THE ABC 'Big Ideas' broadcast video of this event is available here.

On the day that marked the 30th anniversary of the Australian Sex Discrimination Act, the Gender Institute assembled a panel to review Julia Gillard’s term as Prime Minister, with a particular focus on how gender issues played out in relation to her leadership, and in the media that portrayed her. The event, in Q&A format, was filmed for later broadcast by ABC Big Ideas and chaired by the Gender Institute convenor, Fiona Jenkins.

We were delighted to welcome:

Carmen Lawrence (right), the first female Premier of an Australian State - a position she held in Western Australia for 3 years. Carmen entered federal politics in 1994 as Labour member for Fremantle, and was immediately appointed Minister for Human Services and Health, and Minister assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women, in the Keating government. She served in Labour’s Shadow Cabinet under Kim Beazley’s leadership, resigning from this position in 2002 over Labour’s support for harsh asylum-seeker policy. She retired from Federal politics in 2007, taking up a Professiorial position at UWA.

Linda Trimble (left), visiting the ANU Gender Institute from Canada, where she is a Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Alberta. She is an expert on women’s legislative representation, has published two books on women in Canadian politics and is currently completing a book about news coverage of women prime ministers in Australia, Canada and New Zealand, called Ms. Prime Minister: Media, Gender and Leadership.

Chris Wallace (right), explored a continuing interest in women in power during an extensive Canberra Press Gallery career as well as in longer form works including her biography of Germaine Greer, Greer, Untamed Shrew (1997), 'Standing Up to P' in the 'Women & Power' edition of Griffith Review (Winter 2013) and 'Julia Gillard' in the Michelle Grattan-edited Australian Prime Ministers (2013). Wallace is currently completing a doctoral thesis on political biography as political intervention at the National Centre of Biography in the ANU School of History, under the supervision of Australian Dictionary of Biography general editor, Professor Melanie Nolan. She observed Julia Gillard's rise and fall at close quarters.