SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER Emag8.0pm C
THE HON. E. G. WHITLAM, M. P.,
AT THE OPENING OF THE
WOMEN AND POLITICS CONFERENCE
CANBERRA, 31 AUGUST 1975
For most of this country's history women have
lived without visible political power; they have been excluded
from almost all levels of government in our society. The
momentous decisions of war and peace, of finance and technology,
as well as the everyday decisions which affect how all people live,
have been made by a minority of individuals who happen to be
born white and male. Women whether they be conservative, liberal
or radical should be fully represented in the political power
structure simply as a matter of right: not just because they are
women, but because they are capable human beings with skills,
aiities and creativity from whom the world has much to gain.
We all of us live in this man-made, man-defined
and man-controlled world. But if women are to change it they
need to understand the complex processes of this world. They
need to understand how economic, political, educational and
organisational power interacts with and affects their daily lives.
Determination to have a say in matters affecting the lives of
women is not sufficient. Women must learn how to make their words
effective. Women must learn how to bring about those changes they
want, be it in their own lives or in the institutions in our
society that affect them.
It was a genuine determination to bring true
representative government to all levels of government in Australian
society and to allow women full access to all those institutions
whose decisions are of as much concern to them as to men that
prompted the Australian Government to hold this conference. The
aim of the conference is to understand the lessons that the past
can teach us in this area, to bring about a greater awareness of
the political processes and to increase the participation of
women in political activities. It is, in other words, our
intention to bring about, in the course of this conference, a
greater understanding of the means by which women can participate
in the making of political decisions and the difficulties that
will confront them in so doing.
Many of the women who have fought and worked so
hard in the past, in the parliament, in the parties, in the
trade unions and outside in the community are here with us tonight
and during this conference. We have much to learn from them and
are deeply grateful to them for being prepared to share their
wisdom with us. We have also invited women from other countries to
help us in this task that we have set ourselves. I take this
opportunity to welcome these distinguished and outstanding guests
both to this conference and to our country. It is a pleasure
and an honour for us that you have accepted our invitation to
attend. The claim that the rights of men and the rights of
women are one and the same, particularly in the political arena,
is a time-honoured one though, sadly, too often either disputed
or dismissed.
one of its outstanding defenders was Mary
Wolistonecraft who in 1792, 3 years after the outbreak of the
French Revolution and 4 years after the establishment of the
British colony in Australia, published her Vindication of the
Rights of Women. Her theme is that women are first and foremost
human beings, that the mind has no sex, and that society is
wasting its assets if it retains women in the role of convenient
domestic slaves and alluring mistresses, denies them economic
independence and encourages them to be docile and attentive to
their looks to the exclusion of all else.
She claims that the full achievement of social
equality will not come about until women begin to take an interest
in politics and in particular in parliamentary representation.
The Sydney suburb of Wollstonecraft is named after
her nephew, Edward, who fled to Australia from the notoriety of
his aunt, an unrepentant and outspoken unmarried mother.
The fight for the right to vote and the right to
sit in parliament left Australian women relatively untouched
and unaware. In England the King and the Prime Minister could
not even go to the races without facing a demonstration by
suffragettes. In 1908 in Hyde Park, London, women gathered from
all over the United Kingdom to listen to the preachers of the
cause. the Times next day estimated that there were half a
million people there. ( For comparison, even the great civil rights
demonstration in Washington in the summer of 1963 at which Martin
Luther King made his " I have a dream speech attracted fewer
peo~ ple than this.) There was nothing like this in Australia although
in Victoria a suffrage petition one mile long was collected by the
women and refused lodgement by the parliament.
The issue in Australia which in fact brought women
into the political and social arena and forced them to become
politically active was the anti-conscription campaign during the
First World War. Adela Pankhurst, who had migrated to Australia
some years earlier, fought, marched, and was imprisoned along
with our own women over this issue. For the first time women
were seen by governments, political parties, and trade unions,
as a force to be contended with rather than mere political domestics:
brewers of tea, bakers of cakes and very efficient raisF-rs of money.
The dilemma is that women have actively sought
election to our parliaments and have actively fought to have
women's issues seriously discussed within them. Yet over the
decades success at either of these endeavours has been at best
only sporadic. The political activity of women began first with the
establishment of women's unions in the 1880' s and 1890' s, in
Victoria in the clothing trades, in Queensland amongst the women
shearers and in South Australia as a direct protest against the
sweatshop working conditions-of the majority of women workers.
The first woman trade union organiser, Emma Miller, was appointed
in Queensland in the 1890' s. Women's unions were seen as a
necessary step in the fight to win economic equality and
3.
subsequently political equality.
Women were on the whole agreed, as Vida Goldstein
herself said, that through not having women in parliament the
energy and valuable time of individual women and women's organisation
had to be spent on the often herculean task of educating members
up to a point of seeing the injustices affecting women.
Groups formed with the aim of increasing the
poli , tical representation of women. At times these were affiliated
to a political party as, for example, were the Women's Central
Organisat * ing Committees of the A. L. P. and the Australian Women's
National League, but time and time again women's groups such as
the Australian Women's Party, the Women for Canberra Movement, the
Women's non-Party League, the Women's Political Association and
the Women's Electoral League prided themselves on their
independence from the existing political parties.
These groups supported women candidates in spite
of the overwhelming historical evidence that few independents
are ever elected to parliament and despite the knowledge that in
the practical conduct of political life there is on the whole
a limit to what an indpeendent parliamentarian can achieve. Doris
Blackburn, the second woman to be elected to the House of
Representatives, was one of the few independents to have ever
sat in it. This is not to say that women have not stood for
the Federal and State Parliaments. Indeed up until 1943 when
the first women were elected to the Federal Parliament Dame Enid
Lyons to the House of Representatives and Senator Dorothy Tangney to
the! Senate at least 53 women had stood for the Federal Parliament.
Of these, 33 stood as independents and 2 were sponsored by the
Australian Women's Party. But during these 42 years only 7 women
were pre-selected by a major party. The story was much the same
or worse in the state parliaments. The first woman to be elected
to any parliament in Australia was the Honourable Edith Cowan,
who was elected to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly in
1921, the year after women were first given this right in Western
Australia. She, along with Catherine Spence, who was one of
Australia's greatest champions of the cause of proportional
representation, has been honoured in our recently released set
of stamps of famous women.
Within the ranks of those women who havEi worked
throughout the decades to bring about the, changes needed by
women there was a similar division between those women who felt
that women's issues were best served by remaining outside of party
politics and those who insisted on the necessity of working from
within the political parties. The first stance has been best articulated,
perhaps, by Rose Scott, whose retirement message was: " Have
friends in all parties, that is the only way to win anything..
Once women go into party politics they become the catspaws of men.
The women's and children's cause should stand alone until absolute
equality is obtained."
As, however~ the women around Rose Scott increasingly
involved themselves in issues relating to women and children they
became more and more caught up in party politics. The Women's
Labour Leagues and the Women's Liberal Leagues were formed. The
same thing happened to Vida Goldstein in Victoria when, in 1903,
Lilian Locke and many other women withdrew from-the Women's
Political Association to organise the women's vote for the Labour
Party. Once pre-selected or elected there still remains
a host of problems which women face and which they no doubt will
continue to face until a woman politician is as everyday a
phenomenon as a man politician.
Women campaigning for election in Australia have
often found their male opponents only too willing to use slogans
such as, " Do we have to suffer another term of ineffectual prattle,
or do you want a strong man in Parliament?", or " I am just your
man, and will answer you man to man." These examples are not drawn
from the 1900' s but from the 1960' s.
In 1959 when the first women were nominated for the
South Australian Legislative Council, a writ was taken out to
restrain the returning officer from accepting their nominations
on the ground that the South Australian Constitution Act used male
pronouns. Of course, it's only in 1975 that that particular legislative
body has accepted " one man, one vote".
Another insight can be gained from Dame Enid Lyons'
autobiography: " Two months before the new baby was born I was
asked to speak at the opening of the Federal election
campaign. At five o'clock on the day of the meeting
I was totally unprepared. I had had a particularly trying
day, with no time to make a note or even to collect my
thoughts. " And now, it was nearly the children's bedtime.
I felt desperate. With the bath water running and the
milk for the children's tea heating on the stove I
sat down at the dining table with pencil and paper.
" I was tired to death. The baby on my knee was
crying with fatigue, the other children were quarrelling
noisily. Suddenly I burst into tears. This was hot
fair. No man was expected to endure such things. When
Joe prepared a speech I silenced the whole house so that
he could concentrate on his * task."
It cannot be said, however, that women in politics
have no sense of humour. In 1943 Mrs Jessie Street stood for
the Labor Party against Mr Eric Harrison and Mr William Charles
Wentworth IV. She deciddd to take advantage of her name: strips
of paper were printed and pasted on the walls, coping stones and
street signs throughout the electorate. Soon the most prestigious
roads, avenues, lanes and cul-de-sacs in Australia all bore the
name Jessie Street. But from the lessons and the fascination of the past
we must turn to the present.
My government has long recognised that discrimination
against women is incompatible with human dignity and the wellbeing
of society. our policies and programs in this area have, to date,
been based on two basic principles: justice and humaneness.
The aim of these policies and programs has been to give women the
pre-conditions necessary for them to be able freely to choose the
lives they want to lead. To do this women must have the possibility
of a-little peace of mind as well as the possibility of financial
and emotional independence. It is only just and fair that women enjoy equal
pay for work of equal value, access to training and retraining
schemes, equal opportunities in recruitment and promotion and decent
working places. It is also only just that women should not be
expected to bear full responsibility for the rearing and care of
our future generations. Many women will, of course, choose to
accept the-brunt of this responsibility but for these women, as
well as for those women who cannot or who are contributing to our
society in other ways, there still remains the need for access
to a wide range of services for their children.
in order to correct these past injustices, to
respond to the demand for equality, the government's actions
have included the establishment of anti-discrimination committees
in each State as well as at the national level, ratification of
the 1953 United Nations Convention on the Political Rights of
Women and the I. L. O. Equal Remune-ration Convention, 1951, and
Discrimination ( Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958,
submissions to the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission for
equal pay for work of equal value and an adult minimum wage and
the establishment of a sub-committee of the Schools Commission to
investigate and make recommendations on the education of girls
and women. We have introduced a program of childhood services
designed to respond to the needs of young children and their parents
whether these needs are for occasional care, regular care,
education, counselling, creative development, emergency care,
before or after school care: or holiday care. For this financial
year $ 74 million has been allocated to this program.
In Australia more than in most countries decisions
and advice on political matters have been made and given by statutory
bodies and royal commissions. In 1948 the last Labor government
amended the Broadcasting Act to require that at least one of the
Australian Broadcasting Commissioners shall be a woman. My
government has deliberately sought talented and qualified.
women for appointment to such entities. For the first time, for
example, women have been appointed to the Arbitration Commission,
the Industries Assistance Commission formerly the Tariff Board),
the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Wool
Corporation, and women have been appointed from the outset to the new
education commissions, Hospitals and Health Services commission,
Children's Commission and Australia Council, Justice Elizabeth
Evatt, who has been chairman of the Royal Commission into Human
Relations, was last week appointed Chief Judge of the new
Family Court of Australia. A woman is expected to be appointed as
chairman of the Consumer Protection Authority which is about to be
-6
established. In the 1940' s the Foreign Minister, Dr Evatt,
ordained that one third of the diplomatic cadets should be
recruited from women but that requirement was revoked by his
successors. My government appointed the first career diplomatist
as an ambassador and has permitted women diplomatists who marry to
pursue their careers These posts are within the-gift of the government.
The government, however, cannot appoint public servants other than
heads of departments. Accordingly, the Royal Commission on
Australian Government Administration, which includes a woman, is
inquiring into the opportunities which must be given to women
in the Public Service. It has also been of deep concern to us that we
lessen the distress and suffering that women face and respond
sensitively to social problems affecting them. We are concerned
about the problems facing all women in Australia, be they young
or old, Aboriginal or newcomers, married or unmarried, English
speaking or non-English speaking.
It is the second principle, that of humaneness,
that has prompted us to fund women's refuges, women's health
centres, rape crisis counselling centres, family planning centres
and multi-purpose centres where the health, welfare, educational,
training, workforce, legal, recreational and child-care needs of women
can be met. We have removed the sales tax from the pill and for
the first time in the history of Australia have recognised that
supporting mothers form one of the largest groups below the
poverty line and introduced a supporting mothers' benefit.
The Royal Commission into Human Relationships has
the task of informing and educating us about the extent and
the effects of these social problems. It is an overwhelming task
for ours is a society which is loath to admit that problems such
as these even exist. Marriages do break up; women do die at the
hands of back-yard abortionists; children are battered; people;
particularly women, do live in extreme poverty; unwanted children
are born; men and women do commit suicide; women are raped;
children are homeless. Before we can act in this area we must
know why all this is so and what can be done to change it.
We have removed many areas of discrimination and
injustice, but we feel very deeply that governments must take
some responsibility in removing the cause of this discrimination,
of these injustices, the Cause lies invariably in the deeply
ingrained cultural assumption that every woman's primary role is
that of daughter, wife, mother, mother-in-law, or grandmother;
nurse, secretary, teacher or shop assistant: the deeply ingrainea
assumption that women are here to serve or assist. The
well-being of men and children within our society must not be
at the expense of the wellbeing of their wives and mothers.
For this is too high a price to pay.
-7
Women are as diverse, as different from each
other, as are men. We must create a society which acknowledges
this. This is not to say that within that society women may not
freely choose to be wives and mothers and teachers. It is
impossible for us to foresee what such a society would look like.
But it is to say that women must be allowed to develop their
diverse and multi-faceted potential.
International Women's Year has-~ given us an opportunity
to focus on this aspect of our society. It is an opportunity to
make explicit the attitudes which our society has about women,
an opportunity to question and re-think the assumptions, beliefs,
prejudices and opinions about women, their so-called " proper"
roles and their capacities. Each woman and man in our society must
become aware of these attitudes and myths, for it is these that are
the root cause of s-o much of the distress and suffering
experienced by women in our society today. To change these
attitudes, to offer women new possibilities and new life patterns
is our task for International Women's Year and beyond.
To take just one area of concern to this conference there
is a wealth of cliches oft repeated by politicians and researchers
as to why women vote the way they do. Women, they say, are
personality voters, that is they vote for the candidate with the
sexy smile or the fatherly air. Women, they say, vote as their
men tell them. Women, they say, are mindless voters. Women, they
say, do not vote for women. Women, they say, are innately
conservative voters. It is obvious that these " truisms" cannot
all be true, and it may well be that none are. But it certainly
is true that it is time that these assumptions and myths were
questioned. The claim, for example, that women are conservative
voters is often interpreted to mean that they are more likely
than men to be conservative on policy issues. But gallup polls
taken in Australia over the last couple of decades show that
this is not true. Women hold much less conservative views on,
for example, capital punishment or conscription, though they often
hold more conservative views on issues such as legal reform,
prostitution and the permissive society. Hence women's voting
patterns cannot be the result of a general conservatism.
It could rather be seen as a reaction to the sort of
life that women lead, to their day to day experiences. The
permissive society has not benefited women at all. Womien are
all too often exploited in sexual relationships, women all too
often find themselves taking second place to their husband's
mates. If women are conservative voters, this could well be a
response to a society that they do not particularly like and
within which they all too often come of f second best.
Women lack a sense of political efficacy. Playing the
role of voter does not in itself give rise to political awareness.
It hardly suffices to bring'politics to the centre of the voter's
consciousness. More voters-are influenced or changed by personal
discussion than any other means, and women lack such opportunities. ./ 8
8
It is often said, and truly, that the home limits
women's exposure to political experience and information. But
one of the most enlightening changes that has recently occurred
is that women are insisting more and more that concerns of the
home be the concerns of politics, that the personal be the
political. Child care, family planning, housework and so on
are now becoming issues for the political arena. To this extent
women are in the process of trying to re-define and to re-describe,
the political. I am not here however to lecture women about the
responsibilities of citizenship or the need to join political
movements or to be politically active. Women are in politics.
They know how to organise. They recognise their needs. But
now is the time to define and formulate their demands and to
seek a full share in political power and leadership. It is my
deep belief that what is good for women will in turn be good for
the entire society.
4