Hello and welcome to the witness history podcast with me, Alex Collins. I'm taking you back

10 years to one of the most famous speeches ever made in the Australian Parliament.

Prime Minister Judea Gillard was reacting to claims by opposition leader Tony Abbott that

she was sexist. I remember this sort of drum beat in my head and I don't want to use

any bad language so I'll put it in the language of saying to myself there haven't say don't

tell me I'm going to go into that chamber today and be lectured about sexism. That did awaken

in me a really keen sense of frustration, a kind of cool anger because I'd bitten my lip

a lot of times when very sexist things had happened and I hadn't responded and it just struck

me as so unfair indeed. Cruel that somehow this was all going to be reversed upon me.

It's the 9th of October 2012, a day of high political drama. Peter Slipper, the speaker of

the house, has been caught up in a scandal. He's been accused of sending offensive texts about

women. Gillard had defended Slipper but she knew her support for the speaker would be used

against her by her political opponent Tony Abbott. She thought that Abbott would brand her as

sexist. She had endured sexist comments by Abbott including some about her appearance.

Gillard walked into the chamber just before 2pm Abbott spoke first and he accused her of being a

hypocrite. So how would she respond to that? I didn't have a written speech or anything like that

because I didn't know I would be giving a speech. What I did have in writing was some of Tony

Abbott's sexist quotes. I'd taken them in to use them as a flourish in question time

but they then became part of the content of the speech so it was delivered off my very bad hand

writing. She didn't know it at the time but she was about to make her most famous speech.

I rise to oppose the motion moved by the leader of the opposition and in so doing I say to the

leader of the opposition I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man I will not

...