against violence against women.¹³ Plibersek critiqued the fact that under Howard: “The Office for Women was excluded from playing a serious role in advising the government on how existing and prospective policies would affect women” and committed to changing that under Rudd.¹⁴

Consequently, the Rudd government’s 2008 Budget included a number of measures specifically targeted at women. In line with social democratic perspectives, the framing of gender in women’s budget statements also shifted from being about so-called choice to emphasising gender equality.¹⁵ Tax and childcare measures aimed to give working mothers a higher take-home pay, a welcome move given the Howard government’s incentives, discussed in the last chapter, for women to stay at home or reduce work hours.¹⁶ The government committed to phasing out aspects of the WorkChoices industrial relations legislation that had detrimental effects on women and to reducing the gender pay gap. It implemented tailored services for female job seekers.¹⁷

Furthermore, while Howard reduced funding to, or actively defunded, feminist women’s advocacy groups, Labor returned to supporting funding them, arguing that: “Ensuring that representative organisations are well equipped to advocate and participate in current policy debates is critical to improving gender policy outcomes”.¹⁸ The government committed to engaging with all women, including women who did not identify as members of the women’s movement, “young women, Indigenous women, women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and women with disabilities”.¹⁹ Groups representing immigrant and Muslim women were specifically mentioned.²⁰ In addition, the government encouraged women’s groups to form “national alliances”, promising up to $200,000 a year in funding over three years for each one.²¹ For example, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Alliance involved “an alliance of Indigenous women and their organisations from across the country”.²² The government particularly recognised the need to genuinely consult, engage and partner with women from remote Indigenous communities in the continuing aftermath of the Howard government’s Northern Territory Emergency Response.²³ This included addressing issues such as sexual abuse, domestic violence, financial intimidation and the need for legal advice.²⁴ The government also held a summit designed to “strengthen the voice of rural women in shaping rural and regional policy”.²⁵ Plibersek noted the alliance groups’ impact on policy, for example, that the Economic Security for Women Alliance helped to secure paid parental leave.²⁶

A few days before Kevin Rudd lost the Prime Ministership to Julia Gillard in a leadership coup, Plibersek listed the Rudd government’s major achievements for women (which Gillard herself had frequently contributed to). These included the aforementioned paid parental leave; a national plan for improving the position of women; improving work-life balance and pay equity via introducing the Fair Work Act; committing to superannuation reform that would have major benefits for women’s retirement incomes; increasing pension benefits that would also have major benefits for women; improving the quality and affordability of childcare and increasing the child rebate; strengthening breastfeeding protections in the Sex Discrimination Act; utilising the Office for Women and the Women’s Interdepartmental Committee to increase gender equality oversight across government; increasing development assistance and prioritising the issues of maternal health and violence against women; and investing “$3.6 million to boost women’s advocacy through the Alliances”.²⁷

Gillard Government (June 2010–June 2013)

The Rudd government’s commitment to gender equality continued under Gillard (although with some provisos that will be discussed subsequently). Key measures strengthening the Sex Discrimination legislation for both women and men to increase protection for family responsibilities, including breastfeeding and provisions against sexual harassment were passed after Gillard became Prime Minister.²⁸ The Gillard government also instituted new developments (albeit when Kevin Rudd was Foreign Minister) such as appointing a Global Ambassador for Women and Girls with a particular brief to further support and aid for gender equality in the Asia-Pacific region.²⁹ Gillard’s final Minister for the Status of Women, Julie Collins, declared that: “Gender equality continues to be at the very heart of this government’s social and economic objectives”.³⁰ Gillard herself emphasised that she saw her government as part of a long Labor tradition of improving gender equality:

Look at our history. It was Labor that introduced maternity allowances…. It was Labor that gave women the chance to serve and shine in the farms and factories of wartime in the 1940s. It was Gough Whitlam’s Labor that delivered the first pay equality case and started federal funding for childcare. And it was only ever Labor that was going to give this nation its first female prime minister.

It was only ever Labor that was going to put paid parental leave on the agenda and get it done. Only Labor that understood that childcare was about affordability, but it was about quality too, and it’s about supporting the women who work in childcare…. It was only ever Labor that was going to increase the tax-free threshold to more than $18,000, benefiting low-income workers, predominantly working women…. it was only ever Labor that was going to reduce tax on superannuation for part-time working mums. It’s only Labor that ever would have put in an equal pay principle that actually worked; that worked to make a difference so women in social and community services can get the pay and recognition that they deserve. (Gillard, 2013b)³¹

The reference to 1940s Labor governments encouraging women into the workforce is rather contentious given that, as noted in Chapter 2, those governments also largely expected women to return to the home after the war was over. However, the analysis in this book would suggest that Gillard was also correct to recognise the Whitlam government period as marking a watershed moment for women and she clearly saw her government as carrying on that tradition. The remainder of this chapter will consider some of Labor’s key measures and perspectives in more depth.

Women and the Economy

Both the Rudd and Gillard governments placed particular emphasis on improving women’s economic standing, arguing that this would also be good for the economy. Kate Ellis, Minister for the Status of Women (2010–2011) argued that ensuring equal opportunity for both women and men was “critical for the long term prosperity of our nation”.³² The 2011–2012 Women’s Budget Statement claimed that “closing the gap between women’s and men’s workforce participation rate could increase Australia’s Gross Domestic Product by 11 per cent”.³³ However, the government also argued that individual businesses would benefit financially, emphasising that “self-interest” could build broader support given that: “Gender equity is a smart business decision – and it’s about time we ensured that all businesses knew it”.³⁴ Gender equality was crucial for the Australian economy since “in order to be internationally competitive, Australian companies need to have women represented at every level of their company. Not because it’s the right thing to do. Not because they’re in the grip of a feminist frenzy, but because it makes good economic sense”.³⁵

The government also encouraged women to work in traditionally male-dominated industries, arguing that it would improve women’s economic outcomes, reduce the gender pay gap and address Australia’s skill shortage, including in the resources and construction industries.³⁶ Over $15 billion was pledged for vocational education and training with claims that thousands of women would benefit.³⁷

Gender, Employment and Labor Government Stimulus Measures During the GFC

However, despite such admirable aims in regard to women’s employment, the Labor government faced particularly difficult economic challenges once the Global Financial Crisis hit from mid-2007. The government responded with a Keynesian-influenced stimulus package that was highly praised internationally (by Joseph Stiglitz amongst others).³⁸ Indeed, Australians do not use the expression the “Great Recession” because Australia escaped recession aided by government policies (and Australia’s links with the expanding Chinese economy). However, Labor may have been partially moving away from the neoliberalism that had particularly pernicious effects on women when it came to issues of government intervention and public provision but had not adequately recognised that Keynesian-influenced policies could also neglect issues of women’s equality in different ways.³⁹ Long-term feminist activist and academic Eva Cox complained that it was a typical male-defined stimulus policy:

….it was always on the cards that any stimulus would make the assumptions that most workers are still male, and as breadwinners they need attention. All the hard infrastructure stuff has been very much about male jobs in most cases and that is traditional. One could hope that maybe a new and enlightened government would think about some funding for soft infrastructure such as funding for care services and those other areas where more labour is always welcome … but nothing there.⁴⁰

Similarly, the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia complained that the Rudd government was supporting “jobs for the boys” in the automotive and construction sectors but not for workers in the female-dominated Textile, Clothing and Footwear (TCF) industry.⁴¹ Greens Senator Scott Ludlam pointed out that male-dominated jobs were being supported while the most impoverished group in Australia, namely female-headed households, had been neglected, despite figures suggesting that “91.5 per cent of jobless sole parent families are headed by women”. Ludlam concluded that: “This economic stimulus package could do with some analysis by those expert in the field of gender responsive budgeting”.⁴²

Ludlam’s comment was no doubt galling for the party that had previously been internationally innovative in introducing gender budgeting but it was a valid point. A report found the GFC’s impacts on women had rarely been adequately understood or addressed by government stimulus measures. Consequently, it was crucial that the impact of economic downturns on women be properly assessed next time such a downturn occurred—something that unfortunately was not to occur when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.⁴³

Industrial Relations, Women’s Wages and Equal Pay

Tanya Plibersek criticised the Howard era industrial relations system for neglecting “to recognise that not everyone in the labour market was on equal footing. This was especially important for low-paid women, particularly those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds”.⁴⁴ However, while some key reforms were instituted, neither the Rudd nor Gillard governments adequately addressed the fact that it was not just the Howard government that had advocated employees negotiating more with employers, reducing the role of industrial courts and disadvantaging vulnerable women but also, as noted in Chapter 3, the Hawke and Keating Labor governments. Plibersek argued that a number of factors contributed to the gender pay gap:

women are more likely to be in part-time and casual employment and less likely to be employed in occupations which offer overtime. The gap between women’s and men’s earnings reflects a number of complex and interrelated factors including: the broad undervaluation of women’s skills; occupational and industrial segregation; the prevalence of gender stereotypes; and, in some cases, outdated ways in which remuneration is calculated.⁴⁵

The fact that some businesses might increase profits by paying women less was not specifically mentioned as a possible reason. Labor was also to face a number of additional challenges in regard to equal pay. These ranged from the impacts of a Chinese-influenced mining boom that substantially increased wages in a male-dominated industry and pressured some female-dominated areas of employment, with implications for the gender pay gap, to issues of potentially increased women’s wages in the service and community sector impacting government deficits.⁴⁶

Labor’s 2009 Fair Work Act (in which Julia Gillard played a key role as Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) facilitated some award pay increases for predominantly female work that had been historically undervalued (especially in jobs defined as involving caring work). However, the Labor government also pressed for a five-year phasing in period of the pay increases because of the impact of increased wages for women in the social and community service sector on Non-Government Organisations as well as on the government’s budget bottom line in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis.⁴⁷ Yet, as Prime Minister, Gillard acknowledged, earlier attempts to introduce equal pay had not adequately overcome the undervaluing of traditionally female jobs.⁴⁸ In Gillard’s words:

… when Labor came to office I was determined to make real progress in closing the gender pay gap. A gap which is now so great, with full-time working women earning on average one fifth less than men full-time, that it is as if women work nearly seven weeks every year for free. A gap driven, in considerable part, by the way our society and economy have traditionally undervalued female-dominated occupations. For too long society has undervalued the work women do.⁴⁹

In short, Gillard was acknowledging that previous Labor government attempts, going back to the Whitlam years, had not been successful in addressing this issue. Bill Shorten, the then Workplace Relations Minister, acknowledged caring work in social and community services work “has been undervalued and under-remunerated because it was seen as unimportant and a natural extension of women’s work”.⁵⁰ Governments were amongst those benefiting from such low-paid women’s work.⁵¹

An initial decision by the Fair Work Tribunal in the case of workers in the social and community services sector accepted predominantly female caring work had been undervalued. However subsequent decisions by the Fair Work tribunal under Labor’s legislation, involving the early childhood education and care sector, were not as favourable for women. For example, Fair Work decisions would have required a group of higher-remunerated male employees doing comparable work for comparison, thereby downplaying structural disadvantage and revealing potential weaknesses in the original legislation.⁵² Feminists had also questioned whether Labor’s Fair Work Act would adequately address the problems in the enterprise bargaining system which continued to play a key role in determining pay and conditions given that women were often in a vulnerable bargaining position.⁵³ The Fair Work Act was particularly criticised for not providing sufficient protection for those in precarious work.⁵⁴

The Gillard government also introduced measures amending the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999 that were intended to ensure reporting of gender equality measures, especially gender pay gaps. The Act became the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012, and changed the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. The legislation’s measures were designed to become progressively more onerous, developing benchmarks and enabling the minister “to set industry-specific minimum standards, in consultation with industry and experts”. Nonetheless, the penalties for non-compliance merely involved naming, although there were also possible consequences for government grants, financial assistance and financial procurement.⁵⁵ The amendments were justified on familiar economic grounds, namely increasing productivity, addressing skill shortages and boosting domestic product as well as equality.⁵⁶ Senator Deborah O’Neill acknowledged that some businesses had not responded well to legislation on equal pay, with some seeking “to maintain inequality for a range of reasons one hates to imagine”.⁵⁷ Presumably the “reasons one hates to imagine” included not just rampant sexism but businesses benefiting financially by paying women less. Resistance to gender equality in the workplace related to masculine self-esteem and performance of masculine gender identity was not discussed, along with the pressures on women to confirm to more traditional stereotypes.

Nonetheless, the government was aware that achieving equality in the workplace would also involve changing men’s behaviour.

Paid Employment, Women, Men and Caring Responsibilities

Minister for the Status of Women, Tanya Plibersek was particularly clear that achieving workplace equality required encouraging men to take more responsibility in the home given that “workplace culture and discriminatory practices will not change unless both men and women share their work and caring responsibilities”.⁵⁸ The government introduced paid parental leave for parents as part of “changing… laws and structure to allow equality between men and women not just at work, but in the home as well”.⁵⁹ However, Plibersek admitted that getting men to engage more in caring responsibilities might not be easy, describing it as “probably the one” issue “that will require the most difficult conversation between Australian men and women”.⁶⁰ She cited research revealing that mothers were present during most of the time Australian fathers spent with their children and UK research suggesting many fathers saw going to work as a welcome break from their children.⁶¹ Nonetheless, Plibersek also cited research suggesting that many fathers “are keen to spend more time with their kids”.⁶² She hoped that facilitating women’s workplace opportunities would take some of the pressure of men to be sole breadwinners and encourage them to be “equal partners”, enjoying the “rewards” of parenting.⁶³ Although she emphasised that some would “choose a more traditional split – just as my parents did. That’s their right and their business”.⁶⁴ Her successor, Kate Ellis also emphasised the importance of men being involved in domestic responsibilities and caring, and of introducing flexible workplaces designed to encourage “cultural change”.⁶⁵ However, Ellis noted research showing: “that men are not taking up flexible work practices in large numbers. And the problem appears to be a cultural one. Taking up part-time work or flexible practices still seems to denote a lack of ambition”.⁶⁶ Similarly, a women’s budget statement noted that: “Men can experience more pressure to work long hours, limiting their capacity to play an equal parenting role” and that fathers only tended to take on average two weeks parental leave after the birth of a child.⁶⁷The 2011–2012 Women’s Budget Statement estimated the “opportunity cost” of caring at $6.5 billion per annum.⁶⁸

Consequently, the government made changes to workplace legislation and the Sex Discrimination Act designed to prevent men being discriminated against if they did try to improve their work-life balance to be able to take on more caring responsibilities for children.⁶⁹ Labor’s paid parental scheme also enabled men to have an opportunity to take part of the time available to look after newborns.⁷⁰ However, the government’s paid parental leave scheme was not as generous as in some other countries and also, as we shall see, did not involve the payment of superannuation.⁷¹ It was nonetheless a major advance for those women, in particular, who had not had access to paid parental leave before, unlike in the vast majority of OECD countries, where paid maternity leave had often been introduced in the 1950s. Indeed, some countries were even earlier with, for example, Germany introducing two weeks paid maternity leave prior to birth in 1903–1911 and Chile introducing a 60-day period of combined pre- and post-paid maternity leave in 1925.⁷² Labor’s parental leave payments did include options for fathers (while generally assuming that it would be mothers caring for children):

The Paid Parental Leave scheme began on 1 January 2011, and is already helping working mothers as they take time off to care for their newborns. The Australian Government will also provide eligible working fathers or partners (including same sex and defacto partners) with two weeks Paid Paternity Leave at the National Minimum Wage – currently $570 a week in 2010-11… A father or partner may receive Paid Paternity Leave either on its own or in addition to their partner claiming 18 weeks of Parental Leave Pay. Alternatively, Paid Paternity Leave may be claimed in addition to other family assistance payments such as Baby Bonus and Family Tax Benefit.⁷³

Single Parents

However, there were criticisms regarding the Gillard government’s attitude to parental caring responsibilities as children got older. The government built on a Howard government policy to force some 80,000 single parents, mostly mothers, off the higher paid single parent benefits and onto the much lower Newstart (unemployment) allowance once their child turned eight. Over 85% of single parent families were headed by mothers.⁷⁴ The government claimed the measure would reduce welfare dependence, while developing capabilities and self-reliance that would assist them in finding jobs, thereby increasing women’s economic equality.⁷⁵ The residual neoliberal influences on such arguments were obvious. Many women had difficulty finding jobs, especially ones with good pay and conditions and the flexibility required to undertake their caring responsibilities. This resulted in "an increase in the rate of poverty amongst unemployed sole parents from 35% in 2013 to 59% two years later”.⁷⁶ Meanwhile single mothers with some paid work lost substantial income because of stricter means-testing caps for Newstart recipients.⁷⁷ The change also affected many women in domestic violence situations, making it potentially harder for them to leave abusive relationships.⁷⁸

Childcare

Under Rudd, Labor had promised a massive expansion of childcare during the 2007 election campaign, tying it to increasing women’s workforce participation, and the Labor government subsequently increased the childcare tax rebate from 30 to 50%, with an initial costing of 1.5 billion⁷⁹:

This will assist enormously in making it more possible not just for helping working families make ends meet but critically to increase work force participation…. We have so many qualified people out there, women in particular, who are effectively prevented from returning to the workplace because child care is either not available or not affordable.⁸⁰

Quality childcare that involved educational training was emphasised given the benefits for childhood learning.⁸¹ Labor pledged to establish “260 new long day care centres on school, TAFE, University and community sites” while also providing $77 million for training childcare workers and setting tougher standards for childcare. Provision.⁸² It argued that the Liberal government had been “negligent” in enabling women to maintain their work and home lives by providing affordable and quality child care.⁸³ However, Labor later backtracked on its pledge to deliver hundreds more childcare centres, especially after the collapse of major private provider ABC learning, with claims that only 38 would have been built by 2012.⁸⁴ Though Kate Ellis argued that the centres were not necessary due to 65,780 long daycare vacancies being available, over 1000 childcare centres having been built between 2005 and 2009 and a major reduction in costs. Furthermore, building the new centres could “threaten the viability of existing services” which was of major concern to the government in the wake of the ABC learning company collapse.⁸⁵ However, critics have argued that Labor failed to address governments’ reliance on subsidising private-sector provision (discussed in Chapters 4 and 5), despite parliamentary committee reports and others identifying major failures in government regulation and provision.⁸⁶ In the words of academic childcare expert Deb Brennan, whose expertise was later to be used by the Albanese government:

Australia’s system of market-based provision exists in uneasy tension with the goal of quality service provision. Of even deeper significance, the marketisation of ECEC in recent decades has focused public attention and debate on a narrow set of “outcomes” and “targets”. Technocratic debates of this kind divert attention from the deeper political and ethical issues at stake in the organisation of care and education for young children.⁸⁷

Superannuation

Lower-paid jobs and timeout of the workforce continued to have a serious impact on women’s superannuation. Plibersek noted that the average superannuation pay-out for women in 2005–2006 was half of that for men and: “For women who spend their lives caring for family members – children, the elderly or those with disability – there can be significant economic consequences”.⁸⁸ However, Sharp and Broomhill pointed out that, while the 2010–2011 women’s budget statement lauded the fact that the government was funding measures costing $2.4 billion over four years that would add an estimated $78,000 in superannuation to a woman with a broken work pattern and $108,000 to a woman without, the same budget document failed to acknowledge that the government would lose around $20 billion a year in superannuation tax concessions that largely benefited high-income men.⁸⁹ Furthermore, Liberal Sharman Stone criticised Labor for not including paying superannuation in their parental leave scheme, calling it a “mean and tricky offer” that would reinforce the disadvantage women faced from moving in and out of the workforce to have children.⁹⁰ The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women had also expressed its concern that superannuation was not included.⁹¹ While Labor addressed other Committee concerns, for example, regarding the ability of women to serve in combat roles, the issue of superannuation and parental leave was to have to wait until the period of the Albanese government.⁹²

Domestic Violence

Rudd made strong statements opposing domestic violence, arguing for example that:

As a nation, the time has well and truly come to have a national conversation - a public national conversation, not a private one - about how it could still be the case that in 2008 half a million Australian women could have experienced violence from their partner… And it is my gender - it is our gender - Australian men - that are responsible…. we need to change the attitudes of Australian men. From birth, it must be drilled into the conscious and the subconscious of all men that there are no circumstances - no circumstances - in which violence against women is acceptable.⁹³

The government committed $12.5 million over four years to establishing a free 1800 RESPECT phoneline for victims of domestic violence and setting up a National Council and National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and Children, the developing of which was also supported by ministers for women at state level.⁹⁴ The government also funded $17 million for a Respectful Relationships campaign.⁹⁵ By contrast, it was argued that the Howard government had backtracked on some of its domestic violence promises, for example using funding that had been earmarked for a respectful relationships campaign for fridge magnets advertising an anti-terrorist alert hotline instead.⁹⁶ However, as under the Howard government, domestic violence was also constructed as a major economic and workplace issue, impacting women’s employment levels and histories and contributing to absenteeism and lower productivity.⁹⁷

Representation

The government pledged to increase the percentage of women on government boards to 40% and funded scholarships for women to be trained to be on boards in the private sector.⁹⁸ From 2012 Labor increased its quota for women parliamentarians from a mandatory 35% of women in winnable seats to “to produce an outcome where not less than 40% of seats held by Labor will be filled by women, and not less than 40% by men” with 20% able to be filled by either.⁹⁹ Plibersek was well aware of the long history of women parliamentarians being a miniscule minority, citing past conservative and Labor women members in the process. For example, she cited Dame Enid Lyons’ statement that: “I would sometimes look at the men about me and envy them for having wives. Were there any of those politicians, I would ask myself, who even washed their own socks?”¹⁰⁰ Plibersek also mentioned the experience of distinguished Labor member Dorothy Tangney who had “never served with another Labor woman” for the “entire 25 year period” she was a member of parliament.¹⁰¹ Unlike Labor, having party quotas is still opposed by the Liberal Party to the current day. Despite this being the practice at that time in some other countries, the Australian Labor government did not attempt to legislate quotas for seats reserved for women (as in Samoa) or follow the Republic of Ireland’s example of halving campaign funding for political parties that failed to nominate a minimum of 30% of candidates that were female (or male).¹⁰² Furthermore, Labor was soon to discover that there were ongoing issues with the gendered nature of parliamentary culture.

The Gender Culture Wars

Gillard initially tried to play down her gender, apparently believing that the novelty of her being Australia’s first female prime minister would eventually wear off as she got on and did the job.¹⁰³ Indeed, Labor seemed rather naïve regarding cultural gender issues, for example, repeatedly explicitly labelling Gillard as “tough” despite the risk of Gillard then being constructed as unfeminine and unlikeable as happens to so many female political leaders.¹⁰⁴ Even experienced feminist politicians seemed shocked by the level of vitriol Gillard received.¹⁰⁵ Yet Gillard herself had previously drawn attention to the problematic way in which female politicians, and political leaders in particular, were treated by both political opponents and the media.¹⁰⁶ Gillard was subject to a relentless barrage of gendered abuse with opposition politicians likening her to both bloodthirsty female villains Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth and Charles Dickens’ Madame Defargue.¹⁰⁷ Opposition Leader Tony Abbott highlighted her de facto relationship status by suggesting that she needed to make “politically speaking, an honest woman of herself”.¹⁰⁸ At a political rally, Abbott stood (he claimed unknowingly) in front of placards proclaiming, “Ditch the Witch” and “Bob Brown’s Bitch”—Brown was Leader of the Greens, a party Gillard made a pact with to introduce a price on carbon and to support her minority government. A Liberal Party fundraising dinner menu listed the “Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail: Small Breasts, Huge Thighs and a Big Red Box” amongst its offerings.¹⁰⁹

The broader social media and public response was even worse, ranging from “sack the crack” slogans to the distribution of doctored pornographic images and the selling of a “Julia Droolia” dog chew toy (featuring excessively large breasts and buttocks).¹¹⁰ A radio commentator questioned whether her heterosexual de facto relationship was a sham, implying both she and her partner were concealing they were gay while another claimed she should be placed in a “chaff bag” and dumped in the sea.¹¹¹

Gillard eventually responded to the barrage of sexism with key speeches and statements in which she explicitly called out misogynistic and sexist behaviour. These ranged from her famously impassioned speech denouncing Liberal leader Tony Abbott for misogyny to gently chiding the press for its obsession with what she was wearing, for implying that she was not warm and cuddly enough and denouncing misogynistic “nut jobs” on the internet.¹¹² Arguably, it was the first time since the Whitlam era that issues of sexist culture had been so explicitly addressed and having an avowedly feminist Prime Minister do so made it even more significant. However, raising such issues did not come without potential costs as Gillard transgressed the stereotypical female role by calling out poor male behaviour rather than making men feel good about themselves.¹¹³ Liberal women joined in some of the criticisms of Gillard, with Julie Bishop, (who subsequently criticised sexism in the Liberal Party after she left office), stating that:

I think it’s quite dispiriting that the Prime Minister would concoct a false gender war to divide the community. We should be able to expect the Prime Minister to govern for all Australians and not try to wage false gender wars as some sort of political weapon against the Coalition.¹¹⁴

By contrast, Tanya Plibersek argued that Gillard’s comments in the misogyny speech had resonance because: “It’s a speech that a lot of women would have liked to give in their own workplace at one time or another”.¹¹⁵ Gillard has subsequently regretted not speaking out against the sexism she encountered earlier in office when she had more political capital, arguing that she “didn’t realise it was going to get as mad as it did around gender”.¹¹⁶ Gillard also later noted that “smashing through a glass ceiling is a dangerous pursuit. It is hard not to get lacerated on the way through”.¹¹⁷

Nonetheless, while key reforms were introduced and Gillard made major contributions in arguing for women’s equality, including her interventions in gendered culture wars, there have still been a number of criticisms made of her and Rudd’s governments.

Same-Sex Issues

A key criticism relates to the implications for lesbian women of the Gillard government’s position on same-sex marriage. Labor under both the first Rudd government and the Gillard government had opposed same-sex marriage, at least partly because of attempts to keep socially conservative Christian, working class and multicultural voters on side.¹¹⁸ Gillard had argued against same-sex marriage on the grounds that “for this nation, with our heritage as a Christian country, with what’s defined us and continues to define us, the Marriage Act has a special status in our culture and for our community”.¹¹⁹ Earlier she cited “hundreds of years of history in Australia and in western culture beyond about what marriage means”.¹²⁰ Gillard also argued that, as her own then de facto heterosexual relationship showed, it was possible to have a loving, committed long-term relationship without needing the imprimatur of marriage.¹²¹ She has subsequently claimed that she had hoped to spark a broader debate about the nature of marriage and non-religious ways of recognising relationships but admitted that she had got it wrong.¹²² By contrast, by the time Kevin Rudd returned to the office for his second stint as Prime Minister, he had accepted that Church and State could have different positions on marriage and supported same-sex marriage as a result, while granting Labor dissenters such as Gillard a conscience vote (although Labor was defeated at the 2013 election before this policy could be put into effect).¹²³ However, this may have been easier for Rudd, as a married man and professed Christian, to do than Gillard. It seems likely that Gillard’s opposition to same-sex marriage was partly an attempt to reassure social conservatives that, despite being an unmarried atheist in a long-term heterosexual relationship, she was not overly progressive and would draw the line at same-sex marriage. Her own personal circumstances may have led her to believe that this trade-off was not an excessive one without understanding its significance for a social group who had a long history of having their relationships discriminated against. She also possibly underestimated the ways in which, as explained in the last chapter, opposition to same-sex marriage was being used to signal support for traditional gender constructions, or alternatively, that may have been precisely why she thought that support for same-sex marriage would be a bridge too far for her personally.

Nonetheless, despite drawing the line at marriage for most of its time in office, Labor had brought in important relationship recognition laws, which gave same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual de facto and married couples thereby ending extensive discrimination in over 58 pieces of legislation in areas including family law, taxation, superannuation, aged care, social security, health, immigration, workers’ compensation, veterans’ and defence benefits and many more.¹²⁴ The 2013 reforms to the Sex Discrimination Act did also remove exemptions against faith-based service providers being able to exclude LBTIQ+ residents in aged care, though the ability for faith-based service providers to discriminate remained in other health areas, education and also family violence and homelessness services.¹²⁵ Labor’s amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act not only made sexuality a protected category but also gender identity (in a move that provided transgender protections) and intersex variations.¹²⁶ The fact these protections were already in place, may have contributed to reducing the effectiveness of the anti-gender ideology campaigns to be discussed in Chapter 6.

In short, as with many of the policy areas covered in this chapter, the Rudd and Gillard legacy in regard to same-sex issues was a complex but not unproblematic one, revealing both the implementation of useful reforms and significant limitations to the reform process.

Additional Criticisms

Reflecting on the tenth anniversary of Gillard’s famous Misogyny Speech, Marian Sawer made a number of criticisms of Gillard’s legacy. The negatives included the single parents’ measures mentioned before but also the fact that the women’s policy for the 2010 election was released the day before the election “without telling anybody” and was not available amongst the other policies on the ALP website.¹²⁷ Gillard also left the Office for Women where Howard had put it, namely the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs rather than in Prime Minister and Cabinet, where, as pointed out in the last chapter, it had both a more central and overarching policy oversight.¹²⁸ Sharp and Broomhill argue that this made it much more difficult for the women’s Budget statement to be integrated into government economic policy and decision-making.¹²⁹ Nonetheless, Sawer also cites the many positive measures such as supporting better pay for women in the care economy and investing more funds in it.¹³⁰

Conclusion

The Howard government had framed gender equality policy demands of a feminist nature as constituting politically correct “special interests” that ripped off taxpayers, divided Australians, suppressed individual choice and discriminated against stay-at-home mothers. By contrast, the Rudd and Gillard years framed feminist issues as legitimate demands for equality that deserved increased funding support and required more government intervention and regulation than the Howard government had been prepared to consider. Nonetheless, some feminist critiques can be made of both the Rudd and Gillard years. In particular, economic issues had not been adequately re-thought from a feminist perspective, including not just neoliberal but also Keynesian perspectives, with particular implications for government stimulus policies (in regard to Keynesian-influenced framing) and industrial relations and single parent support legislation (in regard to neoliberal-influenced framing). Admittedly, the government found itself in difficult economic circumstances post the Global Financial Crisis and given a mining boom that contributed to patchwork pressures on other parts of the economy, including contributing to a high Australian dollar that impacted manufacturing’s domestic market and exports.¹³¹ The Rudd government was not alone in failing to deal adequately with gender issues during the GFC though and at least focused on implementing stimulus policies rather than the austerity measures implemented by the European Union during its subsequent Eurozone crisis, which had a particularly disastrous impact on women.¹³² The government also faced an Opposition that was successfully seeking electoral advantage by criticising Labor debt levels, despite those being relatively low by international standards.¹³³ Nonetheless, women’s issues could have been given a higher economic priority and this issue will be discussed in more depth in the Conclusion. Furthermore, Labor’s framing of gender equality issues was also to prove inadequate for anticipating, and dealing with, the gendered culture wars that erupted during the Gillard period, particularly in regard to understanding (and counteracting) the complex politics of gender identity. Some of these issues will be returned to in the chapter on the Albanese government and in the Conclusion.