'You don't attack someone's mum': Marina Go on the 'fantastic' reaction to the Ann Shorten story

Sydney businesswoman Marina Go was transfixed by social media last week watching the “fantastic” reaction to the story about Bill Shorten’s mother.

“The wonderful thing is it became a celebration of our mums, which is really lovely,” Ms Go said. “There was an overwhelming outpouring of love for mothers and stories about how their mothers were really clever and they missed out and couldn't go to university because the times meant they didn’t have the opportunity.

"You don't attack someone's mum or even if you don't mean to attack someone's mum, if mums get caught up as collateral damage the general public won't go for that."

Marina Go in red, with her sons Lachlan (left) and Jackson (right) and mother Maria.Credit: Wolter Peeters

The Daily Telegraph story attacked the Opposition Leader for speaking about the sacrifices his mother Ann made as a young woman without divulging that she completed a law degree later in life. The social media backlash resonated with Ms Go because it reflected her family history.

Ms Go is best known for two roles: she is the immediate past chairperson of the Wests Tigers rugby league club and was editor of teen girl magazine Dolly for five years from 1989. She became head of Hearst Australia at Bauer Media before quitting in 2016 to become a full-time board director.

Less well known is that Ms Go's mother Maria migrated to Australia from Italy after World War II. Marina's grandmother worked in the Bonds factory in Cessnock to support her daughter as a single mother. After school Maria became a nurse, shifting to part-time after getting married and having children.

“She says to me all the time 'I was really clever you know, I used to come first in this subject and I used to win all the prizes' but that was it, the opportunity wasn't there ... the girls left school and they did the jobs that were available to them at the time,” Ms Go said.

Marina’s father was brought up by a foster family in Hong Kong because his biological father wagered him in a mahjong game and lost. His wife knew nothing of it until the family friends arrived to take her baby, and she was powerless to prevent it.

Ms Go is grateful she has had more rights and opportunities than her mother and paternal grandmother but she had to fight for the career she wanted.

She sits on four corporate boards (Energy Australia, Autosports Group, 7-Eleven and Pro-Pac) and two non-corporate ones (Ovarian Cancer Australia and the Walkley Foundation).

She resigned from Wests Tigers in March after four and a half years as chairperson and was replaced by former NSW premier Barry O’Farrell, leaving the club with an all-male board.

She said women on boards are “definitely held to a different standard” and the backlash against former AMP chairwoman Catherine Brenner and the other women on the AMP board showed the extent of “pent-up resentment to diversity”.

“It became an opportunity for everyone to unload on women,” she said. “I looked at that and thought ... 'this is gender-based, this is more than about one person's ability, this is about all of us’.”

Ms Go became editor of Dolly at 23 and revived its fortunes in the face of stiff competition. She said she was promised a big job after maternity leave but instead found herself sidelined.

“I thought OK, I have to do something about this,” Ms Go said. “I can either sit here and complain about it and feel sorry for myself or I can get the hell out of here and try and re-establish my career, which is what I did.”

Ms Go said in hindsight she put a “ridiculous” amount of pressure on herself. When her eldest son Jackson, now 25, started school, she was the full-time editor of Elle magazine. She would take him to school near home in the eastern suburbs, go to work in North Sydney for a few hours, drive back across the bridge to do reading mornings in his classroom and then race back to work and catch up.

She also started an MBA when Jackson was a toddler and before Lachlan, now 21, was born. Her husband shifted to night work to share the load but the person who really made it work for the family was Marina’s dad who came down from the Blue Mountains every week to help with the juggle.

“My dad became almost like the nanny for us,” Ms Go said. “He was retired and because he's Chinese he didn't want anyone else to look after his grandchildren are so he came and stayed at our house three nights a week and I was able to then work long nights those nights or go out to events or do things that I had to do in my role as editor of a magazine.”

Ms Go worried her sons would resent the time she spent at work, but they’ve grown up to be “wonderful, well-adjusted young men”. “I have this great relationship with them and they don't remember that I was ever not around,” she said.