Julian Burnside savaged for 40 years of membership to men-only club

When they last tried to open the doors of Melbourne’s Savage Club to women, Julian Burnside was nowhere to be seen.

Interior views of Melbourne’s Savage Club where Julian Burnside was a member for 40 years.

When they last tried to open the doors of the Melbourne Savage Club to women members, Julian Burnside was nowhere to be seen.

Robert Dean, a barrister and former Liberal parliamentarian who led an ill-fated push for gender­ reform at the club in the late 1990s, said Mr Burnside played no part in the campaign and didn’t attend a meeting of members called to decide the issue.

“I didn’t know Julian was a member,’’ Mr Dean said. “If I’d known, I would have got him to come along and help me with the vote. I had speakers lined up and some of them went missing, I noticed­. It was a crushing defeat.’’

Mr Burnside, a renowned Queens Counsel and the Greens candidate for Kooyong, said on Saturday that he had severed his 40-year ties with the Melbourne Savage Club after unsuccessfully trying to prosecute the case for women members.

“Same-sex-only clubs are a relic of the past,’’ he said. “I joined the Savage Club 40 years ago as a very different person to the one I am today. I’ve argued for change from within but it’s too slow in coming, so I am resigning my membership until it welcomes all people.’’

His comments came a day after he was grilled during a TV debate about his membership with the men-only private club. Within the Victorian-era walls of the Savage Club, the extent of his advocacy for women is a matter of conjecture.

Mr Burnside said he lobbied in private for change but was too busy championing bigger causes, such as the rights of asylum-seekers in offshore processing centres, to attend to club matters.

John Elliott, a former national president of the Liberal Party, is one of several long-time members who cannot recall Mr Burnside’s concerns about the discriminatory membership policy. “That wasn’t the reason he resigned, I can tell you,’’ Mr Elliott said.

A former member told The Australian: “I don’t recall at all Jul­ian Burnside being a proponent. If he was a proponent, he must have been a very silent proponent. It is good copy now to say that is what he pushed for. I would love to see any evidence he actually did that.’’

The Melbourne Savage Club, formed in the late 19th century, is one of Australia’s oldest private clubs. It is less formal than the men-only Melbourne Club or Athenaeum Club, where high-profile members including Terry Moran, Graeme Samuel and Eddie McGuire tried 10 years ago to open membership to women.

One member who walked over the Athenaeum Club’s refusal to let women join, former Victorian Liberal Party director John Ridley, described Mr Burnside’s response as “disappointing’’.

Mr Dean was a Liberal state MP and a relatively new member of the Savage Club when he put a formal motion to members to let women join. He said it was perverse that, as parliamentary secretary to then Victorian attorney-general Jan Wade, he couldn’t invite his boss to lunch in the third-floor dining room.

The vote was held in the club’s ground-floor lounge, a large room with creaky floorboards, leather armchairs, a roaring fire and highly priced artwork on the walls.

Opposition to the move was led by Mr Elliott who, along with older members, rounded on Mr Dean.

“Robert not only got done over on the motion, he was just ripped apart,’’ a witness to the meeting said. “He was just eaten alive.’’

Mr Burnside declined to comment further last night.