In the final episode for this series, we talk to the amazing Rosie Batty AO. Rosie became a household name in Australia for all the wrong reasons. After her beloved son, 11 year old Luke was brutally killed by his father at a cricket game in 2014, Rosie faced the media and in a spell binding delivery sent the nation a message we needed to hear: “Family violence happens to everyone. No matter how nice your house, how intelligent you are. It can happen to anyone and everyone.”

Thrown into the spotlight, Rosie tirelessly dedicated herself to raising awareness of Australia’s hidden epidemic of violence against women. In 2014 she established the Luke Batty Foundation to assist women and children. She then played a major role in establishing Victoria’s Royal Commission into Family Violence, and had a leading hand in the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children. 

In 2015 Rosie she was named Australian of the Year. At the time she said she was, “the person no one wants to be, the mother who has suffered the insufferable.”

Rosie’s tireless advocacy has taken her around the nation and to international forums, including the UN. In 2016 she was ranked 33 in a list of the World’s Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine. In 2019 Rosie was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO).

But all this selfless advocacy and passionate effort comes at a cost. In this powerful discussion for our Changemaker series, Rosie opens up about what her life has been like since that fateful day her son was murdered. We discuss the highs and lows, including the painful collapse and eventual closure of the Luke Batty Foundation. But with failure comes wisdom, and in typical Rosie style she is beautifully generous and open in sharing what she has learned.

BroadTalk is produced by Martyn Pearce for BroadTalk Media.

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Dr Anne Summers AO is a journalist, writer and lifelong women’s rights activist. To many she is the ‘godmother of Australian feminism’ and founder of the nation’s first refuge for women, Elsie. 

Anne shot to fame back in 1975 with her first book – now a treasured Australian classic - Damned Whores and God’s Police, which tore open the deeply entrenched ideology of sexism in Australia. There have been many books since, including; The End of Equality (2003), The Misogyny Factor (2012), The Lost Mother (2009), Ducks on the Pond (1999), and her outstanding Autobiography Unfettered and Alive’(2018), which charts a fascinating pathway through second wave feminism.

Dr Summers worked as Bureau Chief for the Australian Financial Review, before becoming political advisor to Prime Minister Bob Hawke, and later Paul Keating, where she became a key ‘femocrat’ driving major policy reform that helped expand Australian women’s lives and opportunities. She went on to Head the Office of the Status of Women in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Dr Summers gained international fame as Editor of Ms Magazine in the USA, after raising $20 million dollars on Wall Street to fund the project. Back in Australia she took on the role as Editor of Good Weekend, and later on the global stage she Chaired Greenpeace International.

In July 2022 Anne released a major report, The Choice - Violence or Poverty: Domestic violence and its consequences in Australia today.

BroadTalk is produced by Martyn Pearce for BroadTalk Media.

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Natasha Stott Despoja AO is a feminist trailblazer at every turn! Her tireless leadership spans decades: from the brutal politics of being Australia’s youngest woman to enter Federal Parliament at the age of 26, to her 13 years as a South Australian Senator and role as youngest Leader of the Australian Democrats. That alone was unprecedented. But this unstoppable changemaker then built a stellar career post-politics that propelled her on to the global stage as a warrior for women’s rights and gender equality. 

Natasha’s impressive diplomacy as Australia’s Ambassador for Women and Girls (2013-2016), and position on the World Bank Gender Advisory Council (2015-2017), won her many international admirers. In 2020 she was elected to the United Nations Committee to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). 

But it is her fearless leadership as the Founding Chair of Our Watch, and her advocacy of primary prevention to end horrific rates of violence against women, that has made Natasha one of the nation’s most impressive current leaders.  

In a powerful address at the National Press Club in 2020 Natasha called out domestic violence as “one of the most heinous manifestations of gender inequality”.

Natasha's story is part of our Changemaker series, in which we highlight the extraordinary efforts of some stunning, audacious and gutsy Australian women. As guest curator of a new exhibition, ‘Australian Women Changemakers’, which opened at the Museum of Australian Democracy (MoAD) in June 2022, BroadTalk host Virginia Haussegger has spent hundreds of hours pouring over feminist activism and advocacy, chasing that holy grail of insight about ‘what makes a changemaker?’. In this series we explore the courage, motivations and importantly the cost of being a changemaker.

BroadTalk is produced by Martyn Pearce for BroadTalk Media.

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Sally McManus is Secretary of the powerful Australian Council of Trade Unions, and a committed ‘movement builder’. She’s also something of an enigma. Not only because she is the first woman to head the ACTU, or because this diminutive, former pizza delivery driver and cleaner (with a degree in philosophy!) has a passion for bird watching and is a Black belt in Kung-fu, but because Sally really doesn’t care a jot what people think of her. In her first week as ACTU Secretary she was branded ‘a lunatic’ by a Cabinet Minister and sideswiped as too ‘conflict’ driven by big business.

That was five years ago. Sally is still standing and thriving. What’s more, she’s still smiling. 

In this fascinating conversation about fairness, justice and gender equality in one of the most ‘blokey’ sectors in Australia – trade unions, Sally sets the record straight. The union movement, she says, boasts some of the strongest feminists in the nation. She also shares some of the best Changemaker advice we’ve heard: when you find yourself in the middle of a storm, stand still. Listen in… and I’ll let Sally explain why!

Sally’s story is part of our ‘Changemaker’ series, in which we highlight the extraordinary efforts of some stunning, audacious and gutsy Australian women. As guest curator of a new exhibition, ‘Australian Women Changemakers’, which opened at the Museum of Australian Democracy (MoAD) in June 2022, BroadTalk host Virginia Haussegger has spent hundreds of hours pouring over feminist activism and advocacy, chasing that holy grail of insight about ‘what makes a changemaker?’ In this series we explore the courage, motivations and importantly the cost of being a changemaker.

BroadTalk is produced by Martyn Pearce for BroadTalk Media.

Get in the picture with BroadTalk! We're now on Instagram - find us at Broadtalkers.

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Dr Bronwyn King AO is a force of nature. A radiation oncologist in the lung cancer unit at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, turned anti-tobacco advocate, whose singular presence and powerful way with words has diverted $16 Trillion dollars of investment funds away from tobacco companies. 

It all started with a chance remark over a coffee, and since then Bronwyn has trotted the globe holding over 2,000 coffee meetings to convince leading financiers and big business to back off tobacco investments. 

Her methodology is unorthodox and her approach highly intuitive. It has to be. When she set out on this incredible journey of change, Bronwyn knew nothing about big business or how investment finance works. She was a simply a doctor, a mum, a swimmer, and a woman with a sudden will to change the world!

Now she runs one of the most successful health advocacy groups in the world, Tobacco Free Portfolios. She has spoken at the United Nations, and rallied support from some of the globe's most influential medical minds, as well as a Princess, a President and a philanthropists or two! So how does she do it? And does Bronwyn King have an off switch? Listen on!

Bronwyn’s story is part of our Changemaker series, in which we highlight the extraordinary efforts of some stunning, audacious and gutsy Australian women. As guest curator of a new exhibition, ‘Australian Women Changemakers’, which opened at the Museum of Australian Democracy (MoAD) in June 2022, BroadTalk host Virginia Haussegger has spent hundreds of hours pouring over feminist activism and advocacy, chasing that holy grail of insight about ‘what makes a changemaker?’. In this series we explore the courage, motivations and importantly the cost of being a changemaker.

BroadTalk is produced by Martyn Pearce for BroadTalk Media.

Get in the picture with BroadTalk! We're now on Instagram - find us at Broadtalkers.

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Mary Crooks AO is a feminist advocate and changemaker who exemplifies what some might call ‘old school’ feminism. She is a champion of grassroots democracy and collective power building. As Executive director of the Victorian Women’s Trust since 1996, Mary is perhaps best described as the founding mother of the ‘Kitchen Table Conversations’, a model of community-based collaboration and solution shaping that she developed two decades ago. Hugely successful, the model has been used broadly across community and government projects, and most recently to build powerful, well informed support bases for independent political candidates. In 1998 she developed the Purple Sage Project, a huge exercise in participatory democracy that involved over 6000 citizens.

A collective purist at heart, Mary is a listener and a connector. Her early career as an economist and sharp thinker saw her catapulted to the pointy end of policy-making in her home state of Victoria, where she worked as an advisor and speech writer to the legendary Labor Premier John Cain. 

One of those indefatigable women changemakers who never runs out of puff, Mary has devoted her life to improving the lives and rights of women. A legend in feminist circles, Mary is also no slouch when it comes to standing up to the ‘the man’, or the woman for that matter! She has famously pushed back against public criticism and those moments of ‘white-hot anger’. 

This conversation with Mary is the third in our Changemaker series, in which we highlight the extraordinary efforts of audacious and gutsy Australian women. As guest curator of a new exhibition, ‘Australian Women Changemakers’, which opened at the Museum of Australian Democracy (MoAD) in June 2022, BroadTalk host Virginia Haussegger has spent hundreds of hours pouring over feminist activism and advocacy, chasing that holy grail of insight about ‘what makes a changemaker?’. In the series we explore the courage, motivations and importantly the cost of being a changemaker.

BroadTalk is produced by Martyn Pearce for BroadTalk Media.

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Mehreen Faruqi has more identity titles than most! She’s a Muslim, a migrant, a mother, a feminist, an engineer, an academic and a Greens Senator. She also has a number of ‘firsts’ to her name. Most notably, the first Muslim woman to sit in an Australian parliament (NSW 2013) and later the first Muslim elected to the Australian Senate (2018). She is a passionate advocate for the environment, climate justice and women’s rights, and a staunch anti-racism campaigner. In fact, there is little about contemporary Australia that Mehreen doesn’t have a stake in, and a view about. Her book Too Migrant, Too Muslim, Too Loud is a sweeping romp through her life and the issues that keep her awake at night. 

A wonderful conversationalist, Mehreen is one of those rare women who didn’t ‘become’ a changemaker, she just seems born that way. She is an inveterate ‘fixer’ who cannot walk past a problem of inequity without trying to solve it. 

Her choice to leave Pakistan to seek a better life in Australia for her young family didn’t initially go to plan when she encountered unexpected and at times shocking levels of racism. That and her observations of Aussie complacency around the issues that she cared deeply about, such as the environment, women and the treatment of migrants are what politicised her. Her career path has been tough and the backlash has at times been painful. But in true changemaker style, Mehreen’s life mantra is “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. 

Mehreen’s story is the second in our ‘Changemaker’ series, in which we highlight the extraordinary efforts of some stunning, audacious and gutsy Australian women. As guest curator of a new exhibition, ‘Australian Women Changemakers’, which opened at the Museum of Australian Democracy (MoAD) in June 2022, BroadTalk host Virginia Haussegger has spent hundreds of hours pouring over feminist activism and advocacy, chasing that holy grail of insight about ‘what makes a changemaker?’. In the series we explore the courage, motivations and importantly the cost of being a changemaker.

BroadTalk is produced by Martyn Pearce for BroadTalk Media.

Get in the picture with BroadTalk! We're now on Instagram - find us at Broadtalkers.

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In the first of our new BroadTalk series on Australian Women Changemakers, Virginia talks to Chanel Contos, whose pioneering work started a movement around holistic consent and sexuality education.

In 2021, aged just 22, Chanel Contos, kicked off a nationwide media storm when she exposed the alarming level of sexual assault and an undeniable prevalence of rape culture in elite private schools across Sydney, New South Wales. It all began with a simple question on social media: “have you or anyone close to you ever experienced sexual assault from someone who went to an all-boys school?”. Within hours thousands of testimonials from school girls poured in and soon tens of thousands of Australians signed her online petition demanding consent education reform in Australian schools. 

With lightning speed she set up the ‘Teach Us Consent’ campaign and soon had a seat at the table with the Prime Minister and key policymakers. By early 2022 she’d pulled it off! Education Ministers around Australia unanimously committed to mandating holistic and age appropriate consent education in every school, across every age group. For Chanel it was a jubilant win, but like many radical social reforms, there is always a price to pay. And as we hear in this raw and intimate discussion, Chanel is still paying it.

Chanel’s story is the first in our ‘Changemaker’ series, in which we highlight the extraordinary efforts of some stunning, audacious and gutsy Australian women. As guest curator of a new exhibition, ‘Australian Women Changemakers’, which opened at the Museum of Australian Democracy (MoAD) in June 2022, BroadTalk host Virginia Haussegger has spent hundreds of hours pouring over feminist activism and advocacy, chasing that holy grail of insight about ‘what makes a changemaker?’. In the series we explore the courage, motivations and importantly the cost of being a changemaker.

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Professor Chris Wallace calls it a ‘genderquake’, a moment in time in which the “tectonic plates of Australian politics shifted.” In this final episode of our BroadTalk Election22 series we rip into what happened to turn the Australian federal election into a watershed moment for women and why!

How did a massive swathe of previously unknown, politically inexperienced, women snatch key conservative Liberal seats off the government, leaving a cabal of dumbfounded male politicians, including the former Australian Treasurer, in their wake! What’s more, why did the men in charge not see this coming, when the rest of the country clearly did? And, what will the Australian parliament look like under this historic shift created by and for women? 

Here at BroadTalk, we’re still catching our breath after one of the most exciting and energising election results in Australian history. But, is this seismic feminist shift just the beginning?  

Professor Chris Wallace is a former press gallery journalist, turned political historian, writer and Professor of prolific output at the 50/50 By 2030 Foundation, University of Canberra. She wrote the first biography of Germaine Greer, ‘Untamed Shrew’ and has authored several books since. Her latest, “How to Win an Election” is the secret go-to bible for election campaign directors and aspiring Prime Ministers!

Annie O’Rourke knows her way around the maze of political power corridors better than most. She is a strategic communications specialist, CEO and founder of 89 DegreesEast. Annie’s advice and expertise is prized among Australia’s leading CEO’s, public servants and political leaders. She was a senior advisor to Prime Minister Rudd and was Anthony Albanese’s first policy adviser when he first joined the Shadow Ministry way back in 2001. 

Catherine Fox is a leading commentator on women and the workforce, an award-winning journalist, and author of several books, including ‘Stop Fixing Women’ and co-author of ‘Woman Kind’. At Fairfax media she established the Financial Review 100 Women of Influence Awards. Catherine was a member of the Australian Defence Force Gender Equality Advisory Board; she sits on the Australians Investing In Women board, and is co-founder of the Sydney Women’s Giving Circle.

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The prevailing mood across the Australian electorate is dark right now. At the end of what feels like a long and bitter federal election campaign, this week Virginia is joined by award winning journalist, Jess Hill, acclaimed author Nikki Gemmell, and one of Australia’s most powerful businesswomen, Carol Schwartz AO, as we ask what the style and nature of this hyper masculine campaign says about our nation. With broad long sight we take the pulse of Australia and ask what next? What do women want under a new government? Will it be a fresh start? And why is the election outcome so pivotal to Australia’s international standing?

Nikki Gemmell is a beloved Australian writer, whose sharp and beautifully sensitive eye has navigated the cultural and social landscape of our nation for the past couple of decades. Author of 17 books, her international acclaim includes French nomination as one of the 50 most important writers in the world. For BroadTalkers Nikki’s weekly column in The Australian Magazine is a must read: balm for the soul!

Jess Hill is a multi-award winning journalist, perhaps best known for her powerful, investigative work on gendered violence. Her Stella Prize winning book, ‘See What You Made Me Do’, was developed into a compelling documentary series for SBS. Jess has also worked at the ABC and previously as a middle east correspondent at the Global Mail.

Carol Schwartz AO is one of Australia’s most dynamic business and community leaders with a diverse career across property, the arts, finance, investment, entrepreneurship, government and health. She holds numerous board positions, including a seat on the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Trawalla Group and is Chair of EQT Holdings. A passionate advocate for gender equality and women in leadership, Carol spearheaded the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia, and has catalysed a range of initiatives to grow the critical mass of women in politics, business and the media, including the very successful program Pathway to Politics.

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