Pod Insights The Rest Is Politics 72. Julia Gillard on Rishi Sunak, compulsory voting and that misogyny speech About this episode Alastair is joined today by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard to discuss the view of British politics from Australia, the role of the monarchy, Australian government, compulsory voting and her famous Misogyny Speech.
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Transcript 9,035 words · 13 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:04 Rory Stewart? This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.
0:06 Alastair Campbell? And I must thank NordVPN because on my Grand European Tour with Fiona, I was away from the Hawthorns for West Bromwich against Burnley, but I managed to watch it. There you go.
0:19 Rory Stewart? I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Crete. And of course, the thing flashed up, saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN. It was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely, people can do all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying if you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks.
0:42 Alastair Campbell? Well, I think, are you not really sort of proud of me that I managed to do this? Or should I say Fiona managed to do this?
0:49 Rory Stewart? I'm incredibly proud of you. That's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com/rustaspolitics. That's nordvpn.com/rustaspolitics. And the link is in the episode description.
1:43 Alastair Campbell? Right, well, welcome to another special episode of The Rest is Politics with me, Alastair Campbell, and me, Alastair Campbell. Because Rory, I've told him, he's got to have his holiday. He's been flying around too much. He's got a few days with his kids and his wife in Kenya. So he's going to miss out on one of my favourite people in politics around the world and one of my daughter's favourite people because she's a Minister Icon, I think it's fair to say. So special welcome to the former Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard.
2:17 Speaker 02 Well, it's great, great to be with you, but I just want to declare at the start, I am no substitute for Rory. My idea of going for a walk is a gentle stroll by a river, not hiking across Afghanistan. So no, I am no substitute.
2:31 Alastair Campbell? You are a great walker, though, aren't you? I know that you that's your kind of way of relaxation is to go for long walks.
2:36 Speaker 02 I am a great walker, but nowhere near Rory's elite standards.
2:42 Alastair Campbell? No, I think I think if Rory could maybe think about walking across Australia, then we could, we really could put him in the elite standards. Now, listen, Julia, thanks for, thanks for talking to me. And I want to start with two things that are both related to your experience, but also topical. You became Prime Minister in 2010. And although Australia wasn't maybe hit as hard by the global financial crisis as other parts of the world that did to some extent define what you had to deal with. So I just wonder what you learned from that, that maybe you could pass on to current presidents and prime ministers with the financial upheaval that we're going through. I think today,
3:23 Alastair Campbell? the day we're talking, Jim Chalmers, the Australian Treasurer, is setting out his budget. What can leaders today learn from the lessons of the global financial crisis, do you think?
3:34 Speaker 02 I think actually leaders today have got it tougher in many ways because one of the hallmarks of the global response to the financial crisis was coordination. Through the G20 in particular, there was coordination of fiscal and monetary policies. Gordon Brown was central to that response, as was my predecessor, Kevin Rudd. And that meant because the geopolitics was enabling that degree of cooperation that things are were a little bit easier then than they are now. But I think some of the lessons from that time would be, to the extent you can skate through the geopolitics and still find ways of reaching out to leaders from other countries, do so because
4:20 Speaker 02 Coordination does matter. Second, don't get blinded by the immediate crisis to what you want to do in the longer term. Try and calibrate the short and longer term policy responses. And to give one example of that from Australia, I was Minister for Education and Deputy Prime Minister before I was Prime Minister. We knew we needed a very big stimulus response to deal with the global financial crisis. But we decided that a big component of that stimulus would be renovating and building new school buildings. Because one of our long term policy objectives was better education for every child. So you can bring the short term and the long term into alignment and try and look for those.
5:05 Alastair Campbell? It's interesting, you you you specifically mentioned Gordon Brown there, and I know Barack Obama talked about Gordon's role. And of course, Gordon partly lost power because the Conservatives politically were successful in pinning the crash on Labour. And of course, Labour has not been in power since then. And yet you, and I think other world leaders around at the time, saw Gordon's role in that as being absolutely pivotal and frankly, doing a lot to save the world economy.
5:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, it is very hard to explain to the electorate just how global some of these phenomenon are. I mean, we used to use terminology back then about, you know, we're not immune. Australia comes to this crisis with inherent strengths, but we're not immune. The tide of the global economy doesn't stop at our shoreline, things like that. But the truth is, people don't experience their lives in comparison to how someone's doing in, you know, somewhere in Europe or in America. People define their own life experience based on how they used to feel. And if they think the past was better than their contemporary reality, then I think there is the
6:17 Speaker 02 capacity for people to lash out against governments just because times are tough and they're feeling that the times are tough on their shoulders. So if that analysis is right, then I think this will be a very difficult season for incumbents around the world. And we might have another data point on all of that very shortly, once we see the midterm results in the US.
6:40 Alastair Campbell? And your point about why it's maybe harder to do international cooperation now, is that because the multilateral institutions are being broken down in part by the deliberate breaking down of their power and authority by the Chinese, by the Russians, the dictatorships kind of feeling that they they have got the upper hand at the moment?
6:59 Speaker 02 I think that is certainly a very strong element of it. So China leant in to the global financial crisis and worked particularly through the G20 to help alleviate pressures in the global economy. I mean, their analysis was bad global economy is bad for China and they reacted in that way. Now, of course, the dynamic is quite different. Then I'd also say whilst the the changing geopolitics around China and Russia is, you know, a huge element of what we're discussing now, I actually think the ability of Western democracies to
7:39 Speaker 02 manoeuvre and to strengthen international bonds is less than it used to be. I think people have got more and more intolerant of globalisation, internationalisation. They are much more wanting to see their national leaders focus on the home front. That is feeding into populist movements in many parts of the world. And so for a leader, and I genuinely believe the new Prime Minister here in the UK, Prime Minister Sunak, is this kind of leader who understands the global economy, understands the interconnections, wants to work with others around the world. The task of explaining all of that to the domestic electorate is much harder than it used to be.
8:21 Alastair Campbell? And even harder in Australia because you have these, to my mind, ridiculously short parliamentary terms of three years. That is, I don't know how you do the long-term stuff when you've got that. Can that not be changed?
8:34 Speaker 02 We do have very, very short parliamentary terms, though there may be some people in the UK who in recent months have been thinking to themselves that five years might be a tad too long. So careful, careful what you wish for in some ways. The constraint in Australia is really working through what you would do with the Senate. Just because our system is routinely, half the Senate goes to election at each general election. And if you move to four-year terms, that would create eight-year terms for senators, and I think people would react adversely to that. Then you could say, well, why don't we have a full election
9:16 Speaker 02 for the Senate every time? The problem with that is it brings the quota to get elected down and helps minor political parties, I mean, really minor political parties, very niche political parties, to prosper. And that can give you very unworkable Senates.
9:34 Alastair Campbell? Okay. Now, you mentioned Rishi Sunak there, and the second situation that's happening today that I think you can maybe lend some of your experience to. You came into power as Prime Minister after a pretty turbulent period in Labour's history. You mentioned Kevin Rudd, the kind of you and his relationship. We talked before about The Killing Season, this extraordinary documentary series, which you've never watched, I believe?
10:00 Speaker 02 No, I never have. I think from seeing the title and the promos, I concluded it had missed the point, and I'm happy to have turned down into that.
10:09 Alastair Campbell? For those who haven't seen it and who want to see a sense of pretty brutal politics, then it's definitely worth seeing. But Rishi Sunak comes in, as you did, with his party pretty divided, with some really difficult challenges to face. So, you know, you've already said that he maybe understands the modern world, but what can you say to somebody who comes in like you, unopposed in terms of the leadership election, and then inherits some pretty big challenges? So, you know, I'm assuming like me, you're still Labour and you're hoping that maybe Keir Starmer will come along. But what advice Prime Minister to Prime Minister can you give to Sunak?
10:51 Speaker 02 Certainly if I was a citizen of this country at the next election, I'd be voting Labour. And I wish Keir Starmer and the team all the best wishes in the world. I hope that there's plenty of opportunity for them at the next election and that they get to form a majority Labour government. But for the incoming Prime Minister now, I don't know if he needs or wants my advice, but let's just venture my arm by saying the following. I think the natural instinct will be, given the dimensions of the challenges, to really come roaring out of the gate with many policies and announcements and all the rest of it.
11:33 Speaker 02 I'm not sure that's the right response because I think most people in the UK are exhausted at this point and their dearest wish would be that politics gets out of their face for a while.
11:49 Alastair Campbell? Hmm.
11:49 Speaker 02 So I would try and, you know, not slow it down because he can't afford to go at a glacial pace, because the dimensions of the challenges are big and he's only got so much time left in this parliamentary term. But I would step it out very methodically, very slowly, or as slowly as he possibly can. I think there's a market right now for pretty boring in politics, boring would seem, safe, easy compared with what everybody's lived through.
12:25 Alastair Campbell? Hmm, that's interesting how one of the things that Keir Starmer's opponents run at him is that he's a bit boring. So maybe that's a, maybe that's his strength. I don't think he is boring, but it's something that people say. But do you think Labour will win the next, you spend a lot of time in the UK. Do you feel that Labour, because is there still a huge, huge swing that's required?
12:46 Speaker 02 It is a huge swing that's required. I mean, I've never worried about the critique around Keir Starmer that he's boring. I mean, you know, at the end of the day, being Prime Minister isn't being a clown or an entertainer, it's a serious job. And maybe people, after the recent experience in the UK, will be thinking that to themselves very strongly, that what they want is someone who's not full of razzle-dazzle, but full of method and purpose and slow deliberation. And I think Keir and the team, in the way that they're preparing now for the next election, are showing that. I mean, I don't know the inside story, I'm just looking at the media,
13:29 Speaker 02 but they seem to be taking a very methodical approach to getting ready to be a party of government again. So that's all to their credit. You know, on the next contest, in some ways, you know, if you were calling it now, looking at the polls, you'd say, well, you know, Labour's got a very good chance of forming majority government. But as you and I know from our past lives, things can change and change quickly. And we don't know yet how the new Prime Minister is going to land with the British electorate. We don't know how he's going to perform. We don't know how, whether or not the Tories can, you
14:08 Speaker 02 know, say, do what they've said in the last 24 hours, which is unite and actually shrug off the divisions that have been so deep during this period. So I think we need to see all of that before we can make a really robust prediction about the next election.
14:24 Alastair Campbell? What do you think the, let's just start with Australia. What in general has Australia made of our politics in recent years? Because it must have come over to you as, you know, I guess from Brexit, through Cameron, then May, then Johnson, then Trust, now Sunak. I mean, it's, what have the Aussies made of us?
14:44 Speaker 02 Well, I mean, you know, most, most people in Australia obviously don't think about British politics. I mean, they hardly think about Australian politics. So they wouldn't be looking at British politics. I think Johnson, though, was the kind of figure that people were more likely to look at just because he was sort of interesting and different in the same way that obviously President Trump commanded such global attention and certainly commanded attention in Australia. On the rapid changes of Prime Minister, I think people would say, well, we've been through that ourselves. So they wouldn't necessarily be judging the UK down on that. I think once you get beyond that, though, when you're
15:28 Speaker 02 talking about the politically active class and the politically analytical class, you would see some echoes in UK politics of our own politics. I mean, I'm of that generation of Labour politicians that, you know, the media was endlessly wittering on, wittering on about Labour's problems with its dual constituencies, that it was trying to serve the traditional working class as well as inner-city elites, and how does this all add up? And what the media missed in all of that wittering on was that the Conservatives
16:05 Speaker 02 were definitely trying to serve two constituencies too, wealthy, educated, globalised people, and quite conservative, middle-class, lower-middle-class, even working-class supporters with very conservative family values, and very conservative values around things like immigration. And I think that division in Australia came home to roost in the last election, when our Conservative Party lost some of its heartland seats to pro-climate-change women who were still running on conservative economic platforms.
16:45 Speaker 02 Teals, the teals, the colour of their banner was teal. So, you know, combining red and blue and getting teal, you know, and pro-climate action. They've sort of eaten out the heartland seats of the Conservative Party. And I think, you know, Johnson's victory and taking of the Red Wall for a while obscured here in the UK just how diverse the Tory constituency is and how difficult it is to hold it together. And if I was going to say anything about contemporary politics here in the UK, I actually think Brexit is a symptom of that.
17:26 Speaker 02 And it's, you know, I know it's fashionable in UK politics to say, oh, Brexit has caused X, Y and Z. When I look at, and of course, it's caused a whole series of ructions in public policy and in political debate, but I actually think Brexit is a symptom of that split constituency underlying malaise for the Tories and Labour still trying to serve diverse constituencies too.
17:52 Alastair Campbell? Hmm. And what's Brexit done to our kind of standing in the world, do you think? I mean, if you're an Australian policymaker now, where does the UK fit in terms of your significant partnerships and relationships? I mean, is America still number one? Is China the most important? Is Japan, is New Zealand? Where are we in the whole gamut?
18:14 Speaker 02 I mean, as Australian Prime Minister, I mean, the two giants that you wake up worrying about every morning, you know, is the US and of course China, living where we live. That's the strategic politics that we have to think about every day. And so we watch China very closely, we watch the US very closely. I think Australians have always had a sense of connection to the UK in its own right, rather than mediated through the European Union, because of history and, you know, the Queen, our King, continuing to be our head of state, our understanding of
18:56 Speaker 02 our past of colonisation and what that has done to Indigenous Australians, the dispossession, the intergenerational trauma and the things that need to be done to address that. I mean, you know, Britain figures large in our history and so I think it still figures larger in the imagination of Australians than it would if it was just a miscellaneous country of this economic size.
19:22 Alastair Campbell? But Europe now, would you say that Britain, in or out of Europe, has changed that perception?
19:30 Speaker 02 Oh, look, from the point of view of the average person, I don't think it's changed that perception at all. From the point of view of the political class, I mean, obviously, you know, you come to different trade arrangements because you're out of Europe, so there's been the trade agreement. You know, we would watch the dynamics between the UK and the US and there's the new and awkwardly named AUKUS alliance, Australia, the US and the UK. We'd look at all of that, but, you know, I don't think in a general sense that it's radically changed perceptions of the UK.
20:07 Alastair Campbell? Now, of course, you were born in the UK, you were born in Wales, in Barry, you were ill as a child, you had bronchopneumonia and your parents thought maybe warmer climes might be better for you. And you actually, I think, am I right, you had dual citizenship up until you became a Member of Parliament, when you had to give up the British citizenship?
20:28 Speaker 02 Yes, that's right. To be eligible to run for Australian Parliament, you have to renounce the rights and entitlements of any other citizenship that you hold or could conceivably hold. So it's quite a complicated rule. And I certainly gave up my UK citizenship in the run up to the first election that I stood for, which was when I stood for the Senate in 1996 and I wasn't elected. I should just say, on behalf of Wales, because I get chided by the Welsh Tourism Board, it wasn't the only reason we migrated. My father rightly saw better economic opportunities in Australia for us. And Wales is a wonderful place to
21:11 Speaker 02 visit. No one should be deterred based on the weather.
21:16 Alastair Campbell? Did you have a Welsh, when you left Wales, aged what, eight, were you eight?
21:21 Speaker 02 Oh, no, no, I was only four, turning five. Yeah, I was four, turning five. So I don't have any original memories of Wales.
21:28 Alastair Campbell? But did you have a Welsh accent?
21:30 Speaker 02 I presume so, but, I mean, I must have. But it's long, long gone.
21:38 Alastair Campbell? But and do you, do you feel, do you feel 100% Australian?
21:43 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah. Yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, tales of Wales were told in our family home. I mean, my sister and I always knew where we came from. We always knew we'd migrated. You know, my family stories, my mum's stories of growing up in Barry. I mean, both of them were children during World War Two, so the World War Two stories. My dad grew up in a coal mining village. I mean, you know, all of this was the backdrop to our family life. You know, Dylan Thomas, the whole nine yards. But our lived experience was always Australian.
22:18 Alastair Campbell? And what about Welsh politics? And how, how political were your parents?
22:22 Speaker 02 My father was very politically interested. He followed politics in Australia very, very closely. He was a strong Labour man, a strong trade unionist. When we migrated...
22:38 Speaker 02 migrated to Australia, he ultimately studied to become a psychiatric nurse. And he ended up with an elected, not one of the paid, but an elected position in the trade union that covered psychiatric nurses. He would work shifts and when he was home during the daytime, he'd listen to Question Time on the radio, he'd be interjecting as if he was on the floor of the parliament. So that was definitely the, the, you know, tenor of our family home, you know, dad would talk to us about politics. He thought it was important that we understood the world, my sister and I. And I certainly remember very clearly, even though I was only in second year high school,
23:18 Speaker 02 the dismissal of the Whitlam government because of how outraged my father was uh that a Labour government would be dismissed by the governor general. And he actually uh took me to one of the rallies to protest against that dismissal. So, yes, we grew up in a, you know, political household in that sense, not in the anybody was, you know, hugely active in politics or wanting to run for politics or anything like that. But in the sense that issues were discussed.
23:50 Alastair Campbell? And also, you, you, you've described yourself in your autobiography as a very shy child. And, you know, shyness doesn't always go with top political office, I think is fair to say. But you've also talked about the importance that your confidence grew when you were doing high school debating. And I'm, I'm actually in the middle of writing a book about trying to get young people more interested in politics. And one of the things I think we've lost is that sense of the importance of learning how to debate. And of course, the private schools do it. Um, but I think in state schools, we should maybe do a focus a bit more on debating. So is that right that debating in school kind of gave you a sense, both of your political passion, but also gave you confidence?
24:32 Speaker 02 Yes, it is true. I mean, it started off as a lark, really. Two great friends of mine in school were twin girls, Lyn and Cathy Polowski. Lyn sadly is no longer with us, but Cathy actually lives here in the UK and is still a friend of mine. And it just started off as this lark that we were going to do high school debating in our government school, which did offer it. And then one of the first, you know, propositions we had to argue, this all-girl team, was in favour of the proposition that the man should lead. So that did kind of test us. And, you know, it gave me more of a sense that you could, you know, argue things out.
25:15 Speaker 02 As much as the actual practice of debating, though, there was an immersion for me across all of these years and during the debating days into the Polowski family. And Cathy and Lyn's mum, Marlene Polowski, used to talk to me about ambitions in life. At that stage, I was saying I wanted to be a teacher and she was, no, no, no, you've got to aim for law. You'd be a great lawyer, you're a good debater. And so all of that helped, I think, open my eyes to more possibilities about my life. You know, politics, I think, attracts natural extroverts, but it also attracts people like me
25:57 Speaker 02 who aren't natural extroverts, who, you know, I best refresh in my own company, pottering around by myself. But I can, you know, go out into the world and glad-hand and speak and campaign and all the rest of it. I mean, these are skills that you can learn. But there are some politicians for whom the energy of the crowd is absolutely their oxygen. Bob Hawke was like that. So you can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and still end up in politics and hopefully do all right at it.
26:29 Alastair Campbell? Think you did. Well, we're going to take a quick break and then come back and talk about, I wonder whether you're sick and tired of talking about it yet, but we're going to talk about that speech.
26:38 Speaker 02 Very happy to.
26:40 Speaker 03 Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig.
26:44 Speaker 04 On October 2nd.
26:45 Speaker 03 Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all keep the blame on me.
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27:01 Speaker 04 With great power comes great deniability.
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27:06 Speaker 04 Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Under 17.0 without parent.
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28:40 Alastair Campbell? Right, welcome back to this special episode of The Rest Is Politics. I'm talking to Julia Gillard while Rory Stewart is wandering around Kenya with his children and lots of lions and tigers and elephants. We talked there about how you became Prime Minister and you lacked confidence as a child, but you developed that and you, you know, it's quite a thing to become Prime Minister. You were the first woman Deputy Prime Minister, you were the first woman Prime Minister in a country that does have a reputation, whether you like it or not, for being a bit sexist and a bit racist and all that stuff. Now, as you know, I love Australia and I love going to Australia, but it does have that reputation.
29:21 Alastair Campbell? And you challenged that in your famous misogyny speech 10 years ago now, and it was a brilliant piece of parliamentary theatre. But just talk me through that day, what happened and how you feel about it now?
29:35 Speaker 02 I'm happy to talk about that. I think I just need to explain one thing about the Australian Parliament so it all makes sense, which is we don't have your, you know, very, what we would refer to as part-time approach to Question Time, where the Prime Minister only goes occasionally for prime ministerial questions. We have Question Time every day. The Australian Parliament sits between 2 and 3.30. The Prime Minister is in Question Time every day. You honestly have to be overseas at the world's most important meeting or in a hospital bed to get out of Question Time. You have to go. And, you know, frequently, it is the Prime Minister that takes the vast majority of
30:20 Speaker 02 the questions. So on this parliamentary day, I was doing what I did every parliamentary day, I was getting ready for Question Time. And your staff obviously work with you and your colleagues that do the sort of tactical management of the chamber to work out what are the things you're most likely to get asked that day, and then normally the big things running in the media. And the big thing running in the media that day was that the speaker that we Had supported to be Speaker of the House of Representatives, had been unmasked as having sent some very sexist text messages. And so it was sort of inevitable that he was going to have to go as Speaker and manage his resignation.
31:02 Speaker 02 But I knew as I got ready for question time, that what the opposition would be trying to do was skewer me as somehow facilitating sexism, because I'd supported this guy to be Speaker, even though I could not have known about the text messages when I did that, but never let a time sequence get in the way of a good parliamentary tactic. And so I was ready for question time. I asked my staff to get together Tony Abbott's top 10 sexist quotes. I've subsequently joked, they did that in record time, it was not a hard job. I'd asked them to do much more difficult things over the years. And I walked in, ready to go for that, but Tony Abbott jumped to his feet and moved a motion.
31:44 Speaker 02 So he voided basically question time and tried to push us onto a motion. And so the speech that's come to be known as the misogyny speech is my speech in reply to his opening speech. And I jotted down some handwritten notes and then jumped up and did it. I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man, I will not. The leader of the opposition says that people who hold sexist views and who are misogynists are not appropriate for high office. Well, I hope the leader of the opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation. Because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn't
32:27 Speaker 02 need a motion in the House of Representatives, he needs a mirror, that's what he needs. Misogyny, sexism, every day from this leader of the opposition, every day in every way across the time the leader of the opposition has sat in that chair and I've sat in this chair, that is all we have heard from him. You know, what resonates in the speech now is mostly people aren't interested in that Australian parliamentary context that's sort of fallen away. I think it's come to be something that women in particular, who still go out and navigate a sexist world, when they've hit a gendered moment and they think, oh, I really should
33:09 Speaker 02 have said X, why is the best retort in the world, come to me at three AM the next morning. They sort of watch that speech because it helps ease that frustration, because it was a moment when a woman called it out. So I didn't know I was going to give that speech until I was giving it. Looking back now, I mean, you and I know that one of the fascinating things about politics is you never get to run the control test. So you can theorise about what could have been different, but you'll never quite know. Now I actually wonder whether I would have been better off to call out the sexism early in my time in office and try to provoke a national debate on it and perhaps disarm it a bit when days for the government were easy.
33:54 Speaker 02 I didn't do that. I thought the sexism was a short-term phenomenon, it would fall away the longer I governed. But what actually happened is the longer we governed, the more controversial the policies we were dealing with, the more gendered the discourse became and the harder it was to call it out. Because if you're in political trouble and then you point to a sexist thing, people will say, well, she would be saying that, wouldn't she? She's just trying to distract from the fact that she's in the political horrors. So, you know, it's really hard to know. I think, you know, I'm pleased I gave that speech. In contemporary Australian politics, it did start a debate, it probably did cement the attitudes of some. The fashionable analysis of the Australian media was that it was pretty much a bad mistake.
34:39 Speaker 02 But, you know, here we are 10 years later, still talking about it. So I'm proud that it's come to mean something for women around the world.
34:46 Alastair Campbell? Yes, interesting. I read a very long analysis yesterday on, I think it was on The Conversation, the Australian version of The Conversation. And it was somebody who went through in real detail the media coverage. The day after and the day after the day after overwhelmingly negative, lots about you just being a whinging woman and trying to turn some, make something out of nothing and all that sort of stuff. So it's interesting how that moment has endured and got both the issue and your reputation to a completely different place to the one that they were trying to give you at the time, which underlines to me the importance of two things. One is that parliamentary moments really can matter. And the second is you got the real sense
35:29 Alastair Campbell? that that was you not speaking from prepared notes, not saying I'm going to launch a debate, but it came 100% from the heart. And that's why it connected.
35:37 Speaker 02 I think that's right. I mean, I don't think I could give that speech. You know, if, if back in those days, you'd said to me, you know, a week and a half from now, let's give a rip snorting speech on misogyny. I don't think I could have given that speech. It could only be given in the moment, in the flow, the way it was. And, you know, I've dedicated a lot of my time since politics to issues around women's leadership. I mean, I went into politics a committed feminist. I've come out of politics a committed feminist. I've come out of politics with a few bumps and bruises, a few scars around these issues.
36:20 Speaker 02 And I've wanted to devote some of my life's time now to how can we make it easier for the women who are to come. And that's led me to founding the Global Institute for Women's Leadership here at King's College London. And we have a sister institute at the Australian National University in Canberra. And we're trying to do the deep analytical work about what needs to change to equalise women's chances of coming through for leadership in all walks of life and to equalise the reception of their leadership. So it's not viewed through the prism of gender.
36:53 Alastair Campbell? And what about, you mentioned often that the impact that social media is having upon people's confidence, people's ability to face big challenges. You talked about at one point being a vile sewer. Do you think that is putting young women off the idea even of thinking about going into politics?
37:12 Speaker 02 Oh yes, I certainly think it is. And if we look at the time of the last election here in the UK, you would recall that there were a number of women who pretty unexpectedly, you know, in the sense that it wasn't the natural time in their political career to say, I'm done, I'm out, I'm not recontesting this election. And when you drilled into that, I mean, you know, everybody's reasons for leaving are individual, but a thread that ran through it was the vile nature of social media, but also the fact that these things don't just
37:53 Speaker 02 stay online. I mean, there are plenty of women politicians with stories about seeing a, you know, hideous tweet threatening rape and murder, and it's come associated with a photograph of their front door. I mean, it's people saying, we know where you are. And I do think that that weighs very heavily on people's shoulders. Amnesty International does global data sets about all of this, and it's, you know, undeniable that of the truly hideous social media posts, they are disproportionately directed at women and they are disproportionately directed at women of colour. And I just think we'd be kidding ourselves if we said to each other, oh, that would have no effect. I mean, it has
38:37 Speaker 02 to have an impact on people and on their families and on their preparedness to continue. And it has to send a message to young women. And so I think we've got to be, you know, in some ways, counteracting that message, not by shielding that truth. I think we have to face that truth. But we've also got to be talking to young women about how we're working to make this a less gendered environment and the great merits of going into politics. I mean, I'm often asked, you know, given how gendered it was, would you do it all again? And my answer is yes, in a heartbeat, absolutely. Because the things it enables you to do, which make a difference for your community, your country, the world you live
39:19 Speaker 02 in, you know, politics is not the only pathway to be a change maker, but it's an incredibly empowered pathway. So I'm always, you know, if you've got the passion, you've got the sense of purpose, please get in there.
39:31 Alastair Campbell? But at the same time, you perhaps understand why some young women say, no, I'm not going to do change that way. I'm going to do it another way because I can't take the abuse and the vile hatred and the misogyny.
39:42 Speaker 02 Yeah, I understand, but I am also prepared to challenge a little bit. I wrote a book on women and leadership with a great friend of mine, Ngozi Okonjiri Wheeler, who now, of course, is the head of the World Trade Organisation, which is a job not for the faint-hearted. And when we would speak about our book and young women would raise their sense of trepidation, Ngozi would say, when she was Finance Minister of Nigeria, she got to put in place a policy which lifted two million subsistence farmers, all women, out of poverty.
40:17 Alastair Campbell? Yeah.
40:17 Speaker 02 And she'd say, who wouldn't want to do that? Like, who wouldn't want to lift two million women out of poverty?
40:22 Alastair Campbell? And you couldn't do that just by tweeting about it?
40:24 Speaker 02 You couldn't do that by tweeting about it.
40:26 Alastair Campbell? You've got to get into power. Now, you, we've talked a little bit about the roughness of Australian politics. And I don't know if you remember, but it's about, what would it be? When did you leave office?
40:37 Speaker 02 Twenty thirteen.
40:38 Alastair Campbell? So how many years? We're in two, nine years now. So nine years ago, I was on a trip to Australia. My friend and colleague, John McTernan, was working with you in Canberra. He knew I was in Sydney. He gave me a call. He said, why don't you come down and have a chat with Julia? And I came down, we had a very nice chat in your very nice office in Canberra. And by the time I got to the airport, breaking news, Kevin Rudd was foreseeing what you guys call a spill. And that led to your demise. Now, it was very, very high profile that this was possibly going on. But I don't expect you to remember our conversation. But did you know on that morning that that was likely to come that day? Because it was pretty brutal when it came.
41:22 Speaker 02 Yes, I did. No. And Alistair, I think we just need to clarify for listeners, your appearance in Canberra was an unrelated event. There is not a causal chain here.
41:36 Speaker 02 We'll have, we'll have people running stories about how you changed the course of Australian politics. So yes, you know, look, I, I knew it was coming. I mean, you know, the sort of, uh, sort of Damocles had been over my head for a while. I mean, I think I outran it for a long time, uh, but I knew that it would likely fall at some point. Uh, and you know, all you could do in those circumstances is keep, uh, you know, the, the faith that you could with your political colleagues. And I was always as inclusive as possible of the team. Uh, but you know, it's the old Paul Keating line, my great
42:17 Speaker 02 Labor predecessor, not a day to waste. And so you just had to make every day count.
42:22 Alastair Campbell? Hmm. What's your, we mentioned Tony Abbott and his role in your life with that speech and, and as a pretty tough opponent and Kevin Rudd. What's your relationship with those guys now? Cause presumably you ex-prime ministers, like we saw our six, now eight ex-prime ministers or whatever it is now. We're running out of ex-prime ministers or we're getting too many ex-prime ministers in this country. But do you guys ever have to get together for those like big establishment gatherings and the Queen's death, whatever it might be? And I just wonder what your relationship's like when you get together?
42:53 Speaker 02 Yet there hasn't been a gathering of all of us, I don't think, uh, since I was actually, uh, Prime Minister. Oh, actually many of them would have been at Bob Hawke's funeral, uh, but I wasn't able to be there. So I did a video message. Uh, so there, there hasn't been, you know, we don't have as much protocol around changes of government and changes of Prime Minister and stuff like that as you do. So I suspect there aren't as many times in Australia that the call would go out to all of us as the call goes
43:34 Speaker 02 out here. Uh, so no, I mean, I just really don't see, um, either Kevin or Tony. I mean, I've, I've joked when I've been asked about this in the past, you know, we don't all go and live in a cubby house together. Uh, we, uh, go and get on with our lives.
43:50 Alastair Campbell? And how would you define that relationship with Kevin? Because it struck me as, I know you haven't seen it, but the Killing season, it was pretty brutal. And I just wonder how you kind of, I suppose we've had similar stuff, but it feels more brutal in Australia. And it felt like you were really kind of put through a pretty hard time, having also been part of a spill against him, I guess. So do you think there was an element of revenge going on? Or do you think it was actually he had a different view for what should happen to the country?
44:18 Speaker 02 No, I don't think, when you look at that period in Labor politics, I don't think it's defined by different policy choices or different analysis of the needs of the country. It's really defined by leadership styles and the way people worked with colleagues, in particular, the way I worked with colleagues. I think it's, you know, it was the team looking at leadership and governing styles, rather than big policy questions and seeing differences. So different in many ways to, well, very different, I think, from what you've seen
44:58 Speaker 02 here in recent days, where you would say that Liz Truss offered quite a different policy vision of the future from the one that Rishi Sunak put forward.
45:08 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, sure.
45:09 Speaker 02 So it wasn't that kind of difference. I mean, on how I feel about it now, I mean, honestly, for me, it's been very important to turn the page. And so, you know, I'm not a continuing commentator in Australia on Australian politics. I don't do that. You know, everybody knows I don't do that. The journos don't ring anymore to try and get me to comment on who's up and who's down in Australian politics. I've deliberately turned the page and gone on and done other things that fit with my values. Of course, the Global Institute for Women's Leadership is one of those. The other fantastic opportunity I have here in London is I chair the Board of Governors of the Wellcome Trust, which
45:53 Speaker 02 is making such a huge difference in our world for science. And part of turning that page means I don't You know, obsess about who did what to who when. I think it's, you gotta just, well, it is, it is what it is. And, you know, you just move on and other things, uh, you know, become important to you. You work with other people. So I really don't obsess about it from any dimension. I don't obsess on what could I have done differently? And I don't obsess about the role of others in it.
46:26 Alastair Campbell? Hmm. And you, you've mentioned, um, the Queen a couple of times and King Charles. Do you, do you think that King Charles will be your last head of state, your last British head of state, as it were? Do you think you're gonna move, ever move to a, a republic?
46:41 Speaker 02 I've always thought that the death of the Queen would lead to a period of reflection in Australia. Uh, and it would ultimately, and I don't think that this will happen quickly, but it would ultimately lead through that period of reflection, uh, into a new energy around a republican referendum, uh, Australia becoming a republic. And when I've said that in the past, particularly here in the UK, it is quickly misinterpreted as a sort of popularity contest. Oh, well, that means the Queen was really popular and, you know, King Charles isn't popular and that's the difference. I actually don't, it's, it's
47:24 Speaker 02 not, it's not a popularity contest. It's just when, you know, an era has so visibly changed and she was, you know, such an icon. Uh, when an era has so visibly changed, I think people in all sorts of ways, um, sit back, reflect, take stock, think about the future. I think it's just a very natural process. And what will happen in Australia won't be a reflection of, do people like Charles and Camilla? It won't be that. It will be, do people think the time has come and can there be a consensus on the model that would take us forward?
48:04 Speaker 02 So, you know, I I would predict we'll, you know, I certainly think I will see this in my lifetime. But I'm also not predicting it, you know, tomorrow or the year after. And Prime Minister Albanese has been very clear that it's not, you know, the immediate priority or the work of the government in the short term.
48:26 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, now that's something, something in your politics that I wish that we could take into ours. I just wonder if you could give me your assessment of what you think the impact of compulsory voting has been on Australian politics, because I wish we had it.
48:39 Speaker 02 Oh, I am a huge advocate of compulsory voting. So just to be clear with people, what that means is you must be registered to vote. And if you're not registered and, you know, you get an opportunity to correct if you're not registered, but if you willfully not registered for a long period of time, you can be fined. And the Australian Electoral Commission does do recruitment campaigns with, you know, schoolchildren and university, young people who are coming of age, they're turning eighteen. They do door knock in high rental districts where people change housing very frequently to make sure people are enrolled. And then at election time, you have to go get your ballot paper.
49:24 Speaker 02 Now, if you want to put it in the ballot box blank, that's up to you. If you want to put a four letter word which best summarizes your view of contemporary Australian politics, that's up to you and numbers of people do take that choice. But overwhelmingly, people vote. And so it means that, you know, your politics ultimately has to be about the mainstream. You know, if Mr, Mrs, Ms average, walking up and down their high streets, to use a British term we wouldn't use in Australia, but to paint the picture here, if Mr, Mrs, Ms average in their high streets aren't voting for you, then you can't win.
50:09 Speaker 02 And it does mean that a lot of the so-called culture war issues, which particularly end up with a lot of purchase in somewhere like the US, don't translate strongly into Australian politics because, you know, your average person is pretty sensible about those things and they don't get carried away to extremes.
50:33 Alastair Campbell? So do you think that's one reason why Scott Morrison lost? Because he did try quite a lot of the cultural stuff.
50:37 Speaker 02 Uh, I think actually, um, Scott Morrison, I mean, he was a very sure-footed campaigner in 2019. He increasingly seemed to lose his footing and not show those campaign skills again. I think the various of the responses to COVID and particularly the emergence from COVID, the slow rollout of the vaccine, all of this came to cost him quite dearly. Um, early in his term in office, he'd had, he'd said, when we had the season of incredibly bad bushfires and he was on holiday in Hawaii, I don't hold a hose mate when challenged about why he hadn't come back to Australia
51:22 Speaker 02 more quickly. And I think that wording came back to haunt him because people saw him as not having his hands on the tiller as strongly as he should, uh, when we were trying to come out of the pandemic. I think he did, and some of his team did try and play some culture war issues in to, uh, correct, uh, their political course. So I think they knew that they had that baggage gathering around them. So they thought they'd try something a bit different, but it didn't work.
51:52 Alastair Campbell? Cool. Well, listen, it's been lovely talking to you as ever, Julia. Uh, thank you for all of your time. Thank you. And you, you do sort of post-politics, politics in quite an interesting way now, don't you? You're quite, I mean, you're still, you say you're not a commentator, but you're still involved in an awful lot of what I would define as political issues.
52:09 Speaker 02 Yeah, I try and, um, you know, maybe I've breached some of it in this discussion just because you're drawing me out on it. But, um, you know, what I try and do is I do talk about politics. I'm happy to talk about politics. I mean, politics has been my lifeblood for so much of my adult life. But I try and pull back, uh, and look at the, the bigger trends that are shaping things. You know, I most certainly never drop into Australian politics now, uh, to say Jim Chalmers in his budget definitely should do this with tax rates. I never do any of that. I try and pull back to what are the, the, you know, the big tidal movements underneath, not what's the froth and bubble on the surface.
52:55 Alastair Campbell? And are you following, final question, are you keeping tabs on the Rugby League World Cup? And do you imagine, as I do, that Australia are going to win it?
53:03 Speaker 02 It's not my principal code.
53:05 Alastair Campbell? I know, you're an AFL person.
53:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, it's not my principal code, but my dad, being Welsh, obviously did love rugby. So whatever competition Australia's in, I'm obviously barracking for Australia.
53:19 Alastair Campbell? Good. All right. Well, listen, we'll see you again soon and thanks for all your time.
53:22 Speaker 02 Thank you very much.
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