Julia Gillard claims it was a ‘different time’
On Wednesday last week, former Prime Minister Julia Gillard was speaking at Manchester University. The event was picketed by a very small group of feminists outside. Inside, one member of the audience managed to ask Gillard about the loss of women’s rights in Australia due to these definition changes in law.
This is the question asked:
‘I want you to reflect on your time as Prime Minister of Australia when you changed the sex discrimination law to reflect gender identity and not sex, meaning that women in Australia are no longer defined in law by biological sex. Did you consider or reflect on some of the unintended consequences of that?’
Gillard replied:
‘Look, I’m not sure this is going to be too interesting to the audience because it’s a very Australian matter. But let me just respond in the following way: if you look at the parliamentary debates in the changes to the Sex Discrimination Act in
2012,
you’ll find that the issues you’re referring to were not raised by anyone because they simply weren’t a matter of public discourse the way they are today. So, it was a different time. It wasn’t something squarely before the Parliament at the time the legislation was being amended. So, I think we make an error in uplifting what we know now in public discourse now and just putting it down 14 years ago.’If what Julia Gillard says is true, why were the changes made? Why dissolve biological sex in favour of gender identity if the question of gender identity was not the central issue?
Surely the very existence of the change means it was raised sufficiently to make it into law…It does appear, however, that the politicians involved did not properly debate this bill and made very little effort to war-game unintended consequences. Considering it was, effectively, the second time around for the topic, the political class really phoned this one in.
In the original amendment, there were exemptions made to the inclusion of gender identity over biological sex, including to section 39 (voluntary bodies) and section 42 (sport). The existence of these exemptions strongly suggests that the pitfalls and danger of the amendment must have been known, else, why are they in there? Exemptions exist because of an assumed conflict.
Gillard is being strongly criticised for saying, it was a different time.
The implication being that Parliament was naive to the pitfalls of disempowering biological sex in law.
Gillard may no longer be in government, but both major parties have had several chances to fix earlier mistakes and, just last week, chose not to do so. The Greens have made utterly outrageous comments directed at One Nation, who were effectively herding the Coalition into stepping up.
...
There was an excellent submission made to the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill (2012) by a professor at the University of Melbourne which spelled at the problem extremely clearly.
In one section titled: The right to ‘gender identity’: a clash with the rights of women.
It states:
‘This submission addresses the addition of a new “protected attribute” in the Human Rights Bill, that of “gender identity”. The protected attribute of “sex”, under which women are protected from discrimination, is still in the list, but adding the new category of “gender identity”, could potentially create a clash of rights between male-bodied transgenders on the one hand, and those disadvantaged on the grounds of sex, women. In other jurisdictions, such legislation has seen the emergence of successful legal challenges in which male-bodied transgenders have sought access to spaces previously reserved for women, including women’s services such as sheltered housing, women’s toilets, and women’s prisons.
‘The demands of transgender activists to have “gender identity” included in human rights legislation were first articulated in detail in the US in the
1995 International Bill of Transgender Rights (Frye, 2000). It demanded the right to express the “gender identity” of choice in whatever way the exponent desired, particularly in any spaces previously reserved for women. An important right in the Bill is that of entering spaces set aside or for women, “The Right of Access to Gendered Space and Participation in Gendered Activity”.’
For this to even be written confirms the debate existed, that the conflict of rights was documented, and that it was not a different time, but rather the beginning of a cultural conversation that was never properly considered.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2026/07/julia-gillard-claims-it-was-a-different-tim...Captain Nemo wrote on Jul 4
th, 2026 at 10:42am:
Gillard is forever playing the 'I was young and naive' card.
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