Project exit of Lisa Wilkinson and Carrie Bickmore reveals stark truth

Lisa Wilkinson and Carrie Bickmore are leaving The Project and there’s a stark message in who’s going to replace them.

OPINION

On Sunday, Lisa Wilkinson announced she was leaving The Project. Her announcement comes after Tracy Grimshaw declared she’s giving up her lead chair on A Current Affair. This followed on from Leigh Sales stepping away from grilling politicians on 7.30.

Carrie Bickmore also stepped away from The Project to focus on her family, although there are plenty of rumours that she’ll pop up somewhere fabulous soon.

Initially, I was devastated. All my favourite strong, powerful women were leaving their posts. How dare they! But now I’m happy about it. We need room for more diversity, and our whitewash girl boss answer isn’t good enough.

Carrie Bickmore and Lisa Wilkinson at the 2019 Logie Awards. They are both leaving The Project. Picture: AAP Image/Darren England.

It’s not personal, I love these women, but our screens can’t just be filled with white middle-class people. Basically, we have had enough of people living in Mosman, where the average house price is $4 million, filling our television screens.

We need more diversity on our Australian television screens, period, and rich white women aren’t the answer. For instance, a report by Media Diversity Australia found that while Australia’s non-European population was 24.7 per cent, the same demographic made up just 6.1 per cent of televised appearances in televised news media and current affairs programs. See? Things need to change.

Don’t get me wrong, when these women became household names, the fact that they were women was diverse enough. Before them, our television presenters were prominently white men. Everyone on television either looked like Peter Overton or Eddie McGuire. White, well-dressed with a haircut they probably didn’t get at their local Just Cuts.

Sales, Grimshaw and Wilkinson were a welcome relief. They brought along a woman’s perspective, which certainly may have been privileged, but it made Australian women feel seen. And, as a white woman growing up, watching them made me feel like I could do anything. (Including chase down dodgy tradies in a blazer).

Tracy Grimshaw will be missed from ACA. Picture: NIGEL HALLETT

Grimshaw said it best herself when chatting to 2GB’s Ben Fordham. They were discussing her departure from A Current Affair, after 17 years and Fordham asked why all the powerful women in media were leaving, and Grimshaw said: “I think Leigh started something! I think quitting has become a trend. We are constantly being fed this line that television is a terrible place for women, but there are a lot of women on air now.”

Basically, the fight is no longer about gender parity on air; it is about diverse representation.

Leigh Sales left ABC’s 7.30 earlier this year.

She was replaced by Sarah Ferguson.

Still, despite my optimism that these women stepping back could create room for diversity. I’m concerned that the names I’m hearing tossed around to replace these powerful women are just more affluent white women. Chrissie Swan, Allison Langdon and Georgie Tunny are the front runners from what I’m hearing and honestly, we need to change directions; our television screens should look like the people I walk past every day on the street not like an Eastern Suburbs book club get together.

I’d say odds are that Grimshaw, Wilkinson, and Bickmore will be replaced by white women. Leigh Sales passed the reins onto Sarah Ferguson, another middle-class white woman, and honestly, that proves to me that the fight is no longer getting women on television; it’s creating diversity on television.

I am sad, even fretful, that we are losing Wilkinson, Bickmore, Sales and Grimshaw, but I am also hopeful that television networks might use this time to look for more diverse talent. Our television screens need to better reflect the complex, multiracial, multi-sexual diverse society in which we live.

Mary Madigan is a freelance writer.