SNV Exclusive: SWB Keynote Speaker Annouced
Top Women Watch
What's New
Update on our 2007 Keynotes
Helping Mums Be (relatively) Guilt Free
Spirit of Your Wellbeing
Elizabeth Broderick Exclusive Luncheon for SWB
Celebrate the 10th VDay
Our Committee Recommends Reading...

A Note from 2008 Conference Chairperson, Megan Dalla-Camina

Welcome to the second edition of Serious News and Views for 2008. We are now quite advanced in our planning for the 2008 SWB conference and you will see below an item about the conference theme and some of the speakers who have already confirmed their involvement. We will be sharing more about the event in the next edition of SNV and you can also keep an eye on the website for updates and announcements over the coming months.

We are delighted to welcome Freehills and Telstra as new foundation partners and have already benefited from their valuable contribution and involvement in the committee for the planning of the 2008 event. If you wish to give us any feedback on this newsletter or on the conference plans, we would love to hear your thoughts. So please, contact me or any of the committee members (contact details listed below) , or post feedback through www.swb.com.au.

We look forward to staying in touch throughout the year, and to seeing you in October.

Be well

Megan Dalla-Camina
2008 SWB Chair

2008 EXCLUSIVE!
"Unique Connections"

Our conference theme for the Serious Women’s Business Conference this year (October 27-29) is “Unique Connections” which will enable us to explore the many and diverse ways women work and network and connect with each other and the world. We have invited an exciting line up of speakers and panellists for what should be an even better program than last year – if that’s possible!

Already confirmed as our international keynote speaker is Ms Zarine Aziz who is President and CEO of the First Women Bank Ltd which was founded by the late Benazir Bhutto when she was Prime Minister of Pakistan as a means of empowering women. The bank originally was a micro credit lender but has since become a standard bank lending large sums – but only to organisations that are majority women owned or managed! It will be fascinating to hear Ms Aziz’s account of how women in Pakistan have benefited from this unique initiative.

Also confirmed is Dr Carmen Lawrence, former Premier of Western Australia and federal Minister for Health, who will be part of our Women and Power panel in which women who have had uniquely powerful positions talk about the way power is exercised and whether women do it differently.

TOP WOMEN WATCH

A new SNV feature reporting on women in top jobs both in Australia and overseas
Quentin Bryce AC, Governor General
Jenny Goddard and Louise Morauta, former Deputy Secretaries
Helen Silver, Secretary Premier’s Department, Victoria
Women on US Boards

First woman Governor-General Great news that Quentin Bryce AC is to become Australia’s first female Governor-General. Quentin is a lawyer who is a strong supporter of women’s rights. She has been the federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner, has run the national child care accreditation agency and has long championed women. When her appointment was announced, she said: “I grew up in a little bush town in Queensland of 200 people, and what this day says to Australian women and to Australian girls is that you can do anything, you can be anything, and it makes my heart sing to see women in so many diverse roles across our country…”

And then there were none… A few weeks ago, two of the four Deputy Secretaries of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in Canberra were women. But in the week before Anzac Day they got their marching orders. Now Jenny Goddard who had been Deputy Secretary in charge of the Economic and Industry, Infrastructure and Environment divisions is gone, and so is Louise Morauta who ran Social Policy, Office of Work and Family and the COAG Taskforce divisions. Despite the increased number of women in Cabinet and the Ministry, is the Public Service about to become more blokey?

Meanwhile, in Melbourne…
Economist Helen Silver, formerly the General Manager, Government Business at the National Australia Bank, has been appointed Secretary of the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet. She joins Robyn Kruk as the second woman to head up the top department in her state; Robyn is Director-General of the Department of Premier and Cabinet in New South Wales. Helen replaces Terry Moran who has moved to Canberra to head up the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

US Board representation of women not improving
2007 Catalyst Census of Women Board Directors of the Fortune 500

Women Gain Board Committee Chairs in the Fortune 500
Overall Representation Stagnates. In 2007, women held more powerful board committee chairs than they did in 2006. Women’s share of nominating/governance committee chairs surpassed their 14.8 percent share of all board positions.

Little change occurred in:
• The percentage of women board directors.
• The number of companies with zero, one, two, and three or more women board directors.
• The percentage of women of color board directors


Down load PDF Version

What's New

An Issues Paper has been released by the Productivity Commission entitled Inquiry into Paid Maternity, Paternity and Parental Leave. The Commission has been asked to report back to the government by early next year on recommendations for a national paid maternity leave scheme. Public hearings are being held around Australia during May. They were on May 13 in Melbourne and May 20 in Sydney. For a full schedule of the hearings go to www.pc.gov.au (under ‘projects’)For a copy of the issues paper go to: http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiry/parentalsupport/docs/issuespaper. At the same site you can also read the submissions that have already been received by the Commission.

Paid maternity leave is taking off in the corporate sector. In March Myer announced six weeks paid leave for its employees. The Council of Small Business of Australia has said it supports a government funded scheme to provide 14 weeks paid leave. The Australian Industry Group has also called for a scheme to be introduced. These business organisations have joined forces with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the ACTU in urging action.

A whole new approach to childcare was announced by Kevin Rudd and Maxine McKew in April: “…when we came to Government, this country, Australia was running stone-motherless-last across the OECD in national investment in early childhood education.” Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia, 17 April, 2008.Read the transcript of their press conference at http://www.pm.gov.au/media/Interview/2008/interview_0204.cfm

- What would you say if your employer gave you a bonus to buy a $400 pair of shoes! According to a report in the Australian Financial Review of May 2, 2008 that’s exactly what law firm Gadens did in 2005. When the bonus was announced, apparently the screams from women in the office were so loud “you would have thought Robbie Williams had entered the room,” the managing partner of Gadens’ Sydney office was quoted as saying. Now there’s an idea for other employers to think about!

SWB WELCOME'S TWO NEW FOUNDATION PARTNERS

We delighed to welcome Telstra and Freehills on board as 2008 SWB Foundation Partners
and to introduce the 2008 SWB Committee.

For full bios and photos of our committee members see:
2008 SWB Committee
If you have ideas or suggestions for SWB programs, speakers, sessions or feedback on this issue of Serious News & Views we want to hear from you!

Please email committee@swb.com.au

EXCLUSIVE ARTICLE

How to be a (relatively) guilt free working mother
By Julia Foley*
With a twinge of regret at missing the networking before last year’s Serious Women’s Business Conference dinner, I rushed from the afternoon session to my baby daughter’s child care centre. Collected baby bag – bottles – hat – DAUGHTER – . . . . . . and noticed signs: “Halloween Dress Up Day”.

Today is the 30th October. NEED COSTUME TOMORROW.

Question of other 2007 SWB participants: Was I the only woman in the room looking wistfully at the table centre-piece at dinner wondering if its red and pink ribbons and beads could be converted with relative ease into an ‘I dream of Jeannie’ outfit?

Such was my reality at SWB 2007. It was a blunt juxtaposition of my life as a mother and reflections on my life as a woman with a career, concepts that shouldn’t be mutually exclusive but the integration of which is an ongoing learning curve. Well, more a series of ‘learning speed bumps’ than a curve.

Continue reading article here

Strong Choices for a Spirited Life - finding meaning in selfishness

SWB's resident Health and Wellbeing expert Sherry Strong.

Every single minute you are faced with choices that determine your future. Some are complex, some simple. All lead to the consequences that shape your life. Every choice you make will have one of two results, it will make you stronger or will weaken you. Strong choices require effort and strength to make but make you stronger for it, (like building muscle the more you do it the easier it gets) weak decisions require little to no effort and leave you weaker for it (like exercise the more you avoid the harder it is to get back to it). Be it the food choices we make, to go for a walk or not, watch television that is mental junk food or go for the job that makes our heart sing versus the one that makes us more money. Your life is the sum of those choices.

Right now you have to make the decision to finish reading this article or go onto what you believe is a better use of your time. Don’t have time to read this article? Please consider… indulge yourself, take seven minutes to read this as an investment in you, your single most important asset.

SWB's Exclusive Luncheon with the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick.

Save the dates
Melbourne
Sydney

Join SWB's acclaimed faciltator Anne Summers for an exclusive luncheon with the Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick.

Learn all about her story and the stories of the many women she met from across Australia during her recent listening tour.

To secure your seat at this Inagural event

Register Now

Update on what our 2007 Keynotes have been doing since the Conference

Author Naomi Wolf has been in lock-down, frantically rushing to finish a new political book Eternal Vigilance: How Americans Can Fight and Win the War for Liberty which will be published in the US in time for the Presidential campaign which gets underway in September once the two parties have formally chosen their candidates.

Ann Sherry, CEO of Carnival Australia, writes:
”I've attended two ship launches, Queen Victoria and Ventura, both at Southampton, UK. Queen Victoria was launched by Camilla, The Duchess of Cornwall, and Ventura by Helen Mirren. We have just had the largest cruise season ever in Australia with 20 ships visiting and 30% passenger growth.

I also attended 2020. It was fantastic to be selected and I flew back from the UK straight into the 2020 Summit at Canberra. I was in the economy group which on paper, looked pretty daunting with a heavy weight CEO and economists group. The two days were energetic and focused. Everyone got into the spirit of the event and worked cooperatively. The outcomes were a combination of ideas that need more support of investment in i.e. Indigenous education, ideas that are timely if 2020 Australia is to be globally competitive, e.g. reviewing the tax system to make it fairer, and ideas that address the way we manage the business of the nation, e.g. a set of national priorities for infrastructure investment and a review of the COAG process.

Most Ministers and the Prime Minister attended and participated in the discussions. I felt exhausted but invigorated at the end.

Our Committee Recommends Reading

Anne Summers enjoyed reading Virginia Lloyd’s The Young Widow’s Book of Home Improvement. A True Story of Love and Renovation (UQP 2008). This moving memoir describes Lloyd’s brief marriage to John who died of cancer before their first anniversary and how she decided to renovate the house in Leichhardt in inner-city Sydney they’d shared as a way of dealing with her grief. As the rising damp is removed, she writes how both she and the house were weeping. This is a sad book but not a maudlin one, and it is beautifully written.


Taren Hocking relished reading The Sum of Our Days, By Isabel Allednde (2007) This memoir by the Chilean raised, feminist and author of eight novels including the acclaimed The House of Spirits (1985) jumped off the shelf to me. I first became aware of Isabel only a few months ago after watching a video link of her speech at the TED Conference, I was immediately taken by the will & determination of this woman so tiny in stature and immeasurable in presence. Her memoir catalogues the years after the tragic death of her daughter Paula (2000). Isabel paints vivid pictures of a life stained by tragedy yet rich in warm traditions, superstitions and adventurous travel. Her families’ story is not unique but her talent as a writer transports you into her world and leaves you eager to be part of her eccentric tribe.

Celebrate The 10th Anniversary of V-Day

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