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QandA: We practised for pandemics, says Julia Gillard

Former prime minister Julia Gillard talked feminism and leadership, practising for a pandemic and same-sex marriage on QandA.

Angelica SnowdenAngelica Snowden
@ang3snowden
3 min read
12:18AMJuly 14, 2020.
Updated 6:58AMJuly 14, 2020
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Julia Gillard reflects on how the coronavirus is impacting our lives (ABC)

Monday night’s episode of Q&A featured just one panellist, former prime minister Julia Gillard, who tackled questions about mental health in isolation, lockdown strategies and what it means to be a female leader.

Ms Gillard – who is the chair of Beyond Blue – said it was important to remember that despite fears of a second wave of COVID-19 “it will end”.

“It’s not going to be forever,” Ms Gillard said.

“There will be a time when you’ll be back in the same room with your family again,” she said.

“And the sacrifice you’re making now is such an important one.”

The “blustering strong man” style of leadership, exhibited by US President Donald Trump, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro throughout the COVID-19 pandemic is not what people need, Ms Gillard said.

“Women leaders are already very highly skilled in this balance of strength and empathy,” she said.

“And I think at a time like this, people want both – they want to know that someone’s getting the job done, but they also want someone to care about how they’re feeling.”

Ms Gillard also spoke about “practising” for a pandemic when she was the opposition spokeswoman for health from 2003 to 2006.

“I don’t think any one-day war game can prepare you for the relentlessness that leaders are going through and the systems are going through in this pandemic,” she said.

“But I think systems like this, challenges we’ve had in the past – bird flu and the rest of it – we have strengthened the system.

To answer an audience question about the effectiveness of lockdowns, head of the biosecurity research program at the Kirby Institute, Raina MacIntyre, said the “endgame” to the coronavirus pandemic was a vaccine.

“Without a vaccine, there’s really no certainty around where we’re going and how we’re going to get out of it,” Professor MacIntyre said.

“Because there is a pandemic that’s going on … and it’s really the worst pandemic of anyone’s lifetime, of most people living today – arguably it’s even worse than the 1918 Spanish flu,” she said.

Professor MacIntyre also said we should be wearing masks.

“They prevent both transmission of infection if you are infected – so the thing about COVID-19 and what’s really diabolical about it is that people can have no symptoms at all but be infected and infectious,” she said.

On female ambition, Ms Gillard said “no dream is too big” but “don’t be naive”.

“You will get gendered reactions,” she said.

“Think about how you’re going to handle them in advance.

“Forewarned is forearmed.”

She said the more women of colour who enter politics, the easier it becomes to break down racist attitudes and gender barriers preventing young people from pursuing a political career.

Ms Gillard said it was “frustrating” that social media platforms were still used to debate a woman’s appearance over her achievements.

“Hillary Clinton had gone so far as to do the maths of getting ready to go campaigning each

day when she was running for president – so, an hour in hair and make-up – and she added that up to 24 days of campaigning she lost because she was in hair and make-up,” she said. “Meanwhile, Donald Trump was emerging looking like Donald Trump without any expectation.”

When asked if she would have gotten a “fairer go” as prime minister if she reached that position in a “more conventional” way, Ms Gillard invoked Paul Keating’s defeat of Bob Hawke in a 1991 leadership spill.

“I reached that position in a way that’s certainly been done before in Australian politics,” she said.

“I think there was an extra frisson around me coming to power in a party-room situation in the way I did against Kevin Rudd.”

Ms Gillard cut payments to single parents in 2013 and moved them to the Newstart unemployment benefit.

She said her government did not make the decision on “impulse” that was “anti-single parents or children.

She said she decided legislation on same-sex marriage would not have passed parliament during her time as prime minister.

“My political judgment is that wouldn’t have happened, because – as you would recall, we were a minority government,” she said.

“At that stage, I think the Liberal Party would have bloc-voted against same-sex marriage

– they wouldn’t have had a conscience vote or a free vote.”

As a former lawyer, Ms Gillard said recent revelations that former High Court justice Dyson Heydon had been accused of sexual harassment represented a common experience across the law profession.

To conclude the discussion, Ms Gillard said she believed the role of a former prime minister was to “get out of the day-to-day political commentary”.

Read related topics:Coronavirus
Angelica Snowden
Angelica SnowdenJournalist

Angelica Snowden is a reporter at The Australian's Melbourne bureau covering crime, state politics and breaking news. She has worked at the Herald Sun, ABC and at Monash University's Mojo.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/qanda-we-practised-for-pandemics-says-julia-gillard/news-story/be48059e9c3724e4e8604e4ae5789fd5