Future Women coming to Canberra

Posted on 8 February, 2019

She has her finger on the pulse of Australian women and has done for the last decade.

Now former Australian Women’s Weekly editor Helen McCabe is bringing her newest venture, Future Women, to Canberra.

Launched six months ago, the online subscription platform owned by Nine, speaks to women with a decidedly professional and political bent.

Helen admits it is almost a perfect time in global gender politics to be tackling the hard issues – particularly women’s political representation, corporate influence and social equality.

“We want to be thought leaders in the space and to elevate the debate. But we are also cautious about what influence we exert. Of course, Future Women is progressive and believes in equality for all women but we also never want to assume all women vote in a particular way. So we want to respect that and present quality content accordingly.”

In Canberra, where women tend to have even higher levels of political engagement than other cities, Future Women’s first event will be one which truly traverses all sides of the political spectrum and unpicks some of the policy impacting on gender equality.

On Wednesday 20 February, Future Women’s editor-at-large Jamila Rizvi will host an exclusive and off-the-record event with the former chiefs of staff to Prime Ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Julia Gillard, and Treasurer Wayne Swan.

Jamila Rizvi. Credit: Daniel Spellman.

Dr Jim Chalmers, who is now Shadow Minister for Finance and the former COS to Wayne Swan, Clive Mathieson (former COS  Chief of Malcolm Turnbull) and Amanda Lampe (former COS to Julia Gillard) have never appeared on stage together before.

Jamila, herself a former staffer for Kevin Rudd as well as journalist and author, will guide them through a wide-ranging discussion about why women’s interests too often get left behind in lawmaking and who has the power to change it.

Among the guests at the event will be a selection of high profile political and media figures including former Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, Dr Kerryn Phelps and Senator Sarah Hanson Young.

“Hopefully there will also be more than a few men attending. I can’t stress enough how important it is to have men engaged in this debate so they are very welcome. We’ve had quite a few at our Sydney events,” Helen said.

She said ‘Meet the Chiefs’ plays directly to our city’s proximity to the policy and political process.

“Canberra is different and this sort of event wouldn’t work anywhere else. Future Women will be targeting this policy and political interest and pitching our Canberra events accordingly. We also know that while it is tempting to complain about the lack of female political representation, we want to spark a genuine debate around solutions.”

the essentials

What: ‘Meet The Chiefs’ hosted by Future Women
When: Wednesday 20 February from 6.30 pm
Where: QT Canberra, 1 London Circuit, Canberra
Tickets here