Joe Hockey - completely out of touch with womens issues

[i-need-a-martini]

Of course it doesn't surprise me given who his boss is...

So yesterday he is invited to speak at The Executive Women Australia symposium about leadership, career advancement and board member opportunities. These women are some of the top female executives in the country. 

A friend of mine was there. She's a senior exec with CommBank and earns over $350k a year plus bonuses. She wanted to know (like everyone else there) how the Liberal Party were planning to address the unbalance experienced by professional women like her.

Instead of policies he talks about what a great asset women are in business, particularly in small businesses. And at length goes on about how his housewife mother went back to work to answer the phones at his fathers business to help him through a financial bad patch. He talks about how thrifty his grandmother was and how she struck it lucky by buying into some shares to help boost the family income.

He didn't answer a single question about policy. Only suggested that women get a good (male) mentor to help them in their careers (ignoring the fact that most of these women ARE already mentors for often junior male executives). He also said that when they were in government, they would "talk to men in senior positions to encourage them to give women better opportunities". And that women should ask corporate males "Why?" or "How would you feel if it was your daughter that was passed up for this opportunity?"

My friend walked out fuming. And she was still fuming this morning when we had a quick chat about it.

Why do I have the feeling the status of women is going to reel back 2 decades if the Liberals get in...?

[izabsmiling]

IF he said those things in the OP it looks as though he is out of touch and showed no respect for the position of those women nor for the questions that were raised.

[izabsmiling]

http://www.theage.com.au/business/politics-comes-first-in-gender-debate-20130430-2iqzz.html

Politics comes first in gender debateDateMay 1, 2013Read later

The 350 women who gathered at Sydney's Sofitel hotel on Tuesday to hear treasurer-in-waiting Joe Hockey deliver an address to the Executive Women Australia's inaugural leadership symposium would have been left scratching their flattened heads (from years of hitting against the glass ceiling).

I guess he thought dispensing with a prepared speech in favour of homespun tales of his great-grandmother/grandmother/mother and daughter would appeal to that feminine sympathy chromosome.

The story of his parents' small business almost going under during the Whitlam years was inspiring. His mum rolled up her sleeves and went into work with Hockey's father, his sister answered the phones at the family real estate agency, while his older brothers drove clients around (despite being absent driving licences). Hockey swept out the shop at the end of the day.

Illustration: Karl Hilzinger

They ultimately kept their house and their business and Hockey went on to become the first in his family to make it to university.

A charming start to a leadership symposium but not one that augured well for anyone that hoped for some kind of policy statement around gender discrimination, quotas or equal pay.

Clearly he has respect for his mother and her status as the bedrock of the family. The next anecdote suggests he wants his daughter to thrive professionally, at least that is what he promised her as a baby.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/politics-comes-first-in-gender-debate-20130430-2iqzz.html#ixzz2S0w...

[cherples]

i would like to know a bit more of what he said.  No comments on EWA facebook or twitter??

 

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23EWAHockey&src=hash

[**meep**]

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23EWAHockey&src=hash

thanks cherples.  Two tweets since i last looked. will keep checking.

[i-need-a-martini]

"A friend of mine was there. She's a senior exec with CommBank and earns over $350k a year plus bonuses. She wanted to know (like everyone else there) how the Liberal Party were planning to address the unbalance experienced by professional women like her."

So she earns "$350k a year plus bonuses" how does that relate here INAM?

" She wanted to know (like everyone else there) how the Liberal Party were planning to address the unbalance experienced by professional women like her"

I think she is being overpaid, and "everyone else there",     if she (they) actually expect a political party to intervene in what is  predominately a private enterprise matter.

Her salary relates because I was making the point that this was a symposium for executive women in high powered and highly paid positions. This wasn't a talk to women in middle management on how to further your career.

These are the women who get to the top only to hit glass ceilings and can't break through no matter what.

The talk was supposed to address this specifically form a policy point of view.

And do you really think it IS a private entrerprise matter? If it was up to private enterprise, women would probably still be earning degraded salaries, have to give up their jobs when they married and forget about equal rights.

Given that it is primarily an equality issue, then Government should lead by example and develop policies.

[i-need-a-martini]

a quick chat this morning .....noting the very early hour of this thread being posted.....informed you learnt quite a lot that was discussed or not discussed at that meeting. hmmmmm

Not sure what this means.?:|

The symposium was at lunch time yesterday.

I had a call from my friend this morning.

[i-need-a-martini]

i would like to know a bit more of what he said.  No comments on EWA facebook or twitter??

 

Don't know about twitter or FB. All my comments were second hand from one attendee. I just googled "Joe Hockey" and Symposium" and got these 2 articles if that helps:

http://www.smh.com.au/business/politics-comes-first-in-gender-debate-20130430-2iqzz.html

http://au.businessinsider.com/joe-hockey-my-grandmother-the-1920s-share-trading-shark-2013-4

[monman12]

[i-need-a-martini]

And that graph relates to a talk given by Joe Hockey on progressing the career of executive women how...?

[monman12]

A quick look apropos the report produced this
"Mr Eslake (the Grattan Institute economist, Saul Eslake) did say, however, that he was ''gobsmacked'' the IMF did not judge Gough Whitlam's government as profligate.

''That they didn't regard the 40 per cent plus increase in government spending in 1974 to 1975 under the Whitlam government as profligate . . . [that's] far worse than anything the Howard government undertook,'' Mr Eslake said.

The graph below speaks for itself, when did the ALP come to power?
There is a difference in spending what you actually have, and are in surplus, to spending what you do not have (apart from a deficit)