A Thoroughly Modern Grandmother
On a warm Sunday evening in Melbourne in early 2017, I went about the same routine I’d had for the past twenty-one years. I gathered my papers, packed my clothes and swimmers in my carry-on suitcase (red leopard-print hard case, if you’re wondering) and kissed my partner, Ross, goodbye, before heading out the door. It was the start of yet another parliamentary sitting week, so I was off to Canberra to see all my colleagues.
What made this evening so memorable was the wonderful news I had received that day—I was going to be a grandmother. Now, anyone who knows me—heck, anyone who meets me just once will attest to my love of babies. So to hear my son Louis tell me I was going to be a grandmother brought a smile to my face that lasted through all the Question Times that week—no easy feat!
While the news itself didn’t surprise me, I was surprised by how deeply thrilled I was about my future grandchild. The happiness in my son’s eyes when he shared the news with Ross and me recalled the elation I had felt years before, staring into those same blue eyes when Louis was just a newborn. I knew the exquisite and unique joy that was about to overwhelm him with the birth of his own child, and it made my heart swell.
On that flight to Canberra, I turned the word ‘grandmother’ over and over in my mind. What did it mean to be a grandmother? How much would I be involved in the day-to-day life of our grandchildren? What would be too much? Too little? What would be the right balance for me between work and family now that a Macklin grandchild was on its way into the world? I also began to think about all the grandmothers I had met over the years who had profoundly shaped my view of the world. And of course, I thought about my own grandmothers, Grace and Doris.
The lives of my grandmothers were vastly different from mine. Grace and Doris never knew each other, and, unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to know them. They lived far away, and both died before they were seventy. Both were born in Australia at the end of the nineteenth century. Although these years marked the start of significant change for women in Australia and across the world, my grandmothers’ own lives were very hard.
My paternal grandmother, Grace, was born in the town of Clermont, in rural Queensland. Her birth came two years after that of the Australian Labor Party, which took place down the road in Barcaldine at the Tree of Knowledge in 1891. There were no women present at this important gathering. By the time Grace was three, however, South Australia led the world by passing legislation that not only allowed women to vote, but also to stand for parliament. My maternal grandmother, Doris, was born in the similarly tough western suburbs of Melbourne.
The formal educational and employment opportunities available to my grandmothers were scarce. The age of consent in the 1890s was thirteen, and education for girls seldom went beyond the primary years. Work both outside and inside the home was hard and the patriarchal culture was alive and well. Life for most Australian women was exceedingly difficult.
It would have been impossible for them to imagine the life to be led by one of their granddaughters. That this girl—me—would finish school, attend and graduate from university, be elected to the Australian parliament, become deputy leader of the Australian Labor Party, and go on to be the longest-serving woman (so far) in the House of Representatives would have been completely and utterly beyond their comprehension. But it wasn’t about their abilities or desires; there was no opportunity for them to choose such a life for themselves.
Am I and the women of my generation, the grandmothers of now, doing enough to ensure the world offers our grandchildren as many opportunities as we experienced?
Grace and Doris did get a chance to do what their own grandmothers never did: vote in federal and state elections. But their lives remained tough. Paid maternity leave would have been a completely foreign concept to these women, who focused on raising their nine children each and running their households on low incomes with little to no support from outside their families.
But the wheels of change had started to turn and women of all ages and backgrounds worked together to improve other women’s future life chances. Most women I know of my generation are acutely aware of the battles fought and won by women before us, and have a great deal of gratitude to our grandmothers’ generation.
Coming of age in the 1970s, I was caught up in the wave of women’s liberation, which shaped me as a young adult. Many women encouraged and supported me. I believed I could do anything, go to university, study economics, go on to have a long career and have children. I eagerly followed the Whitlam government’s progressive agenda: the Equal Pay case, placing the contraceptive pill on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, paid maternity leave for public servants and, of course, free university education. I got involved in the collective that ran one of the early women’s refuges in Canberra.
My friends and I celebrated Whitlam’s appointment of a woman, Elizabeth Reid, as a senior adviser on Women and Families. Although this appointment, the first of its kind, was ridiculed in the media—candidates were depicted as swimwear models—it had a major influence on me and contributed to my decision to head into public policy and politics.
I have run the full gauntlet when it comes to politics. I have won. I have lost. I have had hopes and dreams smashed in an instant and golden opportunities appear out of what felt like nowhere—sometimes all within the same parliamentary sitting week. Through all that, I never lost either my belief in the power of public policy to change lives for the better, or my understanding of how individuals can make a significant difference.
My decision to retire from politics in 2019 was nowhere near as tough as I once thought it would be. In truth, it was an easy decision. With two grandchildren now, and perhaps more to come, I could see a new life filled with love, joy and play. Being a grandmother is fun. Of course, I still worry about my kids and my grandkids, but the passing of the baton of responsibility to my son takes the burden off caregiving and opens room for so much joy. And not surprisingly, like many grandmothers, I’m still working outside the home. I know, however, that my experience doesn’t necessarily reflect that of many other Australian grandmothers.
Ross did a lot of the day-to-day parenting while I spent much of my children’s formative years in parliament, so it is no surprise that he has also taken on a very active role as a grandparent. One of the delights is that we have the time to be with our granddaughter together, to smile at each other as she says something funny or parrots our every word. When our grandson becomes a little less attached to his mother’s breast, I trust that he will join us on our trips to see the giraffes and the butterflies at the Melbourne Zoo. We are spreading our wings to include trips to the museum and the local swimming pool, as well as baking banana bread on ‘grandparent days’. Already I’m realising that the precious long days before school starts are short-lived and need to be enjoyed as much as possible. As I had limited time with each of my own children during these early years, I’m planning to make the most of them as a grandmother.
My granddaughter is currently in childcare two days a week, while her parents (and grandparents) go to work. I know this isn’t an option available to all Australian families. The lack of affordable formal childcare means that many grandparents take on the part-time or full-time care of their grandchildren while the parents go to work. Once the early years are over, this can also mean being available for before-school and after-school care, getting them to after-school activities, and even being on duty over the weekend. This was one of the most highly valued contributions my own parents, John and Vera, made in their nurturing and care of their grandchildren, my children, Josie, Louis and Serge. While I’m sure this is a cherished time for most grandparents, I’ve also seen close-up the physical, mental and financial burden it can place on many other grandparents.
From my own experience of twenty-three years as the member for Jagajaga and a cabinet minister, a number of grandmothers stand out for having given me not only the ideas, but the strength to pursue real and lasting policy changes. They are: Nanna Fejo, Marie Coleman, the survivors of child abuse in institutions, Rhonda Galbally and Rita Beckman.
Nanna Fejo is a Warumungu woman who featured in former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s ‘National Apology to the Stolen Generations’. Kevin had only been prime minister for two months and was struggling to muster his words and feelings for the Apology. So much rested on it. So many people needed it to reflect their experience, and so many other people needed to understand it. Many people had told him what they wanted to hear, but he also wanted to speak with someone who could describe what happened to children who had been stolen. Just days before the speech was delivered, we contacted Nanna Fejo. Against the odds, she happened to be in Canberra, down from Darwin, visiting her grandchildren. I asked if she would have a cup of tea with the prime minister and me and talk about the Apology. Surrounded by her grandchildren in her daughter’s loungeroom, she instinctively knew what the prime minister needed and, through him, what the nation needed.
Sometime around 1932 when she was about four, she remembers the coming of the welfare men. Her family had feared that day and had dug holes in the creek bank where the children could run and hide…The kids were found; they ran for their mothers screaming but they could not get away…Tears flowing, her mum tried clinging to the sides of the truck as her children were taken away…Nanna Fejo never saw her mother again. Kevin Rudd, ‘National Apology to the Stolen Generations’, 13 February 2008.
Nanna Fejo and I met up a year later near her birthplace at Tennant Creek, in the Northern Territory. She put a necklace of beads over my head and gave me a note that said thank you. It is impossible to describe what that meant to me.
The second grandmother who influenced me is Marie Coleman, chair of the National Foundation for Australian Women’s Social Policy Committee. Government-funded paid maternity leave had been on my agenda for many years, but not so for some of my parliamentary colleagues. Marie’s tireless campaigning for paid maternity leave was crucial in influencing my cabinet colleagues in the Labor government to agree to commit to Australia’s first paid parental leave scheme in 2009. As the Minister for Families and ‘parent’ of the scheme, I did not find it an easy conversation at the cabinet table. Finding $731 million over five years in the federal budget following the global financial crisis was a big ask. My ‘baby’ was born on 1 January 2011, and I’m so proud that the scheme Marie and I dreamed of, and then created, with the help of many others, has since helped 1,065,398 families.
Other grandmothers who significantly influenced my policy-making include those who campaigned for the children who were abused in institutions. Almost 500,000 children were placed in state- or church-run orphanages between the 1920s and 1970s, often because they were living in poverty. The children were the defenceless victims of exploitation, brutality, sexual abuse and neglect. As adults, they rightly demanded a National Apology. This group of grandmothers introduced me to hundreds of those who had been abused. I listened to their stories across the country. I cried a lot while hearing all they had suffered as children and endured over the years into adulthood. I met the families of many more of these Australians who never lived to see the National Apology on 16 November 2009. The toll of the abuse they had experienced in institutional care was too great. There are not enough adjectives to convey the tenacious drive of these grandmothers to bring about significant change, especially given how much pain and suffering they had themselves experienced at the hands of cruel custodians. It was because of them that Julia Gillard, as prime minister, established the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that showed the truth about the abuse meted out to so many Australian children.
Rhonda Galbally never fails to share the latest news about her grandchildren with me. She fits those stories around her powerful advocacy for the rights of people with disability. Her example of combining grandmothering with important political and social-justice work helped guide me as we drove the creation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It was Rhonda who led the work that delivered the ‘Shut Out’ report, outlining how people with disabilities in Australia are ‘shut out’ from everyday life. It was Rhonda Galbally who knew that, if Australia was to deliver the National Disability Insurance Scheme, differences between carers, people with disability and service providers would have to be put aside and an alliance formed. And that’s just what happened. The best grassroots campaign ever created, Every Australian Counts, grew out of this alliance. And now Rhonda is a member of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, as well as being a proud grandmother.
Another grandmother who made sure her voice was heard and acted upon is Queenslander Rita Beckman. An important issue I dealt with during my time as a shadow minister was that of grandparents who, mostly due to circumstance rather than choice, are the primary carers of their grandchildren. For those on a pension looking after school-aged grandchildren, the Family Tax Benefit makes a huge difference in their ability to put food on the table and pay any extra school fees and other costs associated with raising children. In 2014, the Labor opposition had to fight a proposal from the then prime minister, Tony Abbott, to remove the Family Tax Benefit (Part B) for families once their children turned six. This would have had a significant impact on more than 4000 grandparent carers of children. Much to Mr Abbott’s surprise, a huge number of grandparents across Australia responded by telling very personal stories of their lives as carers. I will always remember the letter Rita Beckman sent me, detailing her shock and rage at the dismissive attitude of the then Minister for Social Services, Christian Porter. She contacted me following Minister Porter’s claim in question time that grandparents should effectively see the cut in FTB entitlements as an opportunity to ‘go and get a job’. Rita wrote:
He [Porter] has assumed that it is easy for grandparents to return to work, even mentioning a number of grandparents who are in the Parliament. I have always worked and paid my way. I am a single aged pensioner and I am the legal guardian for my 10-year-old granddaughter since the sudden death of my daughter. She has been in my care since she was 5 years of age. I am now 75 years old and…I will be 78 when she turns 13 and 81 when she turns 16. I do not wish to seem complaining as I love having this little girl in my life but for goodness sake, how can anyone possibly think an employer would take me on. The arrogance of the Minister for Social Services is breathtaking.
Rita’s voice was supported by a constant stream of grandparents and advocates coming to Canberra and to federal MPs’ offices across the country, demanding to know why they were being targeted. What a great demonstration of grassroots political action it was when the government backed down.
I should also acknowledge the tens of thousands of grandparents who spoke to me about the urgent need to increase the age pension rates, when Labor came to power in 2007. More than one grandmother wrote to me about the struggles they faced living as a single pensioner after the death of their husband. It was their stories that influenced me to design the changes to Australia’s age pension so that pensioners living alone received the biggest boost to their bank accounts.
I hope the legacy of my time in politics has helped to create a better and fairer Australia for my grandchildren to grow up in. We’ve made many steps in the right direction, but my experience tells me that if we want our grandchildren to survive and thrive in the years to come, we must be vigilant about issues such as these: equality between men and women is not universal; too many Australians live below or just above the poverty line; the First Australians should have a voice protected in the Constitution. And, of course, climate change is a world-changing issue that will have untold impacts on the ways our grandchildren and their children live and work.
Grandmothers have such a vested interest in the future. We can, and should, stay active and engaged in policy debates. Luckily for me, and for this generation of grandmothers, there are many ways to ensure our voices are heard. Contact and lobby your local member of parliament. Lead or support a campaign for a cause you believe is worth fighting for. Use social media to bring about policy change, as well as to share cute photos of the grandkids. We hold this power in the palm of our hands thanks to modern technology.
As a ‘thoroughly modern grandmother’ whose life was committed to public policy and social change for good, I have a significant amount of both personal and professional skin in the game. Please join me, grandmothers of Australia and beyond, in writing the next chapter.
And to my own grandchildren, may you know only a better future and have even bigger dreams when you look into the eyes of your own grandbabies.