Speaking in Manchester, Julia Gillard appeared to show some regret at how the changes to definition of gender had been interpreted and become a cause of controversy.
After delivering the Cockroft Rutherford lecture at the university on Wednesday evening, Ms Gillard was asked by an audience member about the issues of gender identity and the fact that, thanks to the changes to the act under her government, women in Australia are no longer defined by biological sex.
Ms Gillard at first claimed the issue wouldn’t be of interest to a British audience, before telling her questioner that the issues “were not raised by anyone (back in 2012, when the legislation came before parliament)) because they simply weren’t a matter of public discourse the way they are today.”
“It was a different time,’’ she added. “So it is an error to uplift what we know now and the public discourse now and just putting it down to 14 years ago’’.
The comments were the first recent public utterances Ms Gillard has made about the impact of Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act which was changed in 2013 when she was prime minister. It comes as she has faced a series of protests held by pro-women activists in Britain over the past month highlighting her government’s legislative changes and the deleterious impact they have had on women’s rights.
At the time of the changed legislation in 2013, an explanatory Australian government memorandum said the Act would repeal the Act’s statutory definitions of “man” and “woman”, while simultaneously adding new protected attributes of sexual orientation, gender identity, and intersex status.
But by removing the explicit biological definitions of a man and a woman, the Act has since been interpreted by the courts as preferencing gender identity ahead of biological sex.
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