Building a golem

The first biography of a Labor survivor

Patrick Mullins

Tanya Plibersek: On her own terms

by Margaret Simons Black Inc.

$34.99 pb, 320 pp

In early March 2023, Tanya Plibersek fronted an audience at the Australian National University to question historian Chris Wallace about her newly released account of twentieth-century prime ministers and their biographers. Coming shortly before the publication of Margaret Simons’s biography of her, Plibersek’s interest in the dynamics of writing about a living, breathing, vote-seeking politician seemed prompted by more than mere professional courtesy. ‘It’s like building a golem, in the shape of a person, in a way, isn’t it?’ she remarked. ‘And then you’re putting magic into it and animating it. It comes out of the mud.’

Simons has considerable experience working with such mud and magic. In addition to writing about gardening, she is a biographer of Penny Wong and Kerry Stokes, a profiler of Mark Latham, co-writer of Malcolm Fraser’s memoirs, and investigator of the Murray–Darling Basin, the Hindmarsh Island affair, and problems in contemporary journalism. Whether at feature or book length, Simons’s writing is thoughtful, welcoming of complexity, and attuned to questions of ethics and power. In this as in many of her other books, Simons eschews a god-like omniscience and foregrounds her presence as narrator, detailing subjective reactions, making sharp observations, and moving seamlessly between events deep in the past, and how they are understood and related in the present. In doing so, Simons constructs a golem of considerable and attractive substance. Her Plibersek is diligent, hard-working, and, if not a visionary, then undeniably a consummate professional.

Born in Sydney, the third child of Slovenian immigrants who came to Australia in the postwar years, Plibersek absorbed the typical ideals of first-generation migrant children: a sense of responsibility, a keen work ethic, and a patriotism that obliged her, in exchange for enjoying the rewards of this country, to give back to it and her community.

This was accompanied by an enduring feminist outlook that has seen Plibersek take an abiding interest in violence against women. After graduating from the journalism course at University of Technology Sydney, Plibersek joined the domestic violence unit of the newly created Ministry for the Status and Advancement of Women in the New South Wales public service. To her frustration, that ministry’s focus was on breaking glass ceilings in the corporate and political worlds. She resigned after less than a year and, in the meantime, reconsidered her relationship with the ALP, which she had joined and left in the space of a year over its backsliding on uranium mining and native title policy. Plibersek saw in ALP figures Meredith Burgmann, Genevieve Rankin, and Ann Symonds the kind of leadership and understanding that she believed was necessary to reduce rates of violence against women; she also came to believe that while the ALP was an ‘imperfect vehicle’, it was the best vehicle for change.

The bargain she made then is one she has struck repeatedly since, Simons notes. After her election in 1998, Plibersek voted for draconian Howard government legislation on asylum seekers in 2001 and watched in 2004 as the ALP waved through amendments to the Marriage Act that excluded same-sex marriages. Her refusal in the first instance to emulate Carmen Lawrence and resign was salutary: ‘It’s about having some staying power,’ Plibersek reasoned. The desire to preserve power, of some kind, has seen Plibersek make similar bargains with the media – particularly over its coverage of her husband, Michael Coutts-Trotter, today a high-ranking New South Wales public servant who, in his youth, served a jail term for drug offences. Plibersek made the same kind of bargain with Simons. Initially resistant to the biography, she ultimately co-operated in the interests of having some agency in the process. It is a decision that pays off: there is no mud that sticks here, no feet of clay.

Plibersek’s rise began after the 2004 election, when she was given responsibility for youth, work and family, community, early childhood education, and the status of women. The meatiest chapters of Simons’s book concern Plibersek’s activities in these related portfolio areas over the life of the 2007–13 Labor governments. They track how these policy areas, previously training ground for junior ministers or an afterthought for leaders, have become increasingly central to political debate. Where childcare and parental leave were once the province of welfare policy, for example, they are now regarded as part of economic policy, vital to improvements in productivity, workforce participation, and more. Simons points to Plibersek’s continued activism and effective communication skills as significant factors in the change.

These chapters also constitute the lengthiest rebuttal of Plibersek’s critics, who are cited anonymously as sceptical more than scathing, wondering if Plibersek is too opaque, without vision, and managerial rather than inspiring. Simons points to Plibersek’s record in the women’s portfolio, where she pushed for improved economic outcomes for women, gender equality, and reducing violence against women. Paid parental leave, championed by Jenny Macklin and supported by Plibersek, was one way of addressing the first. Regulation requiring large companies to report on gender equality indicators was a way forward for the second. On the third, violence against women, Plibersek sought development of a long-term national plan that included public education and training campaigns and better infrastructure for counselling and support services for women and victims. The work was incomplete when Plibersek moved to the health portfolio, but its significance should not be understated. Nor, according to Simons, should Plibersek’s role: ‘This is perhaps her single biggest contribution to public policy so far.’

Plibersek was also one of the few to emerge from the wreckage of the Labor government with her reputation enhanced. Anointed by Julia Gillard as a future leader of the party, Plibersek became deputy to Bill Shorten (2013–19) and took responsibility for foreign affairs and then education. Anthony Albanese’s election as leader in 2019 saw Plibersek’s first major political setback. It was untenable for two figures from Labor’s left faction to hold both leadership positions; Plibersek ceded the deputy leadership to right-winger Richard Marles. Having forgone a bid for the leadership herself, Plibersek retained her education duties until the 2022 election, after which she was appointed – or, really, demoted – to the environment portfolio.

Plibersek’s political trajectory is a lengthy, twisting thread throughout this book. Simons notes repeated instances where Plibersek has disavowed ambitions for higher office, or resisted offers of it on account of family. She also cites how the occasions Plibersek has been ambitious – standing for preselection in 1998, entertaining the deputy leadership in 2013 – have become fodder for those who view her with suspicion. Simons argues that this is a profoundly gendered double standard, but wonders about the restlessness within Labor in 2021, when Albanese’s leadership seemed in question, and Plibersek’s star appeared to be waxing. Did Plibersek consider a challenge? Simons’s answer, thoughtfully and eventually reached, is that she did. ‘But she stayed true to her longstanding view that the party – and the team – matters more than individual ambition, and that leadership destabilisation always leaves the party weaker.’

It is no small feat that this explanation, offered near the end of Simons’s biography, does not feel pat or overly credulous. Its persuasiveness comes from the figure sagely created by Simons: a politician who wishes to contribute but is pragmatic about the need to compromise, who is not ego-driven but also not in thrall to cultural expectations that women will put their ambitions second; who sees in herself much of Elinor Dashwood, heroine of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, and who might, if push comes to shove, moderate the Labor Party’s tendency to be a mercurial and rash Marianne. g

Patrick Mullins is a Visiting Fellow at the ANU’s National Centre of Biography. His most recent book is Who Needs the ABC? (2022), co-authored with Matthew Ricketson.