(The first part of this series on Australia can be found here)
Tanya Plibersek, Australian Minister for Housing and Minister for the Status of Women in the Rudd Labor Government, wrote in 2002;
“At the weekend, the National Party voted against special measures to increase their number of women parliamentarians. The ALP and the Liberals, in contrast, want more women, but can’t agree on the best way to get them. This should be good news for the feminists who fought to make it happen, yet some – like the former federal MP Susan Ryan – ask whether it was worth it. After all, we haven’t defeated patriarchy. Yet.”[1]
Seven years later, Plibersek played a critical role in championing Australia’s new ‘National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children’. Plibersek, along side Jenny Macklin, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, put together a consortium of academics and domestic violence experts, to spearhead a team which would go on create the national report that became official policy. Since the early 2000′s, Plibersek never made it secret that she strongly supports feminist and even some radical feminist ideals. Indeed, in 2005, when Sheila Jeffreys came to Sydney to make a speech, it was Plibersek that introduced her with warm welcoming remarks.[2]
In April 1999, Plibersek gave an interview to Peter Lewis, during which she spoke about these ties of the Labor Party to the feminist community:
“I think that our historical relationships with groups outside the Labor Party like the peace movement, the anti-nuclear movement, the environment, the feminist movement. Our links with community feminist organisations have been about promoting grassroots activism around sexual assault services, domestic violence services; that sort of activism within the community and collective responsibility..”
She went on to weigh in about giving help to families with disabled children, but also clarified that she felt families are strictly women and children, and that any of their responsibilities should become the state’s responsibility;
“But it is also fair to say that the State owes a responsibility to those kids and their parents. We don’t want to return to a situation of voluntarism where individual parents may not have the skills or the patience or the time or the financial ability to look after their children in the ways that would benefit them the most. And I don’t know if it’s an ideal situation to necessarily throw the responsibility back on them. I don’t want to go back to a situation where families — and that means women — are being told its their responsibility all over again.”[3]
Plibersek’s special hand-picked legal advisor to the council was former Tasmanian Attorney-General Judith Jackson. Jackson, who labels herself as a “committed feminist,” has had a career filled with controversy. In the 2004 Tasmania Family Violence Act, [7] she was roundly criticized for her insistence that people accused of domestic violence not be granted bail before trial unless a series of nearly impossible steps were taken by the judge. When Jackson was criticized for attempting to bypass the Justice system, and for violating the human rights of men, she lashed out at her critics;
“How can anybody say that somebody should be let out on bail, so they can go back and re-offend and commit a crime again, and that’s what you’re saying and I find that disgusting.”[4]
But despite the fact that the data used as justification for the bill was based on very poor research, which according to many human rights advocates and several of her critics, never examined how often men were battered in similar circumstances, the bill was passed into law. The ramifications of the law went on to see hundreds of Tasmanian men spending weeks, many times months in prison before trial, for being accused of crimes like ‘economic’ or ‘emotional’ abuse. Ms. Jackson, when confronted about what the law was doing in practice, appeared quite amused and replied:
“We do have some of the best legislation in the world for protecting women and children,”[5]
The reality of the ‘National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children’ is that it was promoted and shepherded through Australian government by Plibersek, a woman that admittedly was heavily biased towards a hardline feminist perspective