Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Defence Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

'I know what you're thinking—I'm old, very old. And you might be wondering: how did I get to be so lucky?' This is a quote from a video called The Power of Oldness, a campaign undertaken by Susan Ryan when she was Age Discrimination Commissioner. It is an upbeat video, showing a gentleman with grey hair participating, contributing, and showing off his wisdom and skills. It's typical of the positivity and optimism that Susan Ryan brought to everything she did. But the video ends with a harsh dose of reality. The man walks into a starkly lit room, clearly having a job interview. He no longer looks confident and seems to have aged. A young woman clearly in recruitment or HR says, 'I'm sorry. We're looking for someone younger.' Susan Ryan knew all too well that age discrimination was real and was holding this nation back. I had the privilege of getting to know Susan when I was the shadow minister for ageing. She was so generous with her time and her ideas and sage advice. I will never forget our one-on-one meetings, where she would offer up her wisdom on ageing, aged care and the rights of older Australians.

The tragic part of all this is she passed away too soon. On 10 October she would have turned 78 years of age, well short of the median life expectancy of 84 to 85 years of age for a woman of her era. Don't get me wrong—Susan Ryan lived a full and bountiful life. She achieved a great deal throughout her time. She was an educator, a scholar and a political campaigner. She was a foundation member of the Women's Electoral Lobby in the early 1970s, a body that promotes women's issues to political candidates and mobilised women's political power. She can be credited in large part with our victory in 1972. She was immensely proud of the work she did in that campaign. In 1975 she was elected, as my colleagues have said, as one of two senators for the ACT, on the slogan: 'A woman's place is in the Senate'. Under Prime Minister Bob Hawke, she served as Minister for Education and Youth Affairs and Minister assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women. We know she was instrumental in the implementation of the Sex Discrimination Act, the Affirmative Action (Equal Employment Opportunity for Women) Act, the Public Service Reform Act, and the Equal Employment Opportunity (Commonwealth Authorities) Act. Even with all these great achievements for women, former Prime Minister Paul Keating said her greatest achievement in the education portfolio was lifting the retention rate, from three in 10 to nine in 10, for year 12 retention for young people.

After leaving politics, she contributed immensely to Australian political life, in superannuation, in industry and in academia. In July 2011, Prime Minister Julia Gillard appointed her as the inaugural Age Discrimination Commissioner with the Australian Human Rights Commission. It was during this time she worked alongside other warriors in the field, including Everald Compton and former Labor Deputy Prime Minister Brian Howe, and contributed to the Gillard government's Advisory Panel on Positive Ageing. She contributed numerous policy papers addressing aged discrimination in the workplace, the insurance industry and housing, just to name a few.

The Advisory Panel on Positive Ageing was a permanent panel within the Treasury, directly advising then Treasurer Wayne Swan and working with the department to address the ageing of our population. Tragically, in a moment of partisan madness, the former Liberal Treasurer Joe Hockey sacked the panel in December 2013, just six months shy of its delivering a blueprint for an ageing Australia. With the panel forced to find private funding to complete its work, Susan Ryan's work became merely consulting. Not long after that, the Abbott government choose not to appoint a new Disability Discrimination Commissioner, rather making Susan Ryan both Age and Disability Discrimination Commissioner. I know for a fact she loved to work in disability, but she was frustrated to think the government might consider ageing a type of disability. The Labor opposition at the time promised her that we would reinstate a stand-alone discrimination commissioner for ageing and one for disability.

Susan Ryan's passion meant she was determined to keep the nation focused on population changes coming our way. As the Abbott government planned to increase the working age to 70, there were major shifts to be made on how we address mature-age workers. Apart from the discrimination of companies looking to recruit younger people, the insurance industry made it even harder. Mature workers couldn't be covered by workers compensation let alone access private life and disability insurance. She made great inputs into policy in this area. Most notably, she developed and helped us with the development of policy for mature-age workers. She understood the need to retrain and support workers as they reached the age of 50 years. She actually inspired me to consider a coordinated approach to assist people from the age of 50 to access career advice and support, like an employment check-up, and to reinvigorate the Corporate Champions program. Unfortunately, our nation has not embraced the need for age-friendly communities in a way that Susan foresaw.

Susan Ryan was a dear friend of the former member for Oxley, former Labor leader, Treasurer, foreign affairs minister and Governor-General, Bill Hayden. Bill has been like a mentor to me and a giver of sage advice. Bill and his wife, Dallas, had known Susan for decades, and their daughters worked together briefly. Every year the member for Ipswich, Jennifer Howard, stages the Hayden Oration in honour of Bill Hayden. In 2019, Bill chose Susan Ryan to deliver that speech, just 13 months ago. It was the last time I had a really good opportunity to speak with her in depth. She spoke of the reforms undertaken by the Whitlam and Hawke governments and Bill's role in that. She was as passionate last year as she was in the 1970s. Let me quote from her speech at that Hayden Oration: 'It is Labor that provides reform in governments. Our opponents do not. They aim to maintain the status quo. Because of this necessary focus on reform, Labor governments typically experience much tougher electoral climates than our opponents. People fear change, and reform necessitates change. Voter fear gives the conservatives fuel for their fear campaigns. Nothing changes here, as Labor's disappointment in the 2019 election demonstrates.'

It saddens me to think Susan Ryan is no longer with us to provide that advice and inspiration. But one thing about her life is her work towards equality. In that oration she talked about the fact that in 1977 Bill Hayden made her the Labor spokesperson for communications, media and the arts. 'In 1979 he added the status of women to my responsibilities,' she said. It was one of the most important decisions any Labor leader had ever made. 'It was my portfolio from that time until I retired from parliament in 1988,' she said. She kept it.

After the 1977 election result, another disastrous result for Labor, Bill decided to have an inquiry, with Neal Blewett and John Button to head up the inquiry. For the first time Labor decided to get submissions from young Labor women on the history of women's votes. Such an exercise was novel, according to Susan. It was thought, by the way, that women would follow the voting decisions of their husbands. 'Not so,' she said. Armed with this startling and persuasive data, and with Bill Hayden's support, she said: 'I set out on a long process of developing women's policy for Labor. This process involved consulting women's organisations of all kinds and individual women as far as possible. This activity resulted in Towards equality, a document setting out a raft of detailed policies designed to overcome the social and economic disadvantages experienced by women. In 1982, Bill as Labor leader wrote a foreword to the document and launched it.' And so it goes.

She also went on to make this very important comment: 'In 1983, the election marked the first time more women than men voted for Labor. As minister assisting the Prime Minister on the status of women I had a big agenda.' It was that Towards equality agenda that she had, and a lot of election commitments to be undertaken based on the Bill Hayden document.

It really saddens to see that she's no longer with us when you consider what she did. I want to finish with this statement from Bill Hayden. He sent this to me today. He asked that I read it. I think it's a fitting way to conclude. It shows all about Susan, her mentoring role to young women, and it sets out something about her. She gave Bill 36, the second-top grade for any Labor politician going into the 1972 election. Gough Whitlam got 33. Bill was seen as more pro-women's-rights than Gough. The only person above in all the parliament was Tom Uren. I think the Leader of the Opposition would be delighted about that. He got 37. Andrew Peacock got 30, but a lot of his colleagues were negative, according to the Women's Electoral Lobby in 1972. She would have been shocked when Bill said this. This is the statement from Bill. I will read it entirely:

When the news of Susan’s death was broadcast of the ABC radio news Sunday week ago, my elder daughter Georgina came and told me about the news flash. I was absolutely devastated because Susan and I had been good friends. We sat beside each other in the Cabinet and we would often chat about personal matters like family. On one occasion, not long after our youngest daughter Ingrid started high school, I told Susan that I was worried Ingrid was not doing as well academically as I believed she could and I was thinking perhaps of getting Ingrid apprenticed in a hair dressing salon. Susan expostulated loudly—

You can just imagine her doing that—

Predictably, she gave me a very firm talk about liberation for women. Susan knew Ingrid well as she did all our children from their coming to Parliament House since they were very young. Susan said the future for Ingrid as for all women was through education; Susan said: she can do it; she is bright and able. Susan was right. After a change of school environment Ingrid flourished going on to obtain an accounting degree at the University of Queensland, becoming a member of the Chartered Accountants Association after successfully sitting their rigorous exam, and now close to thirty years distinguished service with the United Nations including serving administratively in UN peace keeping missions including in Cambodia, Timor Leste, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Chad, South Sudan and Darfur Sudan where she administered military peace-keeping forces from Nigeria and Thailand, and currently, following her appointment by the Secretary-General of the UN in 2018, Ingrid is serving as the Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to the UN's Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and does reporting for the UN Security Council and has appeared before it.

These things came as a direct result of Susan Ryan's intervention in the Cabinet Office against my thinking, so I am eternally grateful to Susan. Throughout the intervening years, Susan would often enquire how Ingrid was getting on; Susan's interest was genuine. Among my very many fond memories was Susan's uninhibited penchant for singing Irish songs with gusto – and as in her approach to those who opposed her on women's rights issues Susan annihilated the uncooperative notes.

She wasn't a particularly good singer, but she loved it. Bill finishes:

I am extremely grateful to Susan Ryan and miss her. Vale Susan Ryan.

I say to Bill Hayden, 'Amen to that.' Susan, your legacy was to lead Australia, in your words, 'towards equality'. Our country owes you so much. My deepest condolences to your family and friends.

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