November 10, 2025 • 65 mins
Ita Buttrose is one of Australia’s most influential journalists, editors, and businesswomen. In this conversation, we trace her remarkable journey — from her early days at The Australian Women’s Weekly and Cleo to leading the ABC and becoming a national icon.
Ita opens up about John Laws, her family influences, the women’s liberation movement, and the challenges of breaking through in a male-dominated industry. We talk about her time working with Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch, her leadership at the ABC, her new book, and her advocacy for brain health and dementia awareness.
Purchase her new book Unapologetically Ita here: https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Unapologetically-Ita/Ita-Buttrose/9781761428739
Join my exclusive Mentored+ community: https://mentored.com.au/become-a-member/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ida Buttrose, Welcome to straight Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's such an honor for me, seriously to be sitting
here in front of you, to have someone like you
on my podcast. And I've had some great guests on
my podcast, but Ida Buttrose is going to go down
as one of the great ones.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, I hope.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
So I'm definitely from my point of view, from my
experienced point of view, definitely, And actually not too long ago,
only a few months ago, John Laws was sitting opposite
me in the same podcast. And of course we've lost
Lawsy this weekend. This is a Monday, and we lost
John yesterday and another acquaintance both of ours, Graham Richardson,
(00:39):
also passed away on the weekend. How do you feel
about John Laws?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
And Well, I feel very sad about John because I
knew him well, and I was at two yui when
he was at two yui, and in fact he was
responsible for me going into radio in the first place.
So I was editor in chief of the two telegraphs
here in Sydney and John rang and said ask me
if i'd fill in for him. He had to go
(01:04):
and have a tonsil of an operation on his throat,
And I said to him. I remember saying to him,
are you sure that I'd be okay? Because I hadn't
thought of radio? And he said, you'll be fine, And
so I filled in fim for six weeks, and when
he returned too, he offered me the afternoon show. That's
(01:25):
how I got That's how I got started. It hadn't
been for John, I never would have thought of radio.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Had you done radio at all?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
No? No, I'm just a print person.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Just went in cold.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I went in cold.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Would I give you a script or something there's something
to talk to?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
No, there's no scripts in radio.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
No, So how did you Where did you get that
confidence from to be able to do that type of thing?
As far as I remember, you've always been confident. But
where do you get that from?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
My brothers? All three of them used to say that
I owe my success to them. So I think I
got the oomph that I have competitive lists that I
have from my brothers. I do think they were helpful.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Do you mind if I go back to that period
with your brothers? Where did you grow up.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
In Pasley Bay which is in four clues Passly Bay?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
And you had three brothers. Do you have a sister
as well?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
No? Just three brothers and me youngest. I'm the second
some second eldest.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Second oldest. Yeah, and your parents what were they doing
at the time.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Mom used to work in public relations and dad was
a journalist. He probably was at the ABC, always working
for Frank Packer.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
So your dad was a journalist. So is that where
you got your journalist?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
All my parents' friends were journalists, artists, photographers. I used
to look at them as you used to look at parents' parties,
and I think, these people know how to live. They
all have views, they have a you know, they have
a zest for life. I thought they must. They're wonderful.
And my father was my hero, and so I thought,
(03:06):
and I loved writing, so it was just natural for
me to become a journalist.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So when you're a young person, and I remember having
sort of similar experiences but with my parents. But when
you're a young person and you're at a party they
might be holding and they have their friends over, and
you might have some families coming along to that. And
little kids were young kids, teenagers even that for that matter,
watching observing their parents, observing the music, observing the food,
(03:35):
observing the interactions. Maybe they have a little bit of
a dance or something like that. What are the impressions
that you still have in your mind from those days
when you watch your parents, let's call it entertaining and
the types of people that are entertained.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
They had fun, they had fun, they enjoyed each other's companies,
so they just knew how to live.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, but do you think today that that's are missing?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Well? I don't think people have the sort of parties
that my parents used to have. There seems to be
a lack of asking people over for dinner in modern Australia.
I think we all go to restaurants. That's sweeping. That's
a very generalization, isn't that. But I don't think. I
(04:22):
don't think older people, which I classify my parents as
entertain at home anymore.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Is it because we didn't have choices back then? Though
we didn't have many restaurants to go to, all the
accessibility of restaurants like we do today, or the or
even social media making them famous.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I don't know. I don't know what it is. I
think we've just lost contact with one another. I think
it's a general thing. You know, you can live in
a suburban, you can walk in the morning and you
can say hello to people and they don't say hello back,
whereas when I was a kid, people are ours for
it were kids and dogs and everybody said hello. Everybody
(05:04):
used to call in to each other.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
And just so I could just make a comment in
relation to you living in Passi Bay, which is an
inval clues if you go back to when you were
a kid, and it's not that long ago, Vork Clues
was not. The walk was not as it is today.
It was a long way from everywhere.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
It was a long way from anywhere. And my mother
used to tell me that harbourside living lost its appeal
once the Japanese submarines came into Sydney Harbor during World
War Two, and so people didn't want to live near
the harbor because the threat of invasion, I suppose. So
(05:46):
that's when Burwood and Strathfield and Pimble and Kolara became popular.
And it was I think it was probably towards the
end of the fifties that Vork Clues suddenly became desirable again.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yes, I remember, because I remember my mother. My mother
was a Mossman and she said to me Moslim was
preferred to Vorclus because it was closer to the city,
much closer to the city. You had the Harbor Bridge,
of course, and Vorclus was not a desired environment in
terms of being too far away in terms of distance
from everything.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, it was a bit of a hike.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So we had to get a small bus from Passy
Bay to Rose Bay and then you get the tram
to town. Yeah, so there were two modes of transport
you had to get.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
So IDAs you know, a young woman in her twenties,
did you go to a university or someone like that
to learn journalism or you just went straight into it?
How did it straight?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Well, university degrees were not encouraged by journalists in those days.
In fact, university graduates are viewed with some kind of suspicion.
You know, you learnt on the job, and they were
lectures that you had to attend when you were training.
You had to have shorthanded typing. But I'd gone to
(07:07):
business college when I left school and I got those skills.
And that's the way it was. You went out with
senior journalists. You learnt on the job.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Your first job, though, who and how did you get it?
Who was it with and how did you get it?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Oh? My first job was a copy girl on the
Australian Women's Weekly.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
What is a copy girl?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
It's a very low way to start. It's the lowest
way you can start. I think you run messages and
you make tea and coffee. So I used to make
tea and coffee for forty people, and I was marked
out as a copy girl to watch. I learned years
later when I was editor, because I'd bought a tea
towel in to wipe up the teacups and mugs, and
(07:48):
no copy girl or boy had ever thought to do
that before. So you never know when you're making a
good first impression, but I certainly did unbeknowing to make
to me, is that.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Something that you might have learn from your upbringing with
your family, with your parents?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Well, it's just practical. I mean, how do you You
can't just keep putting dripping cups on the shelves, can you.
It's just a practical thing to do. And I think
I am very practical.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
And they probably were any dishwashers at the time, which
where they were drying it your.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And so Frank wouldn't have given us a dishwasher. He
ran a mean lean organization.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Is that right? Which almost a frank packer.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You had. You had, that's right, the boss of Consolidated Press,
which owned the Women's Weekly and the two telegraphs, and
you had to if you wanted a new Biro, for instance,
you had to send back the dead Biro. If you
didn't send back the dead Borro, you didn't get a
new Biro.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
You serious, So they they wanted to check the ink
in the.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
You wanted to make sure that it was dead.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Well that I quite like that. This sounds crazy, but
I quite like that. That's that's not a bad discipline,
especially now that you're you're retelling that story. But the
fact that it was your retelling, it must have been
actually sunk into you during that period. No one must have.
And he probably didn't care that much about it, but
he did care about it then that he wanted that
(09:09):
to be the sort of sense in the joint. Let's
be frugal, let's be you know, let's not spend money
when we don't need to spend money. And I quite
like that.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Well, sometimes on the third floor where the general staff was,
they had to sit on crates that weren't enough chairs.
No one complained, and that's the way.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
It was was that up It's not up a Park
Street with our now the same building? Yes, well where
they were, sorry where they were? Yeah? Yeah, oh wow,
So that's crazy. So so you were working for so
Frank Packet. You worked for Consolidate Press Holdings Limited. I
think it was probably called the Time You're a copy Girl.
(09:49):
Just give it a quick thumbnail sketch. How you got
from there too be ultimately.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Well, the Telegraph Telegraph Women's pages was very close to
the Women's Weekly, and so the Women's that are to
I was looking for a new secretary, and because I
had shorthanded typing, I applied for that job and I
got it. But my main reason for going there was
to get closer to my goal or becoming a journalist.
(10:13):
So I used to come in on weekends and go
out with senior journalists. I would write paragraphs and submit
them to the editor and uninvited. Yes, wow, So I
think I drove them mad with my enthusiasm. So by
the time I was sixteen, they offered me a connection,
which was very early to get it, but I was
(10:35):
on my way.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
We used that's pretty determined for a young person midl fema.
But that's a pretty determined person, like.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I'm very determined, haven't you noticed?
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I have? Why know that? But better? Were you always
had that as a kid too? Was that a hallmark
of you?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Well? When I got married at twenty one, I remember
Dad saying to my husband, to be you're marrying a
very independent woman. And I think Dad was warning him
that I was an independent woman, and I was a
determined woman.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Consciously, were you consciously independent as a woman, were you
consciously thinking to yourself?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
No, I was a survival. I think it was survival.
My parents used to brawl a lot, so I felt
I felt the best way to look after me was
to be independent and get myself a job and earn
money and look after myself. And that's what I did
at fifteen.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Can do you remember when and who was it that
said to you, would you like the editor's job?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
No? I can't. I can't remember when I went overseas
the first time I went down to say goodbye Sir Frank.
But now I was great, I was a greater journalist,
and I was women's editor of the two telegraphs. And
I went down to say goodbye to Sir Frank, and
he said he hoped i'd come back because he had
(12:05):
me in mind for the editorship of the Australian Wan's Weekly,
and that became my goal.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
What do you mean He put.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
The thought in my head and I thought it's possible.
I'd like that. I'd like that. I want to run
the Weekly. When it was a weekly, it was the
mightiest magazine in the world. It's lost a bit of
its edge now because it's a monthly and the bean
counters have got in and there stream they're screwing up
(12:36):
the budgets. So so. But I worked in magazines in
their heyday, the glory days. It was fantastic and the
Weekly was a fantastic magazine to edit.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
So I think it would be good, especially for our
younger audience too. Give us a bit of a picture.
What do you mean by the heyday of magazines, because
a lot of young people don't even ever see magazines.
They wouldn't see a magazine the magazine's Australian magazine scene
was I don't know about competed to the rest of
w For me, anyway, as a young person was pretty
(13:10):
fall and I had a girlfriend. She would be reading
Cleo and cosmopolit and Vogue and Women's Weekly, and that
was my mum would always had Women's Weekly. Like maybe
you could painted picture as to why it was one
of the best.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Well, I always thought that women regarded a magazine as
a friend, so I think they thought of the Weekly
as a friend and everybody. There were so many magazines.
There were magazines for teenagers, magazines for older than that,
magazines for older than that. The Weekly was for all
women fourteen and over, and it used to have forty
(13:45):
five percent of all women fourteen and over in Australia
in this readership. Wow, yes, I know it was very powerful.
It went into one of four homes. But you know,
then we saw gaps in the market. How Cleo came
about and the Australian version of Cosmopolitan. You know, new
magazines were launched to fill the gaps. Everybody had a magazine.
(14:09):
You see girls reading them on the bus, on the tram,
on the train.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
You know.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
It was and advertisers loved them, so they made a
lot of money. We made a lot of money out
of the Weekly. We made a lot of money out
of Clear, We made a lot of money out of
one shots. One shots are specialized editions of certain aspects
of magazines. So for instance, Chinese Cooking Class Cookbook, we
(14:36):
couldn't print enough of that. Everybody loved it, Dinner Party Cookbook,
Beautiful Australia. The weekly used to run full page pictures
of Australian scenes, and so we produced Beautiful Australia in
a one shot and it's sold like hotcakes.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
So as an editor, what do you What is the
editor's role in those environments? I mean you're not writing
the articles. You may, right and arcaly head, but what
is the editor's role? Like you say, on a weekly basis,
what would you do when you've got them all in
the office on a Monday morning and you've got them
all set everyone around the table.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
What it is you discuss stories and you see what
everybody was doing. You work six weeks ahead on six
issues at a time, and you'd be across the editorials.
A magazine is a balanced thing. You can't have too
much humor, you can't have too much sadness. You've got
(15:29):
to have a mix of it, a mix of it.
It's all to do with the balance, and that's skill
of the editor. So you then you help design the magazine.
The artists hadn't come into their own by that point.
So the editor used to do a lot of a
lot of the planning in the design sense, and you'd
(15:51):
work out where things would go. You start with nothing,
and then you start to fill the pages up, and
that includes advertising, and then you look at it and
you think it's missing. It's missing an emotion. I think
we need to challenge them, so you drop something else
in and then you've got to choose the cover. And
(16:12):
the cover is always difficult because it's it's got to
compel people to pick it up. And so I used
to walk up and down looking at the pictures that
I might use, thinking is it saying you need me?
Is it saying by me? Is it saying pick me up?
(16:32):
And if it didn't, it didn't make the cover.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
The cover it seems to me to be one of
the most important parts of it, though in the headline.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Well, the color. The color is important. You can you
can make a mistake with color. You can. I once
used yellow. Don't use yellow, that's not good. But clear blue,
scion as we call, or magenta, the really right pink red.
(17:01):
Those sorts of colors they grab you. You can't go
by it. But the trick is to make the cover
follow people, So it's all to do with the position
of a person's eyes as well.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
How do you mean to follow people? How do you mean?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Well, you just know that what you're looking for, it's
got to you look back and you think, yes, it's
still with me. It's still with me.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
It follows you as you walk past.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, it follows.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
That's interesting because of those days people would have bought
a lot of magazines out of newsagents, which well, it
was very competitive.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
The Woman's Day, the Women's Weekly, a new idea. We
were fiercely competitive. We always try to outdo the other one.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
So so just as a women's weekly was good CPH
Women's Day, who was that?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
That was?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
God, I don't know any but it was a competitor
in Fairfax, fair fact done that way a new idea.
Who was that? Murdoch? Right, So the three of you
are all competing for the pretty much the same demographic
and obviously.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
The same thing. Yes, food, you know, we all personalities,
emotional pieces, food, books, you know, we all a similar mix.
But I think the weekly did it better.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
One of the things that I've always wanted to ask somebody,
and I'm glad you're here because I'm going to get
that butt you to ask you. This is when I
was about seventeen eighteen. My girlfriend used to get at
the time, used to get the Clear magazine, and she
always wanted me to complete these quizzes about partner, what
(18:41):
you know about your partner topic thing you know? And
many years since I've thought about and I thought, who
was the person who got this? Because it was very
clever like her and all her friends were like wedded
to this stuff and they were testing their boyfriends with
a series of questions and they give you like a
compatibility score down the bottom, right down the end. Do
(19:05):
you ever remember where where that idea came from?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
They used to turn that somebody used to churn them out,
and you know, we we'd put it. It's in the mix,
in the mix of the editorial. You think we'll drop
one of these in because women are always trying to
work out what the bloke in that life is like. Yeah,
and so if you're a younger woman and you think
you're falling in love, you've just got to make sure
(19:30):
you're compatible with suckers. For those sorts of things. Women
are suckers fellows.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So you're sort of like going to be a bit
of a semi psychologist in some respects, because like you've
got to know what was your biggest audience or biggest Yes.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
But at the end of the day, it doesn't really
matter what you score in the quiz. If you're in love,
you're in love.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
But like all my mates used to tell me the
same thing. We saw sort of have a laugh about
it because they'd all say, oh, I had to go
through that Cleo compatibility thing, and you know, like a
seven and an eight year old, it's it's it's I
think people too are curious as to well, here's someone's
giving me this opportunity to actually go into Mark's head
(20:13):
and find out what he actually thinks about me, and
to see whether or not we are we have some
sort of similar likes and and I used to think
to myself at the time, it's a very good way
of something. A magazine she would buy as soon as
that and that would come out of like every three months,
one of those like you sort of just roll it
out of it three months, And I did the same quiz.
I felt like at least six or seven times I
actually ended up marrying her and divorcing her and it
(20:35):
didn't work out. They well, obviously the compatibility unless I
changed was quite potentially, quite quite a chance. So after
after leaving editorial at Women's Weekly, where did you go
after that? What was the next move?
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Well? I started clear before I went to the Week Clear,
so clear was the most stepping stone to the week
clear right. And then Rupert rang ruber Grang and asked
me to lunch, and he offered me the job of
editor in chief of the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs, which
Sir Frank had originally owned, and they were the papers
(21:11):
on which I trained. And Rupert also offered me a
directorship of News Limited. They'd never had a woman before,
and he offered me a trip to London for Channel ten,
which he then owned, to cover the wedding of Charles
and Dye. Well, it was such a grab bag of
(21:32):
wonderful things, and I thought, to be editor in chief
of the papers on which I trained, that would be
that would be quite something. So I accepted his offer.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Who was running CBH was a kerry running Consolidated Press
Holdings or Sir Frank.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
No, Sir Frank had died.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Frank died.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
He died about two years before we No, he must
have been around when it started. Claim just think he
died around about the time we launched clear So.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
And then when you got the offer from Rupert, was
carry in charge of.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
The magazines so and he wasn't happy.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I was going to say no. He was having business
for a long time, something like that. Going to Rupert
would have been.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
But the thing was, I felt that I was looking
for a new challenge. And if you think back that
I'd achieved a great deal and I was still very young.
I was only I was thinking I was thirty eight
when I accepted Ruper's offer. So I wanted to do more.
I wanted to challenge myself more. And every time someone
(22:41):
offered me something, Carrie said no because he wanted me
to stay running the Women's Weekly. And I felt that
I could run the Women's Weekly but still do more.
So somebody suggested I could host the Today Show. Kerrie
said no. Then it was sixty minutes Carri no. Then
Shirley Conran wanted me to edit and wanted me to
(23:05):
write the Australian version of her book, which I think
was called every Woman. It's such a long time ago.
Carrie said no. Every time someone offered me something, he
said no. So I was feeling frustrated and searching for
this new challenge when Rupert came along, and so I was.
(23:26):
I was ripe for an offer, and I took it.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Do you remember the conversation with Kerrie when you said
going to take this off?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
He was fine, He was fine to my face, but
I've told after I left he went ballistic as only
he can.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
As Margaret, there would have been better not to be
there between the two Rupert and Kerry. Of course, RUP's
so alive and Kry's not, so maybe this could help
form your answer. But was there one more charming than
the other?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Do you think, oh, Carrie? Carrie had a great charm,
and he had a great curiosity and here a wonderful
sense of humor. I'm sure Rupert has all these things,
but they were never as apparent as they were with Carrie.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
That's interesting, and Carrie, I think was I've only met
Ruper a few times, but Carrie was always very charming
and warm. I felt, well, sometimes.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Everybody liked working for him because you know, it's a
very happy time.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
He was interested in what you did, too.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Oh, he was curious about what we did. All men
were curious about what we did because women were changing,
women's operation was coming along, and nobody quite knew where
we were all headed. We just know that the world
was changing and women were changing dramatically, and so men
were very interested. But Carrie used to come along and
(24:48):
talk to the fashion editor, a great girl called Rosina
at Casey, and she'd have clothes out on the racks
in her room, and Carrie would say, do you think
women will really wear that? Yes, mister Packer, but well
they like it, Yes, of course they will, mister Packer.
So things I fad. He couldn't believe this new progressive
(25:09):
woman that we said clear was for.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
It's funny or during the seventies and eighties, probably more
so the seventies, I were not. One of the things
I had to do at university is in my degree
is I had to do a subject called women in Society.
It became a like the university said, well, it was
(25:33):
trying to be progressive and just don't want to turn
out young lawyers, etc. Who don't know anything about anything
else other than the law. So you had to choose
some subjects. And one of the ones I chose I
had to choose I had the choice of was called
Women's Society and anyway, our lecturer was doctor Anne Summers, Yes,
(25:54):
and had written a book called I Never Forget It
now that I'm sitting here talking to it. It was
called Damn, Damn to Hours and God's Police, and it
was during the you know, the rise, let's call it,
quite a sharp rise of feminism in the world, particularly
here in Australia and here Australia as well. And I
(26:16):
was sort of confronted by by the fact that I
had to read this book and sit an exam on it.
And but probably more the more, the more the title
it actually got me. And but after I read it,
I sort of it made sense because I kept thinking
my mother's Irish, very strong woman, and I could see
my mum in there as part of the theme. And
(26:39):
my mum was really tough, but not in a hard way,
but just a strong woman. And I got it. And
many years later I was asked by Bobcaster to join
the board to become a trustee of the Powerhouse Museum,
and which I did, and Anne was on the board
and I never really knew, I just knew it was
(27:00):
a lecturer. But then I got to know her a
little bit, and she was a writer at the Sidney
Morning Here all the time, and I found it's amazing
how you have this view of people write something like that.
She was the most charming, lovely person, so nice for
me to sit down and talk to her, like as
a trustee of the Powerhouse Museum. She was interested, well educated,
(27:24):
had obviously had opinions on everything, but it was a
really great conversation to have with her. How much during
those periods did other people influence your view to the
sense you're running women's magazines especially and then later on
at the Telegraph influenced your views on how a woman
should be represented or the female should be representative with
(27:47):
that big movement that was going on in the seventies
and eighties.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Well, I was a part of it, so it affected
me too. So I I just instinctively know, I think
what women want. That's why I'm an editor. Why why
because I just understand them?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
But what when you at the time. It is different now,
of course, but at the time women weren't given a
fair shake.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
No we weren't, so we encouraged them to have a go.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
But a lot of women just would rather at the time,
it's just accepted status quo and just look, why argue,
why go along? And just just go along with the ways.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Clear always said women had a choice. You should make
your choice about what you want to do with your
life and apologize to no one because we often say it,
I'm sorry. Women need to remove the words sorry from
the vocabulary. So if you make your own choice about
what you want to do. If you want to be
a mother and raise children but also have a career, fine.
(28:56):
If you just want to be a stay at home mother, fine,
to be a career woman with no children, fine, it's
your choice what you do with your life. Make your choice,
don't apologize to anyone, and enjoy what you do.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
That's very interesting. So because you cover quite a bit
of ground there, id like, everything is okay as long
as you make the choice positively and you don't apologize
for it. So you make the choice, but it doesn't
matter what you want to do. It's not a matter
of saying, well, it's not good enough if you're just
a mom stay at.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Home, But if that's what you want, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Yeah, that's actually a good way of contextualizing the whole
process because the problem is some people want to get
into a corner and take sides and say, nah, it's
not good enough to be.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
It's just a mile too many people try to please everybody,
and the only person you should be looking to please
is yourself. That's not to say you can't be generous
to other people, but it's your life. We're owning here.
Once you can't afford to waste the moment of it,
make a decision about what you want to do and
(30:07):
go forward.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
And do you think that back in particularly back in
the seventies and eighties, it was very judgmental, because I
think it's also judgmental and men at the time too,
by the way, And if you didn't like I remember,
if you didn't go to university, which is the opposite now,
but if you didn't go to university, you weren't as
you were not as good as the person who went
(30:29):
to university and got a university agree and become a lawyer,
a doctor, or an engineer or something like that. There
was a lot of more judgment back then. Do you
think that people like yourself? And you know, all the
publications have sort of taken a lot of judgment away
and made things much more egalitarian today.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Well, I would hope the publications for which I was
responsible would have been like that, because it's what I've
always believed. It's what I always believed.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Do you think back some of the amazing women you
met during that period? And I was only just thinking
of when I knew you were coming in today, and
you were coming in for a while now, But I've
not seen about this one. I was thinking about Maggie Tabra.
Do you think about some of the wonderful.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
People Maggie Tabra, Carlos and Patty Carla's and Patty Amelda Roach.
Is Melder still alive? She is?
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Yeah? I think she's She's She's Dom's mother.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yes, sure comes to chief Executive women functions.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Wow. Do you do you think about the how maybe
privileged I don't mean in a monetary sense, but privileged
to have been around with those extraordinary women.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Well, I think it's been a great time to be
a woman. You know, I've been part of the evolution
of women. It's all changed since I was a girl,
and it's been fantastic. What we can do, what we
can achieve. You know, most many of us have earned
seif can income that no one could have possibly have
(32:03):
imagined that we would have earned when I started work
a fifth down.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
But then when you when you mentioned the stories about
you know, so Frank pakor giving you know, giving you
an opportunity and want to make sure he kept you
and carry not wanting you to go because he appreciated
your value. And then someone like Rubert and we're talking
about scowns of you know, like industry.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
It's when I worked hard, I made the money too.
You know, it's not not all one sided. Yes, they
gave me opportunities, but I delivered.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
And took the opportunities and took the opportunity. So because
a lot of people don't nail it, they're not after
the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
A lot of people just opportunities are always there, aren't they.
You've just got to recognize them and grab them, don't
let them pass you by.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, how what is that ambition that does that? Or
what is that? Is that a natural instinct that I
am always looking to improve my lot? Talking now?
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Well, I think the thing is people come to me
or they used to, with offers and I think, hm, yes,
I'd like that, I'd like that, and so I'd say yes.
And then you think What the hell have I done?
What have I agreed to do? And you think, but
I can do this. I can do it. I may
(33:21):
have to do some homework, I may have to brush
up on something, but that doesn't mean I can't do it.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
It's funny.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
It's a challenge of opportunity that I like.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
How would what would you say to young women today,
for example, who are yeah, young women who are not
necessarily want to be journalists, et cetera, but who are
ambitious about some technology that they're trying to build. How
do they go about getting to the individuals that somehow
you manage to get to to make sure that their
(33:53):
business can become success.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
But I did. All I did was work hard and
deliver the deliver the goods. So if you deliver the goods,
you're noticed, I think.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
But you must have known that I'm going to be
a journalist. So the most powerful journalist industry family, for example, is,
let's call it one of them anyway, is the Packer family.
They've got all these magazines that are wonderful magazines.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
No, it was just a natural step for me to
take because dad had worked there, Oh right, okay, and
he knew everybody. He knew everybody, and I knew a
lot of people because they were my parents' friends. Yeah,
but that didn't mean that I could be on familiar
first name terms. They were still Missus Fenston, Missus Shelton
Smith or whatever it is. So I was always respectful
(34:42):
to older people.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah. Well, do you think that today younger people have
can have younger women can have the same opportunities?
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Oh, they must be there. Technology is changing the world,
and it's a question of making sure you know what
technology you're good at, and if you're not good at it,
perhaps brushing up your skills and seeing where it's taking you.
There's always opportunities, there's always new things happening. You have
(35:14):
to be across them.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
How come you're so sharp.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
To my brain?
Speaker 1 (35:23):
I'm trying to, I know, because it's funny.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I actually I've been classified as a super ager, a
super ASA. Yes, because my brain. Because of my brain.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
I wouldn't be surprised because I had on the podcast
John Howard been through and John's the saying John's recollection
of stuff, Like it's amazing what he was recollecting, Like
some of the things he was talking about, names, places, dates, individuals, times, events,
just rolling about one half the other. I mean, you
can't hear very well. So he was shouting at me.
(35:54):
But we're managing. We managed to We managed to bring
that down on the edit. But but other than that,
like his ability to respond like yours, like it's like sharp, quick,
quick witted. You're actually answering my questions before I finish
my question, and and you're sort of absorbing the question
(36:16):
faster than I can even get the question out. And
what do you put that down to? Because a lot
of people these days want to age well, they want
to live a long time, you know, the longevity, all
that sort of stuff. I haven't retired, Okay, Nora's John said, well,
what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (36:31):
It means you're still using your brain. You're still thinking,
how do you do it?
Speaker 1 (36:35):
How do you stimulate? What are the stimuli for you?
What is it? Conversations with a hand.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
So I'm writing speech at the moment about giving mine's
hope and that's I'm delivering that a neurodegenerative conference on Friday,
and it is to do with my work, primarily to
do with my work with dementia Australia. Well, well, I've
worked since two thousand and eight because my father had
(37:04):
vascular dementia and I was working on it yesterday, and
it really challenges your brain to sort of you think, now,
what else can I add in here? I've got to
tell them about hope. The new drugs that offer hope,
that they're very expensive, they've got serious side effects. But
(37:25):
for the first time, we have drugs that will absolutely
stop the progression of dementia. So we're on the right track.
And for years and years it seemed that we were
never going to find anything to stop the progress of dementia.
It's not a cure, it just stops the progression. So
that offers the mind hope. So within that frame, within
(37:48):
that heading, I've got to cover lots of things. And
I was thinking this morning as I was getting ready
to come in here, I thought, hmm, I know how
I'll end it. Now. My brain was thinking, how am
I going to end this speech? I've started? Well, I've
just I'm need to trim the middle. But I've got
it all there. I just don't have the ending yet,
(38:11):
but I think I've worked it out. So my brain
is always busy.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
So how long is the speech going to go?
Speaker 2 (38:18):
For?
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Long? Often out I got that thirty minutes. Is that's
feeling intense?
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yes, it's about five thousand words yep.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
And do you break I'm just curious because similarly, I
make lots of speeches. Do you break your speech up?
And to say five lots of six minute lots, so
you'll have a six minute section, six minute section by five?
How do you work out how to spend thirty minutes
engaging an audience?
Speaker 2 (38:41):
I just delivered the speech. I don't I expect them
to listen. I don't use PowerPoint because people read the PowerPoint.
You haven't got them at all. They have to listen
to me. I have to grab their attention. I have
to keep them amused. So you drop something light in
the middle, give him a laugh, and then go back
(39:02):
to the serious message. No, I don't do six minutes lots.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Of You don't structure foreign.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Well, I structure it beginning, middle and end, Yes, right,
call to arms whatever, whatever, it's all in there.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Have you started have you tried out using have you
tried to use artificial intelligence? Two?
Speaker 2 (39:24):
I don't know enough about it. You know, there's a
guy coming. There's a guy I'm going to hear on
in a couple of days time, who's going to talk
about AI for seniors, And I thought, well, that could
be interesting, so I might trot along and hear what
he's got to say. But when I'm writing a book,
(39:48):
my time has always taken up with writing the book,
and now my time has taken up with marketing the book,
because it's not enough for an author just to write
a book. You've got to market the book. And I
try to keep my mind tidy. So my focus is
on this book at the moment, and once it's done
(40:10):
and it's out there for people to decide for themselves
whether or not I've written something that they want to read,
I'll then address my need for more information on AI.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
So the book you're talking about is this one here unapologetically.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Iter that's someone.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
So what is this book about now? And why did
you write this book? And when did you write it?
Speaker 2 (40:34):
I wrote it last year, in twenty twenty four. So
when you chaired the ABC, you defend the ABC. You
have opinions about national broadcasters, you have opinions about political interference,
but you don't have opinions about much else because you
have to keep your opinions to yourself. Because I I
(40:58):
didn't want the ABC to be a q of being
one way or the other because of a thought I
might have had. So don't express your thoughts as freely
as I can now. So once I'd finished my chairmanship
of the ABC after five years, I thought I can
get my voice back. I can raise issues that concern me.
(41:20):
So this is that includes areas that concern me, things
about I never thought I'd live in Australia where people
couldn't afford to buy a home in the capital cities,
and that's what we've got now. I never thought I'd
live in a world which seems intent on destroying itself
because people have blinkers and climate change. How much more
(41:44):
do we have to see the climate change? How many
warnings do we have to receive from scientists to know
that the world is threatened by its climate because of
the careless behavior of us on the planet. It's a
human destruction of a planet and we can't do that.
We have to leave the planet in good shape for
(42:04):
all the people that come after us. We're all here
only once, but it's not our world. It belongs to everybody.
Everybody here and everybody that's coming after us.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
It's interesting you call it unapologetically.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
You.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
During your championship with the ABC, I often thought about you,
and I often thought to myself, there the difficulty you
must have had in terms of issues that were happening
around it. Sometimes the ABC was the issue itself. Was
(42:42):
within the ABC or alternative of the ABC was commenting
and commenting on issues in other places where they were realisious,
and I used to think to myself the conflict that
that must raise in someone's mind if they have a
personal view. Was it a difficult thing or was it
something you had to consistently and assistently work on to
divorce Ida Buttrose's personal view from what ended up becoming
(43:07):
the National Broadcasters view is that something you have to
continually work on has you.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Don't continually work on it, you just accept that there
are limitations to what you can say when you take
on the job, and when you've been in a job
just a few weeks, you realize how true that is.
You know, you just you just can't because you'll you'll
damage it. And I love the ABC and I wouldn't
want to damage it. So I was very consistent in
(43:36):
keeping my thoughts to myself. I might have I might
have shared them with the managing director from time to time,
but apparently they were they were private. They were private
discussions between David Anderson and myself.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
But it is is therefore difficult because when you're the
editor of the women's magazines and the women's part of
you know, newspapers, et cetera, you were quite forthright in
your own views relative to how they would be, you know,
like women's rights, not so much women's rights, but just
(44:08):
being forthright about women generally. You could push those things through.
Your ideologies could be seen in the context of whatever
it was that you were producing as editor in chief.
But when you're at the ABC in a championship role,
a chair person's role, you're not able to your own
(44:30):
ideology has to be sort of somewhat suppressed.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Well publicly, yes, yes, but for instance, I did encourage
more women in the newsroom and that was already underway,
and I just let it be known that I supported
that idea, and I would send encouraging messages from time
(44:53):
to time to certain people. And so you can still
do the things you believe in, you just don't make
it quite so public.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
And would you would you say that you ever pulled
a leaf out of say Kerry's book, Kerry Packer's book Playbook,
so to speak, as chairman of as chairperson of the ABC,
would you come down to the newsroom and go and
see what everybody's doing like Kerry used to do. We
used to sort of to some extent, sort of get involved.
(45:24):
You're a cameraman or you're you're a journalist. How are
you going? You know, what are you doing, what you're
working on? Did you do that or is it not
really your role?
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Not really my role, I don't think. But it's a
very big building at Ultimore. You can get lost in it.
So I was on the fourteenth floor and there were
lots of areas below me, and then there was another
building alongside, a smaller building, and there were people there.
(45:55):
So it was hard to see everybody. But I used
to attend events and talk to people. Of course you would.
But it's not the same. It's not the same as
as Consolidated Press was under carry Packer.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Because I guess in some extent Kerry was not the
chairperson but more the owner, the proprietor.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Definitely the owner, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Proprietor, and you do it the way I want it
to be done. So to speak.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
He's Frank used to say to me, I own the
bloody papers, don't I yes, sir, Frank, well do do
what I want.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
I tell you funny story one time I said to
Kerry went here and I'm business together. I said, oh, look,
a current fair wants to do an interview with me.
I don't know why I was telling him. I was
just telling him, just updating him. And he said I
wouldn't do it. And I said why not? I said,
good publicy we know. He said nah. He said I
wouldn't do it. I wouldn't be let a current of
(46:50):
interview me. He said, I wouldn't. I said, for you're
the owner, I said. He said, son, I'm telling you
I wouldn't do it. I did it, and I wish
I hadn't have won see what happened, But I wish
I had enough. And he said, And when it came
up on the thing, he called me up. He said,
what did I tell you? And he was he was
(47:12):
very I.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Mean, that was advised straight from the horse's mouth, and
you ignored it.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
And I, well, I was. I was so held met
on getting publicity for my business at the time, and
it was all new for me. It was all free,
like I'm going to take the advantage of the opportunity.
May never get it again. But his advice was correct,
and it's funny you're what you're saying to me anyway,
As a chairperson of an institution, obviously Channel nine became
(47:40):
an institution, but as an institution, your role is more guidance.
What is the role of a chairperson of strategy?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Strategy? Yeah, observing the charter applicating.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Governments government interference.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Government is batting it off.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Do governments ring up like any type any stripes the
governments say, listen, we're not happy with that story you
guys did on whatever it was.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
No, they leak things to the media, to.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
The other medias. Yeah, it's basically letting you know that
they're not happy. And then you what do you do?
Do you apologize it? What do you say?
Speaker 2 (48:20):
No, you don't. You don't apologize with a national broadcaster.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Yeah, so you don't say anything. You just roll.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
The reason why democracy needs national broadcasters is because they're
not interfered with. The government doesn't have a right to
tell us what we should do and what we should cover.
It's not like commercial media, which might adhere to advertiser's appeal.
(48:47):
So we say, so there's no commercial interference in the ABC.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
Yeah, that's interesting. So is unapologetically a reference to a
period time where you couldn't say what you wanted to say.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
No, it's just this is it.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
It is me. I'm saying it.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
That's right, like it a lump it that's right, like
a little lumpet. This is what I think.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
I couldn't give a damn, But I need to say
this now.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
You don't give a damn. The older you don't apologize,
the older you get, you don't give it damn.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
By the way, you know, some people say to me,
you're right. I say, reason I do what I do
because I just don't care. I don't care what anyone thinks.
I really couldn't care less. Like I don't even prove
to everybody, to my audience, for example, I don't I
don't care. I mean, I want them to have a
good enjoy the interviews. But I don't care so much anymore.
(49:41):
When I was younger, I always cared. I was always worried.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
I think you just learned to live with it, don't you.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Yeah, yeah, well you've got to roll with it at
the end. Of the day. Can you can you just
give me some just a couple of things that you
really says here, look after your brain? Oh my god,
I just turned chapter five look after Brain? Has I
got something to do with you? With your experience and
dementia Australia.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Well yes, and now I'm the chair of the Divisory
Remedy of the Center for Healthy Brain Aging. And you
know people ignore their brain, but we now know that
if you look after your brain. We do believe if
people looked after their brain and then subsequently did things
that were good for the brain, like not getting too obese,
(50:22):
like controlling blood pressure, like keeping cholesterol low, like physically exercising,
like challenging the brain by making it learn new things,
that you can reduce your risk of vascular dementia. We
think that's the dementia that people's behavior influences. So if
(50:45):
people could modify their behavior, our research tells us that
people could reduce their risk of dementia, of vascular dementia.
You don't have to get it, but it's up to
you to look after your body and it's your brain.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
I got to show the camera with this because it's
a bit scary, Like I just literally I didn't have
I didn't have a mark, but I picked it up
and just opened up on any page, and it's chapter five,
Look after your Brain, page under twenty three, and we're
talking about vascular dementia. It's interesting that you should raise
that because I just I might quickly say that vascular
(51:21):
dementia is usually caused by your brain not getting enough
blood flow which carries oxygen nutrients, and your neurons start
to die off. And I know a little bit about
it because dementia is a scary topic for me, you know,
because I have it in my family, ceter so it
worries me. And as someone who's had a lot of
concussions in the during the periods of boxing, Yeah, and
(51:46):
it worries me a lot. So I've spent a bit
of time looking at dementia and all the various forms
of adventure. There's lots of forms of adventure, as you know.
But it is I read somewhere that I heard some
of the other day. It is now Australia's number one killer.
It is overtaken heart attack, cardio arre cratecoris. And we
(52:07):
don't that chapter's important chapter. We don't pay enough attention
to it In Australia, we sort of ignore it.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Well the government. The government is aware of the caseload.
It's four hundred and thirty three thousand Australians currently living
with dementia and that figure is expected to double without
in say by twenty fifty six, if we don't get
a medical breakthrough. Now, I've mentioned the drugs that are
offering hope, but there's a long way to go with those.
(52:36):
So what we need is an awareness campaign. Awareness because
the research tells us that not enough Australians know about
the risk factors. They say that they would modify their
behavior if they knew what they had to do. So
I've listed them for you. Exercise challenge the brain, so
(52:56):
socially interact with people. Challenge the brain with something new
that hasn't done before. What's your blood pressure, what's your cholesterol?
Don't get overweight, drink in moderation and don't smoke.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
Yeah, don't smoke is a big one, and they're all
behavioral things. By the way, we're not talking about any genetic.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
There, no, no, it's just up to people themselves to
take responsibility for their brain and the health.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Do you feel as though to some extent this book
is I mean, whilst it says unapologetically Eider, it's not
really about Ida. It's about new movements not dissimilar to
the one that you were part of in the seventies
and eighties and nineties in relation to women in Australia.
(53:42):
But it's now sort of now it's not necessarily about
women now it's about Australians. When I look at a
chaplo that taking control of their life.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
Well it is. It is about It is about you
taking control of your life like you've.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
Always done I have. But as you said earlier, about
making choices, but being aware of the choices you make.
So when it comes to being in business, you're saying,
you know, you make the choice, you go do what
you want to do. If you want to be a
mother and you be a mother, that's fine. If you
want to be a mother and be a working mother,
that's fine. If you don't want to be a mother,
that's fine. By the way, if you want to have
(54:19):
if you don't want to, if you want to have
a problem with your brain, you should be aware of
these things. If you don't want to have a problem
with your brain, you don't want to get dementia. You've
got to be aware of these things and make a choice.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Yes, you do, But why would you want to get
dementia if you could avoid it?
Speaker 1 (54:37):
Nobody would mean to me. I would think, and I've
said it to my kids, that is the worst thing
I could possibly get as an individual. And I have
made a lot of bad choices in my life early
on behaviorally, not these days, but when I'm getting to
an age where I'm I can't do those things that
you see when I was younger, but I did made
(55:00):
choice me wrong choices. Sorry, Like what drinking.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
And I can still drink, but I drank a lot.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
But I drank a lot. I boxed a lot, like
a lot too much. And I had no idea if
my dad was a box and I didn't know that
something all that could cause imagin' even know what dementia was.
When I was a young guy, had no idea. And
in fact, in those days, if you got hit in
the head and you kept going, that was like a
badge of honor in my sort of cohorter people growing up.
(55:30):
Or if you played football and you didn't come off
the field when you've been had had been hit in
the head. That was a badge of honor. And it's
it's interesting that their behavioral things, but it's about awareness.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
Yes, So I think brain health has to start when
children are young so that they grow up with these
messages ingrained in them to look after your brain. So
if you're going out on the bike, put your helmet on.
If you're playing cricket, put a helmet on with it
with a neckart so you don't get hit by a ball,
(56:03):
all of those things.
Speaker 1 (56:04):
What would you say to someone then who says, oh,
we're just turning on nanny state or that type of conversation,
Like I see it in the I don't know if
you follow the rugby league, but I see it when
I hear older patrons of the game say to me
and I don't think this way. Oh, in the old days,
he wouldn't have come off after you got that b
(56:25):
head knock. He would have played on. We would have
played on and this is just turned on nanny state.
What do you say to those people.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Well, that's ridiculous. It's ridiculous because we now know that
if you knock the brain around too much on the
football field, you can get dementia. So what's why wouldn't
you want a warning about that? And why wouldn't you
come off the field and stop playing for a bit
if you did get a bad knock on your head?
(56:54):
Nanny said bull dust.
Speaker 1 (56:57):
Actually, yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I but
do you think then therefore, as a country, we're starting
to mature a little bit and stop being so because
you know, we were that old school rough and ready.
You know, you'll be right, you'll be fine, get on
with it. We're starting to be a bit more intelligent
about how we live our lives.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
I hope. So I do think so.
Speaker 1 (57:18):
And is your book sort of trying to passionately drive that.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Well, one thing that's hardest of all is to change
people's behavior. People always think it's going to be someone else.
It's not going to be them, it's going to be
them over there.
Speaker 1 (57:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:37):
And the thing is with dementia, it doesn't it doesn't
discriminate against anybody. Everybody can be a subject of dementia.
Speaker 1 (57:49):
So I mean, as I said, I don't want to
focus just on one chapter, because you've got lots of
chapters in here, But that one chapter about your brain,
looking after your brain, it doesn't dementia doesn't become a
problem just when you get to my age or an older.
Speaker 2 (58:04):
No, there's childhood dementia. There's about twenty seven thousand Australians
living with younger onset dimension.
Speaker 1 (58:12):
Twenty seven thousand. Yes, and the habits or the behavior
that ultimately can end up in dementia for example at
an old age. Actually someoneh you're younger, So that awareness
program people need. Young people need to read these books.
Young people need to become aware of this stuff. They
should be going to listen to your giving hope to
(58:33):
the mind, your speech? Where's that speech?
Speaker 2 (58:36):
Acquarira University?
Speaker 1 (58:38):
At the university and is it part of some department
neurology or something like that.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
Neurops So they have a very big health campus and
they do have a dementia Center of Excellence.
Speaker 1 (58:49):
It do you do this with so much passion? And
I could see it so much passion and energy because
this is Eida trying to give something back to Australia
or is this because it's keeping eye as brain really
(59:10):
going her self.
Speaker 2 (59:11):
And all no healthy interests are really for the benefit
of Australians. I've been a situation where I've been able
to publicize them through in the magazines and newspapers that
I've edited, the radio programs that I've done, the TV
programs that I've done. And I think if you can
give back, you should Life is not just for taking,
(59:32):
it's forgiving. You have to give back to the community.
Speaker 1 (59:36):
And sometimes I think about that, and some of us
in the world have been blessed to come across. Sure
we took advantage opportunity. Sure we worked hard, I'll go
to all that, but we were blessed to have opportunities
to meet the packers or whatever of the world. And
as we get older, we tend to feel like we
need to pay that forward, give that back. So because
(01:00:02):
otherwise you're being selfish. You're just a selfish person. You
want to keep everying to yourself.
Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
But it's it's it's good to work with other organizations
that have that have got a mission like preventing dementia
or like improving eye health. You know, all the various
things that I'm involved in. But it's just it makes
you grow as a person, you know, and you it
(01:00:29):
enriches your life because you meet other people who are
being busy, beavering away in these areas and you think
that's really interesting. That's really interesting. I must talk about that.
I must tell people about that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
Yeah, it's it's it's amazing that you're you at yours,
your stage in life, and you know you're joh, I'm
not don't even get.
Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
It's just a child of eighty three.
Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Yes, So that's amazing that you are not only curious
about these things, but you're looking at things to enrich
your life. You're not sitting back and saying, oh, I've
done it all. I've been this editor and editor and
blah blah blah. You know, I'm independently Okay, financially I'm
going good. I've met everybody, You've met everybody. You're looking
(01:01:15):
at things to it continually to enrich your life.
Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
Yes, why not as long as you're here.
Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Yeah, totally to the moment, to the moment. Not here
from my point of view, I mean, we're talking about
Graham Richardson earlier on, who passed away a couple of
days ago, and rich O did his last sky News
cross to sky News from his hospital bed a couple
of days before he passed away.
Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
I believe that that's.
Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Some kind of guy he was, and it seems to me,
it seems to be the same fabric that you're got
in you. You're people say to Mark when you slid down, Well,
I don't know. I don't want to slay down, But like,
what else are we going to do? Like I'm not
going to sit aroun and home watch Netflix all day long.
I mean, like it's good for me. I'm the same.
(01:02:04):
Like I'm actually selfish in that the reason I do
everything I do, and I do a lot of stuff
where I don't get paid for it, make any money.
I'm just this whole show. Why I do this is
because I want people to be entertained by what entertains me.
But at the same time, selfishly, it's good for me
because I get to sit in front of Hider buttro So,
I getting to sit in front of Graham Richardson. I'm
(01:02:25):
getting John Laws. But if I didn't have this platform,
I wouldn't get that opportunity. And I learned something every
day from every one of these individuals, or I get
reminded of something I've forgotten. That's important. Remember, I don't
get chances to write books like you do. I'm You're
prolific in that you can write, You're a journalist, you
know how to do this stuff. I mean, it's harder
(01:02:45):
it takes for me to write that. It would take
me two years, and I go mental trying to do it.
But I say, if I don't have that skill, But
how important is it to be not selfish in the
evil sense, but selfish towards making yourself enriched? How important
is that for people to do that, not just be curious,
(01:03:09):
but do something about it.
Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Well, it's up to the person. It's up to each
individual person. It's not making time for it, it's just
making it a part of your life.
Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
Do you think it's but it's obviously worked for you.
Do you think it's a good technique for people to
learn from you and maybe do for themselves. It doesn't
have to be to the extent you do it, but
just continually trying to enrich your mind.
Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
I think so, I mean, well, just try it. Volunteer
for something that you wouldn't normally volunteer for help out
in the community. There's always people looking for help, that's
for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
And I think that concept is use raised before about
giving back. Otherwise we tend to we can actually get
into that sort of horrible sort of spiral of either
apologizing or alternatively winging, and if you're looking for some
(01:04:17):
way to get back, you stop whinging.
Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
And life's too short to winge.
Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
Quite frankly, that'll go down in the that that that phrase,
that'll that'll that'll make the front of our podcast promotion.
Life's too short to winge. I can just see Sami
Abrodus is sitting out of there thinking about that. I
want to write some notes. But you're right, Adam, buttro
said life's too short to winge. There's a big lesson
(01:04:47):
in that one. It's nearly a second heading. Don't winge.
Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
Short.
Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
That's that's your next mission. And see that's amazing. Straight
up you said, I'll write an of the book. That's
amazing too. Are taking opportunities. Thanks very much for the buttress.
Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
That's thank you very much. I've enjoyed it.
Ida Buttrose, Welcome to straight Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's such an honor for me, seriously to be sitting
here in front of you, to have someone like you
on my podcast. And I've had some great guests on
my podcast, but Ida Buttrose is going to go down
as one of the great ones.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, I hope.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
So I'm definitely from my point of view, from my
experienced point of view, definitely, And actually not too long ago,
only a few months ago, John Laws was sitting opposite
me in the same podcast. And of course we've lost
Lawsy this weekend. This is a Monday, and we lost
John yesterday and another acquaintance both of ours, Graham Richardson,
(00:39):
also passed away on the weekend. How do you feel
about John Laws?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
And Well, I feel very sad about John because I
knew him well, and I was at two yui when
he was at two yui, and in fact he was
responsible for me going into radio in the first place.
So I was editor in chief of the two telegraphs
here in Sydney and John rang and said ask me
if i'd fill in for him. He had to go
(01:04):
and have a tonsil of an operation on his throat,
And I said to him. I remember saying to him,
are you sure that I'd be okay? Because I hadn't
thought of radio? And he said, you'll be fine, And
so I filled in fim for six weeks, and when
he returned too, he offered me the afternoon show. That's
(01:25):
how I got That's how I got started. It hadn't
been for John, I never would have thought of radio.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Had you done radio at all?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
No? No, I'm just a print person.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Just went in cold.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I went in cold.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Would I give you a script or something there's something
to talk to?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
No, there's no scripts in radio.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
No, So how did you Where did you get that
confidence from to be able to do that type of thing?
As far as I remember, you've always been confident. But
where do you get that from?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
My brothers? All three of them used to say that
I owe my success to them. So I think I
got the oomph that I have competitive lists that I
have from my brothers. I do think they were helpful.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Do you mind if I go back to that period
with your brothers? Where did you grow up.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
In Pasley Bay which is in four clues Passly Bay?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
And you had three brothers. Do you have a sister
as well?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
No? Just three brothers and me youngest. I'm the second
some second eldest.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Second oldest. Yeah, and your parents what were they doing
at the time.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Mom used to work in public relations and dad was
a journalist. He probably was at the ABC, always working
for Frank Packer.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
So your dad was a journalist. So is that where
you got your journalist?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
All my parents' friends were journalists, artists, photographers. I used
to look at them as you used to look at parents' parties,
and I think, these people know how to live. They
all have views, they have a you know, they have
a zest for life. I thought they must. They're wonderful.
And my father was my hero, and so I thought,
(03:06):
and I loved writing, so it was just natural for
me to become a journalist.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So when you're a young person, and I remember having
sort of similar experiences but with my parents. But when
you're a young person and you're at a party they
might be holding and they have their friends over, and
you might have some families coming along to that. And
little kids were young kids, teenagers even that for that matter,
watching observing their parents, observing the music, observing the food,
(03:35):
observing the interactions. Maybe they have a little bit of
a dance or something like that. What are the impressions
that you still have in your mind from those days
when you watch your parents, let's call it entertaining and
the types of people that are entertained.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
They had fun, they had fun, they enjoyed each other's companies,
so they just knew how to live.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, but do you think today that that's are missing?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Well? I don't think people have the sort of parties
that my parents used to have. There seems to be
a lack of asking people over for dinner in modern Australia.
I think we all go to restaurants. That's sweeping. That's
a very generalization, isn't that. But I don't think. I
(04:22):
don't think older people, which I classify my parents as
entertain at home anymore.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Is it because we didn't have choices back then? Though
we didn't have many restaurants to go to, all the
accessibility of restaurants like we do today, or the or
even social media making them famous.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I don't know. I don't know what it is. I
think we've just lost contact with one another. I think
it's a general thing. You know, you can live in
a suburban, you can walk in the morning and you
can say hello to people and they don't say hello back,
whereas when I was a kid, people are ours for
it were kids and dogs and everybody said hello. Everybody
(05:04):
used to call in to each other.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
And just so I could just make a comment in
relation to you living in Passi Bay, which is an
inval clues if you go back to when you were
a kid, and it's not that long ago, Vork Clues
was not. The walk was not as it is today.
It was a long way from everywhere.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
It was a long way from anywhere. And my mother
used to tell me that harbourside living lost its appeal
once the Japanese submarines came into Sydney Harbor during World
War Two, and so people didn't want to live near
the harbor because the threat of invasion, I suppose. So
(05:46):
that's when Burwood and Strathfield and Pimble and Kolara became popular.
And it was I think it was probably towards the
end of the fifties that Vork Clues suddenly became desirable again.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yes, I remember, because I remember my mother. My mother
was a Mossman and she said to me Moslim was
preferred to Vorclus because it was closer to the city,
much closer to the city. You had the Harbor Bridge,
of course, and Vorclus was not a desired environment in
terms of being too far away in terms of distance
from everything.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, it was a bit of a hike.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So we had to get a small bus from Passy
Bay to Rose Bay and then you get the tram
to town. Yeah, so there were two modes of transport
you had to get.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
So IDAs you know, a young woman in her twenties,
did you go to a university or someone like that
to learn journalism or you just went straight into it?
How did it straight?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Well, university degrees were not encouraged by journalists in those days.
In fact, university graduates are viewed with some kind of suspicion.
You know, you learnt on the job, and they were
lectures that you had to attend when you were training.
You had to have shorthanded typing. But I'd gone to
(07:07):
business college when I left school and I got those skills.
And that's the way it was. You went out with
senior journalists. You learnt on the job.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Your first job, though, who and how did you get it?
Who was it with and how did you get it?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Oh? My first job was a copy girl on the
Australian Women's Weekly.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
What is a copy girl?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
It's a very low way to start. It's the lowest
way you can start. I think you run messages and
you make tea and coffee. So I used to make
tea and coffee for forty people, and I was marked
out as a copy girl to watch. I learned years
later when I was editor, because I'd bought a tea
towel in to wipe up the teacups and mugs, and
(07:48):
no copy girl or boy had ever thought to do
that before. So you never know when you're making a
good first impression, but I certainly did unbeknowing to make
to me, is that.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Something that you might have learn from your upbringing with
your family, with your parents?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Well, it's just practical. I mean, how do you You
can't just keep putting dripping cups on the shelves, can you.
It's just a practical thing to do. And I think
I am very practical.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
And they probably were any dishwashers at the time, which
where they were drying it your.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And so Frank wouldn't have given us a dishwasher. He
ran a mean lean organization.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Is that right? Which almost a frank packer.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You had. You had, that's right, the boss of Consolidated Press,
which owned the Women's Weekly and the two telegraphs, and
you had to if you wanted a new Biro, for instance,
you had to send back the dead Biro. If you
didn't send back the dead Borro, you didn't get a
new Biro.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
You serious, So they they wanted to check the ink
in the.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
You wanted to make sure that it was dead.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Well that I quite like that. This sounds crazy, but
I quite like that. That's that's not a bad discipline,
especially now that you're you're retelling that story. But the
fact that it was your retelling, it must have been
actually sunk into you during that period. No one must have.
And he probably didn't care that much about it, but
he did care about it then that he wanted that
(09:09):
to be the sort of sense in the joint. Let's
be frugal, let's be you know, let's not spend money
when we don't need to spend money. And I quite
like that.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Well, sometimes on the third floor where the general staff was,
they had to sit on crates that weren't enough chairs.
No one complained, and that's the way.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
It was was that up It's not up a Park
Street with our now the same building? Yes, well where
they were, sorry where they were? Yeah? Yeah, oh wow,
So that's crazy. So so you were working for so
Frank Packet. You worked for Consolidate Press Holdings Limited. I
think it was probably called the Time You're a copy Girl.
(09:49):
Just give it a quick thumbnail sketch. How you got
from there too be ultimately.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Well, the Telegraph Telegraph Women's pages was very close to
the Women's Weekly, and so the Women's that are to
I was looking for a new secretary, and because I
had shorthanded typing, I applied for that job and I
got it. But my main reason for going there was
to get closer to my goal or becoming a journalist.
(10:13):
So I used to come in on weekends and go
out with senior journalists. I would write paragraphs and submit
them to the editor and uninvited. Yes, wow, So I
think I drove them mad with my enthusiasm. So by
the time I was sixteen, they offered me a connection,
which was very early to get it, but I was
(10:35):
on my way.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
We used that's pretty determined for a young person midl fema.
But that's a pretty determined person, like.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I'm very determined, haven't you noticed?
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I have? Why know that? But better? Were you always
had that as a kid too? Was that a hallmark
of you?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Well? When I got married at twenty one, I remember
Dad saying to my husband, to be you're marrying a
very independent woman. And I think Dad was warning him
that I was an independent woman, and I was a
determined woman.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Consciously, were you consciously independent as a woman, were you
consciously thinking to yourself?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
No, I was a survival. I think it was survival.
My parents used to brawl a lot, so I felt
I felt the best way to look after me was
to be independent and get myself a job and earn
money and look after myself. And that's what I did
at fifteen.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Can do you remember when and who was it that
said to you, would you like the editor's job?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
No? I can't. I can't remember when I went overseas
the first time I went down to say goodbye Sir Frank.
But now I was great, I was a greater journalist,
and I was women's editor of the two telegraphs. And
I went down to say goodbye to Sir Frank, and
he said he hoped i'd come back because he had
(12:05):
me in mind for the editorship of the Australian Wan's Weekly,
and that became my goal.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
What do you mean He put.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
The thought in my head and I thought it's possible.
I'd like that. I'd like that. I want to run
the Weekly. When it was a weekly, it was the
mightiest magazine in the world. It's lost a bit of
its edge now because it's a monthly and the bean
counters have got in and there stream they're screwing up
(12:36):
the budgets. So so. But I worked in magazines in
their heyday, the glory days. It was fantastic and the
Weekly was a fantastic magazine to edit.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
So I think it would be good, especially for our
younger audience too. Give us a bit of a picture.
What do you mean by the heyday of magazines, because
a lot of young people don't even ever see magazines.
They wouldn't see a magazine the magazine's Australian magazine scene
was I don't know about competed to the rest of
w For me, anyway, as a young person was pretty
(13:10):
fall and I had a girlfriend. She would be reading
Cleo and cosmopolit and Vogue and Women's Weekly, and that
was my mum would always had Women's Weekly. Like maybe
you could painted picture as to why it was one
of the best.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Well, I always thought that women regarded a magazine as
a friend, so I think they thought of the Weekly
as a friend and everybody. There were so many magazines.
There were magazines for teenagers, magazines for older than that,
magazines for older than that. The Weekly was for all
women fourteen and over, and it used to have forty
(13:45):
five percent of all women fourteen and over in Australia
in this readership. Wow, yes, I know it was very powerful.
It went into one of four homes. But you know,
then we saw gaps in the market. How Cleo came
about and the Australian version of Cosmopolitan. You know, new
magazines were launched to fill the gaps. Everybody had a magazine.
(14:09):
You see girls reading them on the bus, on the tram,
on the train.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
You know.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
It was and advertisers loved them, so they made a
lot of money. We made a lot of money out
of the Weekly. We made a lot of money out
of Clear, We made a lot of money out of
one shots. One shots are specialized editions of certain aspects
of magazines. So for instance, Chinese Cooking Class Cookbook, we
(14:36):
couldn't print enough of that. Everybody loved it, Dinner Party Cookbook,
Beautiful Australia. The weekly used to run full page pictures
of Australian scenes, and so we produced Beautiful Australia in
a one shot and it's sold like hotcakes.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
So as an editor, what do you What is the
editor's role in those environments? I mean you're not writing
the articles. You may, right and arcaly head, but what
is the editor's role? Like you say, on a weekly basis,
what would you do when you've got them all in
the office on a Monday morning and you've got them
all set everyone around the table.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
What it is you discuss stories and you see what
everybody was doing. You work six weeks ahead on six
issues at a time, and you'd be across the editorials.
A magazine is a balanced thing. You can't have too
much humor, you can't have too much sadness. You've got
(15:29):
to have a mix of it, a mix of it.
It's all to do with the balance, and that's skill
of the editor. So you then you help design the magazine.
The artists hadn't come into their own by that point.
So the editor used to do a lot of a
lot of the planning in the design sense, and you'd
(15:51):
work out where things would go. You start with nothing,
and then you start to fill the pages up, and
that includes advertising, and then you look at it and
you think it's missing. It's missing an emotion. I think
we need to challenge them, so you drop something else
in and then you've got to choose the cover. And
(16:12):
the cover is always difficult because it's it's got to
compel people to pick it up. And so I used
to walk up and down looking at the pictures that
I might use, thinking is it saying you need me?
Is it saying by me? Is it saying pick me up?
(16:32):
And if it didn't, it didn't make the cover.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
The cover it seems to me to be one of
the most important parts of it, though in the headline.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Well, the color. The color is important. You can you
can make a mistake with color. You can. I once
used yellow. Don't use yellow, that's not good. But clear blue,
scion as we call, or magenta, the really right pink red.
(17:01):
Those sorts of colors they grab you. You can't go
by it. But the trick is to make the cover
follow people, So it's all to do with the position
of a person's eyes as well.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
How do you mean to follow people? How do you mean?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Well, you just know that what you're looking for, it's
got to you look back and you think, yes, it's
still with me. It's still with me.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
It follows you as you walk past.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, it follows.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
That's interesting because of those days people would have bought
a lot of magazines out of newsagents, which well, it
was very competitive.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
The Woman's Day, the Women's Weekly, a new idea. We
were fiercely competitive. We always try to outdo the other one.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
So so just as a women's weekly was good CPH
Women's Day, who was that?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
That was?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
God, I don't know any but it was a competitor
in Fairfax, fair fact done that way a new idea.
Who was that? Murdoch? Right, So the three of you
are all competing for the pretty much the same demographic
and obviously.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
The same thing. Yes, food, you know, we all personalities,
emotional pieces, food, books, you know, we all a similar mix.
But I think the weekly did it better.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
One of the things that I've always wanted to ask somebody,
and I'm glad you're here because I'm going to get
that butt you to ask you. This is when I
was about seventeen eighteen. My girlfriend used to get at
the time, used to get the Clear magazine, and she
always wanted me to complete these quizzes about partner, what
(18:41):
you know about your partner topic thing you know? And
many years since I've thought about and I thought, who
was the person who got this? Because it was very
clever like her and all her friends were like wedded
to this stuff and they were testing their boyfriends with
a series of questions and they give you like a
compatibility score down the bottom, right down the end. Do
(19:05):
you ever remember where where that idea came from?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
They used to turn that somebody used to churn them out,
and you know, we we'd put it. It's in the mix,
in the mix of the editorial. You think we'll drop
one of these in because women are always trying to
work out what the bloke in that life is like. Yeah,
and so if you're a younger woman and you think
you're falling in love, you've just got to make sure
(19:30):
you're compatible with suckers. For those sorts of things. Women
are suckers fellows.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So you're sort of like going to be a bit
of a semi psychologist in some respects, because like you've
got to know what was your biggest audience or biggest Yes.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
But at the end of the day, it doesn't really
matter what you score in the quiz. If you're in love,
you're in love.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
But like all my mates used to tell me the
same thing. We saw sort of have a laugh about
it because they'd all say, oh, I had to go
through that Cleo compatibility thing, and you know, like a
seven and an eight year old, it's it's it's I
think people too are curious as to well, here's someone's
giving me this opportunity to actually go into Mark's head
(20:13):
and find out what he actually thinks about me, and
to see whether or not we are we have some
sort of similar likes and and I used to think
to myself at the time, it's a very good way
of something. A magazine she would buy as soon as
that and that would come out of like every three months,
one of those like you sort of just roll it
out of it three months, And I did the same quiz.
I felt like at least six or seven times I
actually ended up marrying her and divorcing her and it
(20:35):
didn't work out. They well, obviously the compatibility unless I
changed was quite potentially, quite quite a chance. So after
after leaving editorial at Women's Weekly, where did you go
after that? What was the next move?
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Well? I started clear before I went to the Week Clear,
so clear was the most stepping stone to the week
clear right. And then Rupert rang ruber Grang and asked
me to lunch, and he offered me the job of
editor in chief of the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs, which
Sir Frank had originally owned, and they were the papers
(21:11):
on which I trained. And Rupert also offered me a
directorship of News Limited. They'd never had a woman before,
and he offered me a trip to London for Channel ten,
which he then owned, to cover the wedding of Charles
and Dye. Well, it was such a grab bag of
(21:32):
wonderful things, and I thought, to be editor in chief
of the papers on which I trained, that would be
that would be quite something. So I accepted his offer.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Who was running CBH was a kerry running Consolidated Press
Holdings or Sir Frank.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
No, Sir Frank had died.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Frank died.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
He died about two years before we No, he must
have been around when it started. Claim just think he
died around about the time we launched clear So.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
And then when you got the offer from Rupert, was
carry in charge of.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
The magazines so and he wasn't happy.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I was going to say no. He was having business
for a long time, something like that. Going to Rupert
would have been.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
But the thing was, I felt that I was looking
for a new challenge. And if you think back that
I'd achieved a great deal and I was still very young.
I was only I was thinking I was thirty eight
when I accepted Ruper's offer. So I wanted to do more.
I wanted to challenge myself more. And every time someone
(22:41):
offered me something, Carrie said no because he wanted me
to stay running the Women's Weekly. And I felt that
I could run the Women's Weekly but still do more.
So somebody suggested I could host the Today Show. Kerrie
said no. Then it was sixty minutes Carri no. Then
Shirley Conran wanted me to edit and wanted me to
(23:05):
write the Australian version of her book, which I think
was called every Woman. It's such a long time ago.
Carrie said no. Every time someone offered me something, he
said no. So I was feeling frustrated and searching for
this new challenge when Rupert came along, and so I was.
(23:26):
I was ripe for an offer, and I took it.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Do you remember the conversation with Kerrie when you said
going to take this off?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
He was fine, He was fine to my face, but
I've told after I left he went ballistic as only
he can.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
As Margaret, there would have been better not to be
there between the two Rupert and Kerry. Of course, RUP's
so alive and Kry's not, so maybe this could help
form your answer. But was there one more charming than
the other?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Do you think, oh, Carrie? Carrie had a great charm,
and he had a great curiosity and here a wonderful
sense of humor. I'm sure Rupert has all these things,
but they were never as apparent as they were with Carrie.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
That's interesting, and Carrie, I think was I've only met
Ruper a few times, but Carrie was always very charming
and warm. I felt, well, sometimes.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Everybody liked working for him because you know, it's a
very happy time.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
He was interested in what you did, too.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Oh, he was curious about what we did. All men
were curious about what we did because women were changing,
women's operation was coming along, and nobody quite knew where
we were all headed. We just know that the world
was changing and women were changing dramatically, and so men
were very interested. But Carrie used to come along and
(24:48):
talk to the fashion editor, a great girl called Rosina
at Casey, and she'd have clothes out on the racks
in her room, and Carrie would say, do you think
women will really wear that? Yes, mister Packer, but well
they like it, Yes, of course they will, mister Packer.
So things I fad. He couldn't believe this new progressive
(25:09):
woman that we said clear was for.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
It's funny or during the seventies and eighties, probably more
so the seventies, I were not. One of the things
I had to do at university is in my degree
is I had to do a subject called women in Society.
It became a like the university said, well, it was
(25:33):
trying to be progressive and just don't want to turn
out young lawyers, etc. Who don't know anything about anything
else other than the law. So you had to choose
some subjects. And one of the ones I chose I
had to choose I had the choice of was called
Women's Society and anyway, our lecturer was doctor Anne Summers, Yes,
(25:54):
and had written a book called I Never Forget It
now that I'm sitting here talking to it. It was
called Damn, Damn to Hours and God's Police, and it
was during the you know, the rise, let's call it,
quite a sharp rise of feminism in the world, particularly
here in Australia and here Australia as well. And I
(26:16):
was sort of confronted by by the fact that I
had to read this book and sit an exam on it.
And but probably more the more, the more the title
it actually got me. And but after I read it,
I sort of it made sense because I kept thinking
my mother's Irish, very strong woman, and I could see
my mum in there as part of the theme. And
(26:39):
my mum was really tough, but not in a hard way,
but just a strong woman. And I got it. And
many years later I was asked by Bobcaster to join
the board to become a trustee of the Powerhouse Museum,
and which I did, and Anne was on the board
and I never really knew, I just knew it was
(27:00):
a lecturer. But then I got to know her a
little bit, and she was a writer at the Sidney
Morning Here all the time, and I found it's amazing
how you have this view of people write something like that.
She was the most charming, lovely person, so nice for
me to sit down and talk to her, like as
a trustee of the Powerhouse Museum. She was interested, well educated,
(27:24):
had obviously had opinions on everything, but it was a
really great conversation to have with her. How much during
those periods did other people influence your view to the
sense you're running women's magazines especially and then later on
at the Telegraph influenced your views on how a woman
should be represented or the female should be representative with
(27:47):
that big movement that was going on in the seventies
and eighties.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Well, I was a part of it, so it affected
me too. So I I just instinctively know, I think
what women want. That's why I'm an editor. Why why
because I just understand them?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
But what when you at the time. It is different now,
of course, but at the time women weren't given a
fair shake.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
No we weren't, so we encouraged them to have a go.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
But a lot of women just would rather at the time,
it's just accepted status quo and just look, why argue,
why go along? And just just go along with the ways.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Clear always said women had a choice. You should make
your choice about what you want to do with your
life and apologize to no one because we often say it,
I'm sorry. Women need to remove the words sorry from
the vocabulary. So if you make your own choice about
what you want to do. If you want to be
a mother and raise children but also have a career, fine.
(28:56):
If you just want to be a stay at home mother, fine,
to be a career woman with no children, fine, it's
your choice what you do with your life. Make your choice,
don't apologize to anyone, and enjoy what you do.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
That's very interesting. So because you cover quite a bit
of ground there, id like, everything is okay as long
as you make the choice positively and you don't apologize
for it. So you make the choice, but it doesn't
matter what you want to do. It's not a matter
of saying, well, it's not good enough if you're just
a mom stay at.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Home, But if that's what you want, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Yeah, that's actually a good way of contextualizing the whole
process because the problem is some people want to get
into a corner and take sides and say, nah, it's
not good enough to be.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
It's just a mile too many people try to please everybody,
and the only person you should be looking to please
is yourself. That's not to say you can't be generous
to other people, but it's your life. We're owning here.
Once you can't afford to waste the moment of it,
make a decision about what you want to do and
(30:07):
go forward.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
And do you think that back in particularly back in
the seventies and eighties, it was very judgmental, because I
think it's also judgmental and men at the time too,
by the way, And if you didn't like I remember,
if you didn't go to university, which is the opposite now,
but if you didn't go to university, you weren't as
you were not as good as the person who went
(30:29):
to university and got a university agree and become a lawyer,
a doctor, or an engineer or something like that. There
was a lot of more judgment back then. Do you
think that people like yourself? And you know, all the
publications have sort of taken a lot of judgment away
and made things much more egalitarian today.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Well, I would hope the publications for which I was
responsible would have been like that, because it's what I've
always believed. It's what I always believed.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Do you think back some of the amazing women you
met during that period? And I was only just thinking
of when I knew you were coming in today, and
you were coming in for a while now, But I've
not seen about this one. I was thinking about Maggie Tabra.
Do you think about some of the wonderful.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
People Maggie Tabra, Carlos and Patty Carla's and Patty Amelda Roach.
Is Melder still alive? She is?
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Yeah? I think she's She's She's Dom's mother.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yes, sure comes to chief Executive women functions.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Wow. Do you do you think about the how maybe
privileged I don't mean in a monetary sense, but privileged
to have been around with those extraordinary women.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Well, I think it's been a great time to be
a woman. You know, I've been part of the evolution
of women. It's all changed since I was a girl,
and it's been fantastic. What we can do, what we
can achieve. You know, most many of us have earned
seif can income that no one could have possibly have
(32:03):
imagined that we would have earned when I started work
a fifth down.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
But then when you when you mentioned the stories about
you know, so Frank pakor giving you know, giving you
an opportunity and want to make sure he kept you
and carry not wanting you to go because he appreciated
your value. And then someone like Rubert and we're talking
about scowns of you know, like industry.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
It's when I worked hard, I made the money too.
You know, it's not not all one sided. Yes, they
gave me opportunities, but I delivered.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
And took the opportunities and took the opportunity. So because
a lot of people don't nail it, they're not after
the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
A lot of people just opportunities are always there, aren't they.
You've just got to recognize them and grab them, don't
let them pass you by.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, how what is that ambition that does that? Or
what is that? Is that a natural instinct that I
am always looking to improve my lot? Talking now?
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Well, I think the thing is people come to me
or they used to, with offers and I think, hm, yes,
I'd like that, I'd like that, and so I'd say yes.
And then you think What the hell have I done?
What have I agreed to do? And you think, but
I can do this. I can do it. I may
(33:21):
have to do some homework, I may have to brush
up on something, but that doesn't mean I can't do it.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
It's funny.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
It's a challenge of opportunity that I like.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
How would what would you say to young women today,
for example, who are yeah, young women who are not
necessarily want to be journalists, et cetera, but who are
ambitious about some technology that they're trying to build. How
do they go about getting to the individuals that somehow
you manage to get to to make sure that their
(33:53):
business can become success.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
But I did. All I did was work hard and
deliver the deliver the goods. So if you deliver the goods,
you're noticed, I think.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
But you must have known that I'm going to be
a journalist. So the most powerful journalist industry family, for example, is,
let's call it one of them anyway, is the Packer family.
They've got all these magazines that are wonderful magazines.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
No, it was just a natural step for me to
take because dad had worked there, Oh right, okay, and
he knew everybody. He knew everybody, and I knew a
lot of people because they were my parents' friends. Yeah,
but that didn't mean that I could be on familiar
first name terms. They were still Missus Fenston, Missus Shelton
Smith or whatever it is. So I was always respectful
(34:42):
to older people.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah. Well, do you think that today younger people have
can have younger women can have the same opportunities?
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Oh, they must be there. Technology is changing the world,
and it's a question of making sure you know what
technology you're good at, and if you're not good at it,
perhaps brushing up your skills and seeing where it's taking you.
There's always opportunities, there's always new things happening. You have
(35:14):
to be across them.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
How come you're so sharp.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
To my brain?
Speaker 1 (35:23):
I'm trying to, I know, because it's funny.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I actually I've been classified as a super ager, a
super ASA. Yes, because my brain. Because of my brain.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
I wouldn't be surprised because I had on the podcast
John Howard been through and John's the saying John's recollection
of stuff, Like it's amazing what he was recollecting, Like
some of the things he was talking about, names, places, dates, individuals, times, events,
just rolling about one half the other. I mean, you
can't hear very well. So he was shouting at me.
(35:54):
But we're managing. We managed to We managed to bring
that down on the edit. But but other than that,
like his ability to respond like yours, like it's like sharp, quick,
quick witted. You're actually answering my questions before I finish
my question, and and you're sort of absorbing the question
(36:16):
faster than I can even get the question out. And
what do you put that down to? Because a lot
of people these days want to age well, they want
to live a long time, you know, the longevity, all
that sort of stuff. I haven't retired, Okay, Nora's John said, well,
what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (36:31):
It means you're still using your brain. You're still thinking,
how do you do it?
Speaker 1 (36:35):
How do you stimulate? What are the stimuli for you?
What is it? Conversations with a hand.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
So I'm writing speech at the moment about giving mine's
hope and that's I'm delivering that a neurodegenerative conference on Friday,
and it is to do with my work, primarily to
do with my work with dementia Australia. Well, well, I've
worked since two thousand and eight because my father had
(37:04):
vascular dementia and I was working on it yesterday, and
it really challenges your brain to sort of you think, now,
what else can I add in here? I've got to
tell them about hope. The new drugs that offer hope,
that they're very expensive, they've got serious side effects. But
(37:25):
for the first time, we have drugs that will absolutely
stop the progression of dementia. So we're on the right track.
And for years and years it seemed that we were
never going to find anything to stop the progress of dementia.
It's not a cure, it just stops the progression. So
that offers the mind hope. So within that frame, within
(37:48):
that heading, I've got to cover lots of things. And
I was thinking this morning as I was getting ready
to come in here, I thought, hmm, I know how
I'll end it. Now. My brain was thinking, how am
I going to end this speech? I've started? Well, I've
just I'm need to trim the middle. But I've got
it all there. I just don't have the ending yet,
(38:11):
but I think I've worked it out. So my brain
is always busy.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
So how long is the speech going to go?
Speaker 2 (38:18):
For?
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Long? Often out I got that thirty minutes. Is that's
feeling intense?
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yes, it's about five thousand words yep.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
And do you break I'm just curious because similarly, I
make lots of speeches. Do you break your speech up?
And to say five lots of six minute lots, so
you'll have a six minute section, six minute section by five?
How do you work out how to spend thirty minutes
engaging an audience?
Speaker 2 (38:41):
I just delivered the speech. I don't I expect them
to listen. I don't use PowerPoint because people read the PowerPoint.
You haven't got them at all. They have to listen
to me. I have to grab their attention. I have
to keep them amused. So you drop something light in
the middle, give him a laugh, and then go back
(39:02):
to the serious message. No, I don't do six minutes lots.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Of You don't structure foreign.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Well, I structure it beginning, middle and end, Yes, right,
call to arms whatever, whatever, it's all in there.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Have you started have you tried out using have you
tried to use artificial intelligence? Two?
Speaker 2 (39:24):
I don't know enough about it. You know, there's a
guy coming. There's a guy I'm going to hear on
in a couple of days time, who's going to talk
about AI for seniors, And I thought, well, that could
be interesting, so I might trot along and hear what
he's got to say. But when I'm writing a book,
(39:48):
my time has always taken up with writing the book,
and now my time has taken up with marketing the book,
because it's not enough for an author just to write
a book. You've got to market the book. And I
try to keep my mind tidy. So my focus is
on this book at the moment, and once it's done
(40:10):
and it's out there for people to decide for themselves
whether or not I've written something that they want to read,
I'll then address my need for more information on AI.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
So the book you're talking about is this one here unapologetically.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Iter that's someone.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
So what is this book about now? And why did
you write this book? And when did you write it?
Speaker 2 (40:34):
I wrote it last year, in twenty twenty four. So
when you chaired the ABC, you defend the ABC. You
have opinions about national broadcasters, you have opinions about political interference,
but you don't have opinions about much else because you
have to keep your opinions to yourself. Because I I
(40:58):
didn't want the ABC to be a q of being
one way or the other because of a thought I
might have had. So don't express your thoughts as freely
as I can now. So once I'd finished my chairmanship
of the ABC after five years, I thought I can
get my voice back. I can raise issues that concern me.
(41:20):
So this is that includes areas that concern me, things
about I never thought I'd live in Australia where people
couldn't afford to buy a home in the capital cities,
and that's what we've got now. I never thought I'd
live in a world which seems intent on destroying itself
because people have blinkers and climate change. How much more
(41:44):
do we have to see the climate change? How many
warnings do we have to receive from scientists to know
that the world is threatened by its climate because of
the careless behavior of us on the planet. It's a
human destruction of a planet and we can't do that.
We have to leave the planet in good shape for
(42:04):
all the people that come after us. We're all here
only once, but it's not our world. It belongs to everybody.
Everybody here and everybody that's coming after us.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
It's interesting you call it unapologetically.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
You.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
During your championship with the ABC, I often thought about you,
and I often thought to myself, there the difficulty you
must have had in terms of issues that were happening
around it. Sometimes the ABC was the issue itself. Was
(42:42):
within the ABC or alternative of the ABC was commenting
and commenting on issues in other places where they were realisious,
and I used to think to myself the conflict that
that must raise in someone's mind if they have a
personal view. Was it a difficult thing or was it
something you had to consistently and assistently work on to
divorce Ida Buttrose's personal view from what ended up becoming
(43:07):
the National Broadcasters view is that something you have to
continually work on has you.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Don't continually work on it, you just accept that there
are limitations to what you can say when you take
on the job, and when you've been in a job
just a few weeks, you realize how true that is.
You know, you just you just can't because you'll you'll
damage it. And I love the ABC and I wouldn't
want to damage it. So I was very consistent in
(43:36):
keeping my thoughts to myself. I might have I might
have shared them with the managing director from time to time,
but apparently they were they were private. They were private
discussions between David Anderson and myself.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
But it is is therefore difficult because when you're the
editor of the women's magazines and the women's part of
you know, newspapers, et cetera, you were quite forthright in
your own views relative to how they would be, you know,
like women's rights, not so much women's rights, but just
(44:08):
being forthright about women generally. You could push those things through.
Your ideologies could be seen in the context of whatever
it was that you were producing as editor in chief.
But when you're at the ABC in a championship role,
a chair person's role, you're not able to your own
(44:30):
ideology has to be sort of somewhat suppressed.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Well publicly, yes, yes, but for instance, I did encourage
more women in the newsroom and that was already underway,
and I just let it be known that I supported
that idea, and I would send encouraging messages from time
(44:53):
to time to certain people. And so you can still
do the things you believe in, you just don't make
it quite so public.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
And would you would you say that you ever pulled
a leaf out of say Kerry's book, Kerry Packer's book Playbook,
so to speak, as chairman of as chairperson of the ABC,
would you come down to the newsroom and go and
see what everybody's doing like Kerry used to do. We
used to sort of to some extent, sort of get involved.
(45:24):
You're a cameraman or you're you're a journalist. How are
you going? You know, what are you doing, what you're
working on? Did you do that or is it not
really your role?
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Not really my role, I don't think. But it's a
very big building at Ultimore. You can get lost in it.
So I was on the fourteenth floor and there were
lots of areas below me, and then there was another
building alongside, a smaller building, and there were people there.
(45:55):
So it was hard to see everybody. But I used
to attend events and talk to people. Of course you would.
But it's not the same. It's not the same as
as Consolidated Press was under carry Packer.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Because I guess in some extent Kerry was not the
chairperson but more the owner, the proprietor.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Definitely the owner, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Proprietor, and you do it the way I want it
to be done. So to speak.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
He's Frank used to say to me, I own the
bloody papers, don't I yes, sir, Frank, well do do
what I want.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
I tell you funny story one time I said to
Kerry went here and I'm business together. I said, oh, look,
a current fair wants to do an interview with me.
I don't know why I was telling him. I was
just telling him, just updating him. And he said I
wouldn't do it. And I said why not? I said,
good publicy we know. He said nah. He said I
wouldn't do it. I wouldn't be let a current of
(46:50):
interview me. He said, I wouldn't. I said, for you're
the owner, I said. He said, son, I'm telling you
I wouldn't do it. I did it, and I wish
I hadn't have won see what happened, But I wish
I had enough. And he said, And when it came
up on the thing, he called me up. He said,
what did I tell you? And he was he was
(47:12):
very I.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Mean, that was advised straight from the horse's mouth, and
you ignored it.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
And I, well, I was. I was so held met
on getting publicity for my business at the time, and
it was all new for me. It was all free,
like I'm going to take the advantage of the opportunity.
May never get it again. But his advice was correct,
and it's funny you're what you're saying to me anyway,
As a chairperson of an institution, obviously Channel nine became
(47:40):
an institution, but as an institution, your role is more guidance.
What is the role of a chairperson of strategy?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Strategy? Yeah, observing the charter applicating.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Governments government interference.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Government is batting it off.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Do governments ring up like any type any stripes the
governments say, listen, we're not happy with that story you
guys did on whatever it was.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
No, they leak things to the media, to.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
The other medias. Yeah, it's basically letting you know that
they're not happy. And then you what do you do?
Do you apologize it? What do you say?
Speaker 2 (48:20):
No, you don't. You don't apologize with a national broadcaster.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Yeah, so you don't say anything. You just roll.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
The reason why democracy needs national broadcasters is because they're
not interfered with. The government doesn't have a right to
tell us what we should do and what we should cover.
It's not like commercial media, which might adhere to advertiser's appeal.
(48:47):
So we say, so there's no commercial interference in the ABC.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
Yeah, that's interesting. So is unapologetically a reference to a
period time where you couldn't say what you wanted to say.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
No, it's just this is it.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
It is me. I'm saying it.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
That's right, like it a lump it that's right, like
a little lumpet. This is what I think.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
I couldn't give a damn, But I need to say
this now.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
You don't give a damn. The older you don't apologize,
the older you get, you don't give it damn.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
By the way, you know, some people say to me,
you're right. I say, reason I do what I do
because I just don't care. I don't care what anyone thinks.
I really couldn't care less. Like I don't even prove
to everybody, to my audience, for example, I don't I
don't care. I mean, I want them to have a
good enjoy the interviews. But I don't care so much anymore.
(49:41):
When I was younger, I always cared. I was always worried.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
I think you just learned to live with it, don't you.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Yeah, yeah, well you've got to roll with it at
the end. Of the day. Can you can you just
give me some just a couple of things that you
really says here, look after your brain? Oh my god,
I just turned chapter five look after Brain? Has I
got something to do with you? With your experience and
dementia Australia.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Well yes, and now I'm the chair of the Divisory
Remedy of the Center for Healthy Brain Aging. And you
know people ignore their brain, but we now know that
if you look after your brain. We do believe if
people looked after their brain and then subsequently did things
that were good for the brain, like not getting too obese,
(50:22):
like controlling blood pressure, like keeping cholesterol low, like physically exercising,
like challenging the brain by making it learn new things,
that you can reduce your risk of vascular dementia. We
think that's the dementia that people's behavior influences. So if
(50:45):
people could modify their behavior, our research tells us that
people could reduce their risk of dementia, of vascular dementia.
You don't have to get it, but it's up to
you to look after your body and it's your brain.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
I got to show the camera with this because it's
a bit scary, Like I just literally I didn't have
I didn't have a mark, but I picked it up
and just opened up on any page, and it's chapter five,
Look after your Brain, page under twenty three, and we're
talking about vascular dementia. It's interesting that you should raise
that because I just I might quickly say that vascular
(51:21):
dementia is usually caused by your brain not getting enough
blood flow which carries oxygen nutrients, and your neurons start
to die off. And I know a little bit about
it because dementia is a scary topic for me, you know,
because I have it in my family, ceter so it
worries me. And as someone who's had a lot of
concussions in the during the periods of boxing, Yeah, and
(51:46):
it worries me a lot. So I've spent a bit
of time looking at dementia and all the various forms
of adventure. There's lots of forms of adventure, as you know.
But it is I read somewhere that I heard some
of the other day. It is now Australia's number one killer.
It is overtaken heart attack, cardio arre cratecoris. And we
(52:07):
don't that chapter's important chapter. We don't pay enough attention
to it In Australia, we sort of ignore it.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Well the government. The government is aware of the caseload.
It's four hundred and thirty three thousand Australians currently living
with dementia and that figure is expected to double without
in say by twenty fifty six, if we don't get
a medical breakthrough. Now, I've mentioned the drugs that are
offering hope, but there's a long way to go with those.
(52:36):
So what we need is an awareness campaign. Awareness because
the research tells us that not enough Australians know about
the risk factors. They say that they would modify their
behavior if they knew what they had to do. So
I've listed them for you. Exercise challenge the brain, so
(52:56):
socially interact with people. Challenge the brain with something new
that hasn't done before. What's your blood pressure, what's your cholesterol?
Don't get overweight, drink in moderation and don't smoke.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
Yeah, don't smoke is a big one, and they're all
behavioral things. By the way, we're not talking about any genetic.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
There, no, no, it's just up to people themselves to
take responsibility for their brain and the health.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Do you feel as though to some extent this book
is I mean, whilst it says unapologetically Eider, it's not
really about Ida. It's about new movements not dissimilar to
the one that you were part of in the seventies
and eighties and nineties in relation to women in Australia.
(53:42):
But it's now sort of now it's not necessarily about
women now it's about Australians. When I look at a
chaplo that taking control of their life.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
Well it is. It is about It is about you
taking control of your life like you've.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
Always done I have. But as you said earlier, about
making choices, but being aware of the choices you make.
So when it comes to being in business, you're saying,
you know, you make the choice, you go do what
you want to do. If you want to be a
mother and you be a mother, that's fine. If you
want to be a mother and be a working mother,
that's fine. If you don't want to be a mother,
that's fine. By the way, if you want to have
(54:19):
if you don't want to, if you want to have
a problem with your brain, you should be aware of
these things. If you don't want to have a problem
with your brain, you don't want to get dementia. You've
got to be aware of these things and make a choice.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Yes, you do, But why would you want to get
dementia if you could avoid it?
Speaker 1 (54:37):
Nobody would mean to me. I would think, and I've
said it to my kids, that is the worst thing
I could possibly get as an individual. And I have
made a lot of bad choices in my life early
on behaviorally, not these days, but when I'm getting to
an age where I'm I can't do those things that
you see when I was younger, but I did made
(55:00):
choice me wrong choices. Sorry, Like what drinking.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
And I can still drink, but I drank a lot.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
But I drank a lot. I boxed a lot, like
a lot too much. And I had no idea if
my dad was a box and I didn't know that
something all that could cause imagin' even know what dementia was.
When I was a young guy, had no idea. And
in fact, in those days, if you got hit in
the head and you kept going, that was like a
badge of honor in my sort of cohorter people growing up.
(55:30):
Or if you played football and you didn't come off
the field when you've been had had been hit in
the head. That was a badge of honor. And it's
it's interesting that their behavioral things, but it's about awareness.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
Yes, So I think brain health has to start when
children are young so that they grow up with these
messages ingrained in them to look after your brain. So
if you're going out on the bike, put your helmet on.
If you're playing cricket, put a helmet on with it
with a neckart so you don't get hit by a ball,
(56:03):
all of those things.
Speaker 1 (56:04):
What would you say to someone then who says, oh,
we're just turning on nanny state or that type of conversation,
Like I see it in the I don't know if
you follow the rugby league, but I see it when
I hear older patrons of the game say to me
and I don't think this way. Oh, in the old days,
he wouldn't have come off after you got that b
(56:25):
head knock. He would have played on. We would have
played on and this is just turned on nanny state.
What do you say to those people.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Well, that's ridiculous. It's ridiculous because we now know that
if you knock the brain around too much on the
football field, you can get dementia. So what's why wouldn't
you want a warning about that? And why wouldn't you
come off the field and stop playing for a bit
if you did get a bad knock on your head?
(56:54):
Nanny said bull dust.
Speaker 1 (56:57):
Actually, yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I but
do you think then therefore, as a country, we're starting
to mature a little bit and stop being so because
you know, we were that old school rough and ready.
You know, you'll be right, you'll be fine, get on
with it. We're starting to be a bit more intelligent
about how we live our lives.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
I hope. So I do think so.
Speaker 1 (57:18):
And is your book sort of trying to passionately drive that.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Well, one thing that's hardest of all is to change
people's behavior. People always think it's going to be someone else.
It's not going to be them, it's going to be
them over there.
Speaker 1 (57:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:37):
And the thing is with dementia, it doesn't it doesn't
discriminate against anybody. Everybody can be a subject of dementia.
Speaker 1 (57:49):
So I mean, as I said, I don't want to
focus just on one chapter, because you've got lots of
chapters in here, But that one chapter about your brain,
looking after your brain, it doesn't dementia doesn't become a
problem just when you get to my age or an older.
Speaker 2 (58:04):
No, there's childhood dementia. There's about twenty seven thousand Australians
living with younger onset dimension.
Speaker 1 (58:12):
Twenty seven thousand. Yes, and the habits or the behavior
that ultimately can end up in dementia for example at
an old age. Actually someoneh you're younger, So that awareness
program people need. Young people need to read these books.
Young people need to become aware of this stuff. They
should be going to listen to your giving hope to
(58:33):
the mind, your speech? Where's that speech?
Speaker 2 (58:36):
Acquarira University?
Speaker 1 (58:38):
At the university and is it part of some department
neurology or something like that.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
Neurops So they have a very big health campus and
they do have a dementia Center of Excellence.
Speaker 1 (58:49):
It do you do this with so much passion? And
I could see it so much passion and energy because
this is Eida trying to give something back to Australia
or is this because it's keeping eye as brain really
(59:10):
going her self.
Speaker 2 (59:11):
And all no healthy interests are really for the benefit
of Australians. I've been a situation where I've been able
to publicize them through in the magazines and newspapers that
I've edited, the radio programs that I've done, the TV
programs that I've done. And I think if you can
give back, you should Life is not just for taking,
(59:32):
it's forgiving. You have to give back to the community.
Speaker 1 (59:36):
And sometimes I think about that, and some of us
in the world have been blessed to come across. Sure
we took advantage opportunity. Sure we worked hard, I'll go
to all that, but we were blessed to have opportunities
to meet the packers or whatever of the world. And
as we get older, we tend to feel like we
need to pay that forward, give that back. So because
(01:00:02):
otherwise you're being selfish. You're just a selfish person. You
want to keep everying to yourself.
Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
But it's it's it's good to work with other organizations
that have that have got a mission like preventing dementia
or like improving eye health. You know, all the various
things that I'm involved in. But it's just it makes
you grow as a person, you know, and you it
(01:00:29):
enriches your life because you meet other people who are
being busy, beavering away in these areas and you think
that's really interesting. That's really interesting. I must talk about that.
I must tell people about that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
Yeah, it's it's it's amazing that you're you at yours,
your stage in life, and you know you're joh, I'm
not don't even get.
Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
It's just a child of eighty three.
Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Yes, So that's amazing that you are not only curious
about these things, but you're looking at things to enrich
your life. You're not sitting back and saying, oh, I've
done it all. I've been this editor and editor and
blah blah blah. You know, I'm independently Okay, financially I'm
going good. I've met everybody, You've met everybody. You're looking
(01:01:15):
at things to it continually to enrich your life.
Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
Yes, why not as long as you're here.
Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Yeah, totally to the moment, to the moment. Not here
from my point of view, I mean, we're talking about
Graham Richardson earlier on, who passed away a couple of
days ago, and rich O did his last sky News
cross to sky News from his hospital bed a couple
of days before he passed away.
Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
I believe that that's.
Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Some kind of guy he was, and it seems to me,
it seems to be the same fabric that you're got
in you. You're people say to Mark when you slid down, Well,
I don't know. I don't want to slay down, But like,
what else are we going to do? Like I'm not
going to sit aroun and home watch Netflix all day long.
I mean, like it's good for me. I'm the same.
(01:02:04):
Like I'm actually selfish in that the reason I do
everything I do, and I do a lot of stuff
where I don't get paid for it, make any money.
I'm just this whole show. Why I do this is
because I want people to be entertained by what entertains me.
But at the same time, selfishly, it's good for me
because I get to sit in front of Hider buttro So,
I getting to sit in front of Graham Richardson. I'm
(01:02:25):
getting John Laws. But if I didn't have this platform,
I wouldn't get that opportunity. And I learned something every
day from every one of these individuals, or I get
reminded of something I've forgotten. That's important. Remember, I don't
get chances to write books like you do. I'm You're
prolific in that you can write, You're a journalist, you
know how to do this stuff. I mean, it's harder
(01:02:45):
it takes for me to write that. It would take
me two years, and I go mental trying to do it.
But I say, if I don't have that skill, But
how important is it to be not selfish in the
evil sense, but selfish towards making yourself enriched? How important
is that for people to do that, not just be curious,
(01:03:09):
but do something about it.
Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Well, it's up to the person. It's up to each
individual person. It's not making time for it, it's just
making it a part of your life.
Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
Do you think it's but it's obviously worked for you.
Do you think it's a good technique for people to
learn from you and maybe do for themselves. It doesn't
have to be to the extent you do it, but
just continually trying to enrich your mind.
Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
I think so, I mean, well, just try it. Volunteer
for something that you wouldn't normally volunteer for help out
in the community. There's always people looking for help, that's
for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
And I think that concept is use raised before about
giving back. Otherwise we tend to we can actually get
into that sort of horrible sort of spiral of either
apologizing or alternatively winging, and if you're looking for some
(01:04:17):
way to get back, you stop whinging.
Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
And life's too short to winge.
Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
Quite frankly, that'll go down in the that that that phrase,
that'll that'll that'll make the front of our podcast promotion.
Life's too short to winge. I can just see Sami
Abrodus is sitting out of there thinking about that. I
want to write some notes. But you're right, Adam, buttro
said life's too short to winge. There's a big lesson
(01:04:47):
in that one. It's nearly a second heading. Don't winge.
Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
Short.
Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
That's that's your next mission. And see that's amazing. Straight
up you said, I'll write an of the book. That's
amazing too. Are taking opportunities. Thanks very much for the buttress.
Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
That's thank you very much. I've enjoyed it.
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