... and ain't I a woman?: No sister of mine
The clearing of Carmen Lawrence of charges of lying under oath in relation to her evidence at the Marks Royal Commission in 1995 has been greeted with a cheer by many feminists. Lawrence's imminent return to "front-line" opposition politics was touted as a victory for sisterhood.
But some of us who lived in Western Australia during Lawrence's time as state Aboriginal affairs minister, education minister and then premier, before she went on to federal parliament, recall a politician whose record did not match her rhetoric as a feminist — unless being a woman in parliament is enough in itself to be a feminist. (Amanda Vanstone, Judy Moylan and Bronwyn Bishop are just a few examples that prove the illogic of that idea.)
At the Fourth United Nations World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, Lawrence condemned France and China for their nuclear testing and affirmed the Australian government's responsibility to correct the social, economic and health inequities endured by indigenous women, and other women in Australia. Yet, as premier, Lawrence approved exploration and mining (including of uranium) in WA's national parks, despite 80% public opposition and despite some areas being culturally significant to Aboriginal people. She was even willing to amend land rights legislation to enable the mining to go ahead.
Lawrence often took an anti-worker stance, including in October 1989 when, as state education minister, she threatened to deregister the State School Teachers Union (representing mainly women workers) over its strike for a pay increase. One state budget while Lawrence was premier slashed 3000 jobs from the public service, and her government paved the way for much privatisation in the public sector. Women workers are disproportionately affected by these sort of economic rationalist policies.
At around the same time as a 1990 Australian Bureau of Statistics study found that women do two-thirds of all unpaid household chores, the Lawrence government budget cuts in education, health care and other social services began to reverse the socialisation of some domestic work that had been won by the women's liberation movement in the 1970s.
As premier, Lawrence attacked women's services. When funding for the Supported Assistance Accommodation Program was cut, seven Perth refuges lost at least one staff member each. The Nardine Women's Refuge lost two workers and was forced to close its external services, and three other refuges were in a similar situation.
The Young Single Women's Refuge lost all its funding and was forced to close. The only single parents' centre was converted into a general neighbourhood centre.
Lawrence's move to axe a safe-sex campaign and replace it with a "Say no to sex" campaign was condemned in 1992 by the ALP state executive. Her juvenile crime legislation, which victimised young people, was later developed into even harsher laws by Richard Court's Liberal government.
A woman who is a strong, successful parliamentarian seen to speak out for the rights of women will gain a hearing among those who are concerned about the state of the struggle for women's liberation and who recognise that many of the gains won by the movement in earlier decades have been eroded in the last 15 years.
But speaking is not enough.
Most women will never have the considerable individual power that Carmen Lawrence had as a state MP, and is likely to have again in federal politics. Yet, despite the feminist rhetoric, Lawrence used that power, not to further the rights and living conditions of the majority of women, but to erode them.
While Lawrence expressed concern last year about the charging of two WA doctors for performing an abortion, during her time in government she made no attempt even to liberalise the state's abortion laws, let alone guarantee free, safe and accessible abortion services — a long-term demand of the women's liberation movement of which she claims to be a part.
The August 3 Bulletin article by Virginia Trioli applauding Lawrence in relation to her trial is no surprise. Trioli's 1996 book Generation F, about the new generation of feminists, concentrates on the experiences of professional women, presenting their achievements in corporations, parliament and the legal sphere as measures of the success of the feminist movement.
But these experiences don't reflect the lives of the vast majority of women, who still struggle for many of the basic rights demanded by the movement 30 years ago.
Those who hold up Carmen Lawrence's parliamentary success as an inspiration to the feminist movement are confusing individual success with collective liberation.
By Margaret Allum