00:08
Been a wonderful experience to be one of the co-founders, there’s three of us cofounding
00:13
Honour a Woman movement and the main aim of the movement was to achieve gender equality in
00:20
the order of Australia. So when we started four years ago, there was around about 70
00:25
per cent of the awards going to men and only 30 per cent of them going to women. And a
00:31
lot of the higher awards were very, definitely very skewed towards towards men. Women tend
00:44
to just get on with the job. You know, we in the domestic sphere, in the professional
00:49
sphere, with our with our children, with our parents, we tend to just work. And what's
00:56
really interesting, even just when in looking at the order of Australia, what we found was
01:00
that men were nominating men and women with nominating men and few people with nominating
01:05
women. So the reality is that women are the quiet achievers and they bring all sorts of
01:14
rich diversity into our society but they're often overlooked. It is definitely, and it's
01:27
in every sphere, and I've been working for the last 40 years and everywhere I've worked,
01:34
I've seen stellar women who have been overlooked, who have not been recognised, who have not
01:41
been promoted. whose pay wasn't the same as men in the same field and who were not being
01:49
honoured in prestigious awards. So it's basically across the whole of our society. And this
01:55
year, I think it's a very big year for the women to say enough's enough. So I was reading
02:07
the letters to the editor and there was one letter from actually turned out to be from
02:12
Elizabeth and she was articulating exactly what I felt, how frustrating it was that we
02:17
had these Order of Australia awards for Australia Day and there were 14 men and one woman getting
02:25
the top award, and the one woman was Cate Blanchett and 14 men. And most of those men
02:32
were being paid very, very well for the work that they were doing. So, you know, I just
02:38
thought that this is really enough and Australia has got caught in that in a paradigm that
02:45
is really not a very equal one for women. And it was time to do something about it.
02:50
So I actually used my intelligence skills and soughtout. Elizabeth found her at Melbourne
02:55
University and then we collected Ruth McGowan. So the three of us didn't know each other.
03:01
And that's another thing to realise that you can actually bring together a movement from
03:06
very disparate people and really make an impact. We've really put it on to the issue in the
03:22
face of the public, and there's very few people who wouldn't be able to talk about gender
03:27
inequality in Australia now. So we've really made it an issue to discuss. But we've also
03:33
been able to meet with all the state governments, as well as the federal government as well
03:39
as the Governor-General. And so we've actually been able to sort of recognise that there's
03:43
there's a consciousness raising part of it, which we were able to do through social media,
03:49
through our website, Facebook and Twitter. But there was also really necessary that it
03:55
wasn't just the community. There had been this this this this tendency to blame the
04:02
community for not nominating enough women. And we recognise it was actually a structural
04:07
issue and not just a community issue. And so it's really important to meet with all
04:11
the leaders of government, one of the challenges is to encourage all the leaders to recognise
04:17
that gender targets are very important, that you can't just wish for something to happen.
04:22
You actually have to measure it and have strategies to get there. And that's the challenge still.
04:29
But we're still meeting with various levels of government to get them to agree to gender
04:36
targets. I'd like to think so, and I hope so. I certainly think it is has got a discussion
04:50
going and that's a really, really good thing. But without structural change, it will go
04:56
back. And I'm old enough to have seen a number of branches of movements similar to this year
05:03
without the change happening. I'm hopeful in the fact that people are listening and
05:09
there's a lot of anger and anger can be productive in the end. And I hope that it will be that
05:15
it really it really is necessary for leaders to actually enact structural change. This
05:22
is where social media is very, very helpful. And it's also helpful for people to talk about
05:29
their experiences of injustice. And that's in some ways when I look at my career, I think
05:37
that's been my my driving light to to work on injustice and give people a voice that
05:43
don’thave that chance otherwise. We haven't got 50 50. We argued that with gender targets,
05:55
we were happy with 40 percent men, 40 percent women and 20 percent either way. But the reality
06:01
is it doesn't really matter the numbers yet if there isn't that structural change, because
06:06
our argument is and I think it's very true, once we take the spotlight off the order of
06:11
Australia, that Honour a Woman gender lens, it will go back. There's no agreement that states
06:18
and territories need to ensure that there is gender equality within the nominations.
06:24
There's no agreement that there has to be gender equality in the awards themselves.
06:29
So nothing has been actually embedded yet. But that said, we are actually working with
06:37
the Governor-General who happens to be a man from Wollongong and he is listening and he
06:45
has recognised that things do need to change. So we're hopeful, but we're not there yet.
06:52
Well, it's been a really wonderful initiative in Victoria, which we've been working with
06:58
the Victorian state government they have a programme called Recognition Matters. So they've
07:04
appointed an officer within their Department of Premier and Cabinet, and that officer works
07:10
to identify and ensure nominations of women are gender equal. So that there’s is enough
07:16
nominations, women going forward to the council. So we're really encouraging each state and
07:22
territory and a lot of the other states and territories have been working with us and
07:25
they're looking at different models. So we're not saying that every state needs to have
07:29
the same model, but they need to have something generating nominations because it's not just
07:34
the Order of Australia. It's all these awards that are around Australia. If There's no generation
07:38
of nominations of women. Women are just being forgotten. And, you know, it was really heartening
07:47
to see, as you said, the four women in the Australian of the Year. And, you know, if
07:52
you go back to that in that group, there were always a lot of men and sports stars, I remember
07:58
back in the past. And not that there wasn't the diversity. And that's really important.
08:06
And you know while? I'm onto diversity. We really, really want to see more diversity
08:10
in the order of Australia as well. There is a tendency for a certain sort of dominant
08:15
culture to be rewarded. And and that's not something we want to see. And we want to see
08:20
more young women nominated and honoured as well. If you have any influence on premiers
08:31
and prime ministers, then you need to meet with them and you need to say, where is the
08:36
organisation in the in your state and territory and what are you doing in terms of gender
08:41
equality at the basic level? That is to actually nominate women for all sorts of awards. You
08:48
know, I've been really amazed at just how many awards there are in Australia. You know,
08:52
there are community awards, there are awards within industries. There are professional
08:58
awards. And sometimes I think we forget that we need to actually nominate women. And certainly
09:04
we get an award. There's a real onus on me. And I feel that with the Alumni Award Social
09:10
Impact Award that we need to nominate others. We need to pay it forward. We need to recognise
09:15
that with the our reward gives us a wider voice, the widest influence to actually bring
09:21
other women up with this. I had a wonderful experience many years ago working in policing,
09:25
and a senior policeman nominated me for the Telstra business, a Woman of the Year award.
09:32
And all this information came in the mail saying how wonderful I was. And that was the
09:37
first inkling to me how important it is to recognise achievements and to make it really
09:42
does it enlivens one and allows us to invigorate’s us. It also gives us a voice. One of the problems
09:51
in the order of Australia to nominate the Order of Australia is it's supposed to be
09:56
confidential. So you can't actually say, Kelly, I'm going to nominate you for another study.
10:00
Can you give me some information about yourself so you have to start being. But, you know,
10:04
my my profession has been an intelligence officer and start collecting information that
10:09
women have a tendency not to put out the information. And if you looked at look at a LinkedIn profile
10:16
and you compare in an industry and you compare a male and a female LinkedIn profile, invariably
10:21
the women's one will be very, very, you know, if they even have a LinkedIn profile at all.
10:26
But as often, you know, and this is a generalisation, it's not always the case, but often it's men's
10:32
profile on social media. It would be very expensive and they'll write down everything
10:36
that they've done and any recognition that they've had. I really like for women to start
10:42
doing that, to start putting themselves up, to start recognising that they're role models
10:47
for other women as well. And, you know, even if they feel a little bit uncomfortable, you
10:53
know, fight, that feeling of being uncomfortable and just do it, you know, so actually have
10:58
a LinkedIn profile that is comprehensive. It does celebrate does celebrate your achievements,
11:05
but also recognises what you've actually contributed to the community so that other people can
11:10
connect with you as well. I'm really into women's networks now, and I've learned so
11:15
much over the last few years of connecting with other women, and it's very invigorating.
11:27
I think it is a stepping stone, but it also means that the Australian honours actually
11:30
needs to modernise and become something that possibly it's not at the moment, once we actually
11:38
have more diversity, once we have more inclusion, once we have more recognition of all sorts
11:45
of different ways that women contribute to the community recognised in the Order of Australia.
11:49
Yeah, I think it will. Most women who get orders of Australia find themselves in a club
11:56
that opens doors for them. And I don't want that elitist club, but I want that club of
12:03
specialists, of senior people who've made a huge impact on a community. I mean, the
12:11
highest award says that you've made impact to humanity at large. What a wonderful achievement
12:18
if you can be, you know, make an impact in humanity at large. And what a wonderful recognition
12:24
of women. I have to say it’s happenstance, and I think it's really interesting that a
12:34
lot of the happenstance happened at University of Wollongong and so I so the first thing
12:39
I'd say about that is everyone should do an arts degree at University of Wollongong. So
12:44
that's the first thing. And it's really, really important that I say that, because I think
12:49
the arts degree has been totally underestimated. And it actually gave me the ground, the tools
12:57
to do everything I've done both in Australia and overseas. So I'm really grateful for that.
13:03
I got a letter in the mail, in the mail asking me whether I'd considered a career in intelligence.
13:10
That was a really unusual thing. And I must say, after I was recruited into ASIO, I didn't
13:17
meet anyone else who had got that letter, which was sort of interesting. And so I don't
13:20
know. But I presume that someone noticed when I was at University of Wollongong where I
13:24
was very active in organising demonstrations on campus. So that's very much what I would
13:30
have thought was not the model of a person who would be. They would be tempted to encourage
13:36
to join a national security intelligence organisation. But so it's happenstance that it really opened
13:45
doors for me that that, you know, I'm really, really grateful for. So I worked in the Australian
13:52
Security Intelligence Organisation as an intelligence officer. I later found out that we'd actually
13:57
had a royal commission and the royal commission had recommended more women and more graduates.
14:03
So I fitted into the model of the person that ASIO is looking to, to bring in. But so anyway,
14:10
that was a really wonderful experience. And the other part of Wollongong university going
14:13
back to that Art’s degree , which that wonderful. So there were two parts of it that were particularly
14:18
memorable. One was the Women in Society course that was run at the time. And that was a very,
14:23
very unique you shouldn't do that. A unique course in that it was looking at women in
14:29
literature, women in psychology, women in science and the fourth semester. But that
14:37
was really I mean, to me, it radicalised me in a way that made me a feminist. And I'm
14:42
very, very grateful for that. And the other part of it was my audience degree, because
14:46
I ended up I was very, very lucky. The academic at the time who in MacLane had brought back
14:53
all these home intelligence papers from Britain. And in those days in Britain during the Second
15:00
World War, Churchill was informed about what people thought every day by every all these
15:07
different people, writing reports on what people said, butchers, bakers and candlestick
15:11
makers wrote about what people were feeling in Britain at that time. And I looked at women
15:17
and I looked at what because women in the Second World War were conscripted into the
15:21
workforce. And I looked at how their morale and their war effort was affected by conscription.
15:28
And that gave me this real interest in gender equality. So I think that there was there
15:34
was that really ground work. And I suppose the other part of University of Wollongong
15:38
was the society that you live in. I grew up in Wollongong and I'm very proud Wollongong
15:45
woman in that there was that much emphasis on multiculturalism. There was that emphasis
15:51
on in in a way, working class values. Social justice, very, very strong. And so all of
15:59
those things that I gained at university and growing up in Wollongong really go across
16:04
my whole career. But it is happenstance. That was also happenstance, I’d, been living
16:15
in England with my husband and children and we came back to Australia and I decided I
16:20
wanted to return. I've been teaching while my children were very young and I decided
16:25
I want to return back to intelligence. So I actually went I applied for a job with the
16:30
Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence, which later became the Australian Crime Commission.
16:35
So. But the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence had looked at it, had police
16:40
seconded from all around Australia, and it was looking for a couple of civilians who
16:45
would stay be the mainstay of the intelligence programme. So I became one of those. And we
16:52
looked at any issue that had a national of national significance. So I was actually working
16:57
on a project at the time when there was a lot of outcry against the serial murderer,
17:05
Ivan Milat. where backpackers were being murdered and um across state boundaries and there was
17:11
no overall national approach to missing persons and the Australian Bureau of Intelligence
17:17
was asked to set up a a unit that looked nationally at missing persons. And for, again, happenstance,
17:25
I happened to end up being asked to do it. And I'd have to say it was one of the most
17:33
challenging jobs of my career, but also the most rewarding to the other part of it was
17:37
that we needed to have a national missing persons week. New South Wales had been running
17:44
a form of a missing persons week and we needed a really big national approach. And so I started
17:51
that and it was very unusual because up until that time I'd been working as an intelligence
17:56
officer, which was, you need to know in a quiet back room, never having any public persona.
18:03
And suddenly the first and it was a big week, the first week was that I started National
18:09
Missing Persons Week was the week of Thredbo, the terrible disaster in Thredbo where there
18:15
were people missing under the snow. And so I had that, which was really quite shocking,
18:22
and then going and starting to do television and flying to Sydney and going on television,
18:26
talking about missing persons with no media training or anything like that. So it's really
18:30
quite an interesting and challenging process. But it was just wonderful because I met so
18:36
many inspiring families. Long term missing, you know, the impact when someone goes missing
18:41
and the impact on families. I learnt so much about that. And, you know, so it was really
18:46
a surreal experience of it brought in so many different things. Because when you think of
18:53
someone going missing, there are so many reasons. And they’re all the social issues of our
18:58
day with mental illness, sexuality, issues of family dislocation. Professional problems,
19:08
all sorts of different reasons why someone goes missing. I mean, the good thing, and
19:12
I think it's really important is to say this most missing people are located domestic within
19:17
hours. So it's really we don't have this big I think there's a fear in our society sometimes
19:22
that I'm missing means murder and it doesn't, but that there are still some long term missing
19:28
people who families have to grieve, not knowing what's happened. And I just learnt an awful
19:36
lot from that period of time. I do know you know, I don't think that is true, and when
19:48
I went overseas and left my work in in the Australian Federal Police, I was it probably
19:55
was time to step away from it, because I know it is hard and it's very challenging for me.
20:03
It is very much. And that's what I think. Women are very lucky. I never, ever had a
20:08
career without family. And so it was always I was always very connected with my family.
20:15
My children and my grandchildren, and so that was a really rich part and the other part
20:20
for me was writing and it's been interesting because, you know, the first country that
20:26
we went to live in overseas was in Serbia. And I was in Belgrade and I started to write
20:31
a script in Belgrade, Writers. And and that boat people lined up having 30 days when men
20:39
and women from all around the world put them together into my little lounge room once a
20:45
week. And we write. And I felt I find that really, really cathartic. Sometimes I think
20:50
that we overestimate that we have to step away. I am myself in my work and in my home
20:57
life. And I don't know that I do have a divide, but I know that it is a bad thing. I think
21:14
that. It was my upbringing. I think that my parents gave me that that feeling that, you
21:21
know, that you are a citizen of the world and I love that Wollongong to the world title.
21:25
I think it's just wonderful to go from Wollongong to the world. I think there was that. I think,
21:31
you know, I have a challenge with saying it was my Catholic upbringing because I actually
21:36
am one of the victims of the royal commission into Institutional Child Sex Abuse. I was
21:44
one of the case studies and it was in Wollongong that I was abused. And so I find that too
21:50
challenging. But now I have to say that the good the positive part of the Catholic Church
21:54
was very much that. And that was the social justice that was brought up to recognise that
21:59
I am a citizen of the world and my impact on the world. I need to be aware that and
22:04
I need to always lift up others when I'm, you know, lifting myself up, actually writing
22:09
a book at the moment and which I've been working on for a while. I did a master's and there
22:15
was a lot of that through the coursework. And I am trying to come to understanding of
22:21
what the what my contribution is and why it is that way. And I find it really interesting
22:28
and I don't know whether there is a DNA component, but certainly one of the part of the book
22:32
is to discover my grandparents because I didn't I wasn't raised understanding who my family
22:38
really were. And my grandfather was the first Irish ambassador to Australia and he set up
22:44
the embassy and he was also the ambassador who brought President Kennedy to Ireland.
22:48
So I was able to have a festival a few years ago to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary
22:53
of President Kennedy coming to Ireland. And that was because I found to appeal this to
22:58
my grandfather. But I read about it. And my grandmother was a Irish folk singer, Dailey
23:05
Murphy, and she had a huge impact internationally. And her music is still very much sold. And
23:13
in looking at their contribution to the world, I realised that they always had that idea
23:19
that they had to contribute, that they had there was a purpose and sense of social justice
23:24
and a purpose. And I don't know, maybe it travels through families. I don't know. But
23:28
I certainly have a very strong desire for that. And I have a real anger against injustice.
23:39
I think women really need to network more effectively. I think we underestimate the
23:44
importance of networks. I mean, we have networks often, you know, raising children, you know,
23:49
maybe the basketball team or whatever, and we do that really well, but we don't recognise
23:53
that we can do it in a wider sphere. So I do think that that networking is really, really
23:59
important and lifting each other up. So while we may be finding it difficult, if someone
24:05
lifts us up, we can continue our work. So we have to do that for others as well. And
24:10
I'd like to think that we're going to have a better world in the future because we're
24:15
going to have women's voices and women's influence and women's contribute and contribution to
24:20
leadership. When you look at some of the best leaders in the world today. You know, you'd
24:26
have to say Angela Merkel. And Jacinta Ardern and I have to also celebrate the fact that
24:33
University of Wollongong is going to have two women as chancellor and vice chancellor.
24:37
Yeah, that's really, really important. And even, you know, I've been loving listening
24:41
to some of the interviews that I've heard from Professor Davidson and her vision for.
24:51
The work environment and for the university, I think, haven't heard enough of that women's
24:57
vision and I'm really excited, you know, what potential they will be in the University of
25:03
Wollongong with those strong women at the helm. And I think the University of Wollongong
25:09
is in good hands.