Jenny Macklin spent 26 years setting up for the six years she spent on the frontbench of the Rudd/Gillard Government, including 11 years in Opposition.
So were the years of set-up worth it? Absolutely, she says.
Her record proves it. Macklin was instrumental in delivering significant policy reform in Australia, including Australia’s first national paid parental leave scheme, the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the apology to the Stolen Generation.
Macklin left parliament in 2019 and is now looking to those just elected to use their power, however fleeting it might be, to harness the political will to tackle generational issues such as climate change, the housing crisis and rising inequality.
She’s just published a book, Making Progress: How Good Policy Happens. It is part memoir of her time in politics and part field guide to others ambitious for change.
I spoke to Macklin for the Women’s Agenda Podast (available on iTunes and Spotify) just as the 48th Parliament of Australia was taking shape, with a record number of women appointed to Anthony Albanese’s new ministry announced last week, as well as Sussan Ley becoming the first woman elected to lead the Liberal party.
During the conversation, Macklin stressed the importance of relentlessness, building support, and of timing in policy reforms.
She reflected on the challenges of addressing climate change and poverty and advocated for comprehensive reforms, especially on inequality.
Macklin also touched on the competitive nature of politics, the significance of Susan Ley’s election, and the need for transformational reforms despite political fragmentation.
And now with three grandchildren of her own, she expressed hope for future policy changes to address climate change and poverty.
“You can’t always deliver everything you want, and you do have to be prepared to compromise, particularly given a lot of big reforms cost a lot of money, and so it’s not always possible to get the agreement of your colleagues to deliver big reforms in exactly the way that you want them,” she said, especially referencing paid parental leave.
She also noted the “deep well” that goes into building relationships and laying the foundations requirement of transformational policymaking, referencing the NDIS, especially in ensuring it can survive a change of government. Timing is also a key strategy for policymakers. Macklin recalled suggestions the Labor party wait until 2014 to implement the NDIS, but they pressed on, concerned it would not happen at all under a Liberal government.
Her advice to those hoping to create transformational reform in the next parliament?
“Don’t waste a minute, because you just don’t know how long you’ll have,” she said.
“You don’t know whether you’ll get voted out at the next election. You don’t know whether your portfolio will be changed. So the point that I’m trying to make in the book is, be ready. Make sure that you’ve done all your homework beforehand. Don’t get there and start thinking when you’re there. Oh, now what will I do?”
As for the competition that is politics — in terms of preselection, election and then jostling for position in your own party and parliament, Macklin said there’s no denying the competitive nature of the work.
“You can’t be without ambition. If you want to actually deliver big reform, you have to be ambitious,” she said.
“You have to be ambitious for the country. You have to be ambitious for the changes that you want to bring about. It’s also true that the parliament is extremely competitive. I mean, we’ve seen that this week, but it’s true right back through history and Julia [Gilllard] and I were competitors. We were competitors for the leadership of the Labor Party, and that’s just the reality of what it’s like in politics,” she said, noting they would later share a conversation together on the issue on Gillard’s podcast.
“You have to not only be thinking about all these important issues that necessary to consider if you want to deal it deliver big policy reform, but you can’t deliver that if you don’t have a base of support in your own party, a base of support to actually get you onto the front bench, get you a ministerial position, get you the power to actually deliver the reform through the expenditure review committee.
“You have to put your case on some occasions, over and over and over again for a huge reform like the National Disability Insurance Scheme. I lost track of how many times I had to go into the expenditure Review Committee. The same very big pension changes that I delivered, you don’t get to do that unless you can convince your colleagues that your idea is better than somebody else’s idea.
“That’s the nature of politics, and of course, it’s competitive with other political parties as well. So you’ve got to be able to mount your arguments and convince the public that your ideas are better than their ideas, and you have to have done the work to convince people that that’s the case.
Listen to the full interview on the Women’s Agenda Podcast, available on iTunes and Spotify.