Ex-premier on confidence

By Jim Mynard
FORMER Victorian premier Joan Kirner said her life had been about working to ensure others had the opportunity to be educated and that ‘women had a say’.
Ms Kirner was guest of honour at a lunch hosted by Gembrook MP Tammy Lobato in Upper Beaconsfield last week.
“When I look back and when I look forward I see that we need confidence in being able to do something about what we want,” Ms Kirner said.
“You have to know that you can do something.
“I would ask people what they did and the blokes would tell me they were a manager, lawyer or whatever and women would say they were just a housewife, or just a mum or, in one case, ‘I’m just a lawyer’.
“That’s why I mention the need for confidence because you need a cause and the confidence to do it.
“You need a clear set of values and to be clear about what you stand for.”
Mrs Kirner said she needed to establish a set of values when she became premier of Victoria.
“It was then that I started to write down my values,” she said.
“Can you imagine what it was like to become premier and be faced with having to decide whether or not you would sell the State Bank?
“That was a challenge.
“I had to work out what was the best thing to do.
“I, like many other people, had a State Bank book.
“The State Bank was eventually sold to the Commonwealth Bank.
“People from all over were making comment, but how do you decide such a thing?
“Ultimately it had to be based on an economic analysis, but I also had to look at other things because people involved also mattered.
“The most important thing is that people matter and women matter just as much as men.”
She said that possible the trigger that set Joan Kirner on a lifelong battle for other women was the fact she had to resign from her teaching job when she married husband Ron, who was also a teacher.
Such were the rules in those days, she said.
“I felt I had to do something about that and it took 13 years to rectify.”