Brisbane’s Tattersall’s Club votes to allow female members
After months of infighting, Brisbane’s exclusive Tattersall’s Club has finally voted on whether or not it should allow women full membership, and the club’s president has admitted it wasn’t about increasing member numbers.
QLD Business
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After months of infighting, Brisbane’s exclusive Tattersall’s Club will allow women full membership after a very close vote on Wednesday evening.
The yes vote narrowly won the day with 1405, edging out the no vote with 1368.
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There were 242 informal votes with 61 disallowed because boxes were ticked and not crossed.
Cries of “shame” could be heard from the chamber amid a hot debate about the topic.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk responded: “History. About time.”
Tattersall’s Club president Stuart Fraser told media on Thursday the policy change came out of a need to keep up with modern society.
“It’s [the policy change] more of a need to stay relevant than the need for new members, he said.
“…Now I see a brighter future for Tattersall’s engaging with the community with more authority, and reflecting the community from which we draw our members.”
Mr Fraser also said the female family members of existing Tattersall’s members will have preference to join the club over others for the next four months.
“We’re inviting our partners, our daughters and granddaughters to join first,” he said.
“They’re the women in society who already use the club, they know the club, they know its culture and they support us already.”
Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington said she believed there were more important issues in Queensland than the club’s vote.
“I know this has been one of Annastacia Palaszczuk’s biggest issues this year but I think we have far bigger things to focus on than the deliberations of an exclusive club that most normal Queenslanders couldn’t afford to join,” she said.
Prominent Brisbane businesswoman Sarina Russo said the decision to allow women to become members is an “important breakthrough” but the club would need a brand makeover and possibly a new leader to survive.
Ms Russo told The Courier-Mail more work had to be done to ensure the survival of Tattersalls Club, and to make it appealing for women to become members.
“Women today are 50 per cent of consumers, and so they will bring in so much more revenue and so much more new ideas into the club,” she said.
Ms Russo said financially and viably the club wouldn’t survive long if they remained men only, but said the club’s future is optimistic with more than half of the members agreeing to change with the times.
“It’s really an important announcement and an important breakthrough,” she said.
“I think I’ve been fighting this one for about ten years.”
But Ms Russo said herself and other women won’t be jumping at the chance to get a membership just because they are allowed to, she said the club has to revolutionise and offer great things for women too.
“They’ve got to completely revolutionise, and maybe they should employ a woman to be the president, someone dynamic,” she said.
As a prominent Queensland business woman, Ms Russo said if she were asked to take on the role at Tatts she would consider it, but also picked Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk as her top candidate.
“They need to bring a new leader and revolutionise their constitution,” she said.
“It just needs a new brand, it needs to be totally rejuvenated.”
“Women aren’t going to go and become a member because ‘you beauty they’ve let us in’, it’s not enough, they’ve got to really rethink the constitution and decide what it is women in Queensland want.
“They may want more women in business coming in, women in politics coming in, women in sports, they’ve got to integrate all the different industries and maybe it could become an education centre for all of us, they’ve got to completely re-engineer the constitution.”
Standing near the Christmas in Tattersall’s Arcade, Anna Kingston was waiting for her father who was upstairs hearing the verdict.
“I take no offence at it because it’s just the way it has always been and I don’t understand why there had to be a change quite frankly,” said Ms Kingston. “We are pro keeping as is.”
Ms Kingston’s mother Kathy Christy believes that the president Stuart Fraser was undertaking the vote for his own political gain.
“We think the bloke in charge is doing this for his own political gain,” she said.
Dropping her husband off for the announcement, Julia Blahuta believes that the club should remain men only.
“I don’t understand what’s driving it and it’s unclear to anyone why it has come up,” she said
“Personally I think it is a nice place for young chaps who perhaps did not see enough of their fathers due to whatever reason to find a mature voice that they can talk to …”
Former Labor MP for Oxley Bernie Ripol welcomed the vote and that it was promoting a more “inclusive” club.
“I think the club is excited about a positive outcome and a really great result and a more inclusive club,” Mr Ripol said.
Club member Brad Walker believed that the club should stay to its tradition and the that the vote was dividing the club for all the wrong reasons.
“It’s a gentleman’s club and that’s the way it should remain,” Mr Walker said.
“Our partners and wives have access to the club — my daughter can come to the club whenever she feels like it with my wife. I can have her birthday party here, she can have lunch her, so there is a whole reason that it is wrong.”
Tattersall’s Club veteran Duncan McDonald vehemently was against the vote and believed that the club should remain exclusive to men.
“Forty-odd years ago I joined the men’s club and I would still like it to be a men’s club,” Mr McDonald said.
Kim Hanrick who has also been a member for over forty also did not welcome the change.
“I joined forty years ago … and we are going through a change which is not the club that I joined,” Mr Hanrick said.
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