http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/kate-ellis/ Kate Ellis grew up in the in the Murray River town of Mannum in South Australia. Her family owned the local bakery and her mother worked as a teacher at the local primary school. Kate moved with her family to Adelaide where she attended high school in the inner south-western suburbs and later studied international relations and politics at Flinders University. Her political interest was sparked when higher education funding was slashed and massive increases to HECS fees were introduced. She became involved with student campaigns to highlight these and other issues, was editor of the student newspaper and later President of the Students’ Association. Kate worked for two South Australian state ministers before making her mark at a federal level. On October 9 2004, Kate made history as the youngest woman ever elected to the Australian House of Representatives, after winning the seat of Adelaide. Following the Australian Labor Party election victory in November 2007 Kate was elevated to the Rudd Government ministry as the Minister for Sport and Youth, and Minister for Early Childhood, Education and Childcare. She is now Minister for Employment Participation, Minister for Status of Women and Minister for Child Care. In her elusive spare time, she loves to cook, play for her local social netball team and attempts to keep her garden alive. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-a-19th-century-leader-sets-a-tone-of-sexism/ Some might be wondering why two days of our national media cycle have included debate over a man miaowing like a cat and the appropriate level of offence it should or shouldn’t cause. While we’d like our parliament to set a standard for the rest of the community, the truth is we often fall well short - in terms of behaviour and sexism. There has been progress but it is still a parliament dominated by men in suits. Women here, like women in any workplace, are entitled to enjoy equal treatment in all senses. No-one is asking for favours or complaining about the hustle and bustle that accompanies hard-fought debate but there is just one request - maybe we could treat members of both genders equally. There were howls from the Opposition when the Government described the noise that was made towards Penny Wong as sexist. The reality is that not only was it sexist but it also pointed to a pretty unpleasant pattern of behaviour, which has flourished under the leadership of Tony Abbott. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Kate Ellis) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-a-19th-century-leader-sets-a-tone-of-sexism/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-a-19th-century-leader-sets-a-tone-of-sexism/#item5994 Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:50:05 +0000 Kate Ellis | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/theres-no-such-thing-as-just-a-domestic/ The nation was stunned by the gruesome triple homicide in Kapunda last year. A husband, wife and their 16 year old daughter were each butchered by multiple stab wounds in their otherwise peaceful rural home. Also shocking was the neighbour who heard repeated screams of “help, help” and stated that he heard a woman who “sounded desperate to get away from someone” decided against calling the police. He believed it was probably just a domestic dispute. On this, the 100th International Women’s Day, our country now has a female Prime Minister. We have a female Governor General. Three of the seven justices of the High Court are women. These are some pretty good statistics. Here are some more: In Australia today one in three women experience physical violence after the age of fifteen. One in five experience sexual violence. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Kate Ellis) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/theres-no-such-thing-as-just-a-domestic/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/theres-no-such-thing-as-just-a-domestic/#item5324 Mon, 07 Mar 2011 19:00:50 +0000 Kate Ellis | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/claims-weve-gone-soft-on-equal-pay-are-rubbish/ It costs nearly $1 million dollars more to be born a woman in this country. While the average 25 year old male will earn $2.4 million over the next 40 years, the average 25 year old woman will earn only $1.5 million. Of course there are a number of reasons for this gender pay gap. Women are more likely to work part time, take more time out of the workforce to undertake unpaid caring responsibilities and continue to bear a disproportionate share of the responsibility for unpaid household work. Traditionally feminised jobs in the caring and community sectors have been historically undervalued and consequently, underpaid. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Kate Ellis) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/claims-weve-gone-soft-on-equal-pay-are-rubbish/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/claims-weve-gone-soft-on-equal-pay-are-rubbish/#item4550 Wed, 24 Nov 2010 01:29:51 +0000 Kate Ellis | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/treating-womens-sport-like-a-trivial-fashion-contest/ I’m going to confess straight up to having little to zero interest in the underwear choices of Venus Williams. Yet in recent days her flesh coloured shorts have become a story in sport in themselves and sent twitter abuzz with is she or isn’t she wearing underpants debates. Perhaps this isn’t so shocking, Maria Sharapova’s green “frocklet” (I kid you not- apparently there is indeed such a thing), got its own press conference launch and then we saw precious column space designated to the diamond earring and necklace choices of Serena Williams, (which she liked “because it had lots of S’s in the design”, and we can all respect that). feedback@thepunch.com.au (Kate Ellis) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/treating-womens-sport-like-a-trivial-fashion-contest/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/treating-womens-sport-like-a-trivial-fashion-contest/#item2241 Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:05:29 +0000 Kate Ellis | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/moving-past-the-blame-game-on-body-image/ Sarah Murdoch and Mia Freedman are hot. Like really, really hot. But I don’t reckon that fact takes away from their years of experience, their first hand insight and the value of their contributions on the subject of tackling negative body image. That was exactly the reaction we’ve seen this week though, from some who argued that these women were too beautiful to have a valid role to play in the debate and were misplaced on the Government’s Body Image Advisory Group that reported this week. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Kate Ellis) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/moving-past-the-blame-game-on-body-image/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/moving-past-the-blame-game-on-body-image/#item1609 Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:45:15 +0000 Kate Ellis | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/kate-ellis-karl-lagerfeld-is-wrong-on-body-image/ Yesterday on The Punch, Tory argued that Karl Lagerfeld’s rather out there recent comments were right - “sort of”. The gist of Karl nobody-wants-to-see-a-round-woman Lagerfeld’s contribution was that the fashion world was all about fantasy so it shouldn’t be criticised if it chooses to use only skinny models with protruding bones on their catwalks, or photos that are digitally altered to make a models’ waist the size of her neck. It’s all fantasy, silly. What’s the harm? Tory’s semi-agreement seemed rather more based on personal preference and a dislike of a recent magazine’s choice of “plus size” models. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Kate Ellis) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/kate-ellis-karl-lagerfeld-is-wrong-on-body-image/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/kate-ellis-karl-lagerfeld-is-wrong-on-body-image/#item1470 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:00:58 +0000 Kate Ellis | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Sports-stars-do-not-have-the-right-to-be-boneheads/ As the media cycle turns once more to appalling allegations against one of our sport stars, it provides a timely opportunity to talk about a new phenomena that seems to be connected to the recent spate of indiscretions by sports people. It’s a phenomena that I like to call the “let boneheads be boneheads” movement. You may have heard the movement’s devotees out in force. They’re the ones calling in to talkback radio and defending the behaviour of their heroes by arguing that we should only focus on what happens whilst on the sporting arena. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Kate Ellis) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Sports-stars-do-not-have-the-right-to-be-boneheads/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Sports-stars-do-not-have-the-right-to-be-boneheads/#item892 Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:00:26 +0000 Kate Ellis | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/should-successful-athletes-have-to-pay-back-the-ais/ Over the past 18 months I have regularly been presented with two opposing yet pretty extreme views on the issue of sports funding. On one hand you have the sport die hards who set the sky as the limit; you know the argument - give sport whatever it takes to win gold, gold, gold or whatever dollars is needed to beat the Poms at everything and anything! Then there is, quite literally, the other side of the coin. Why should we use taxpayers money to fund those athletes that are already exceptionally well paid to fly around the world to play games when the money could be better spent on…please insert policy priority of choice. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Kate Ellis) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/should-successful-athletes-have-to-pay-back-the-ais/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/should-successful-athletes-have-to-pay-back-the-ais/#item286 Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:00:09 +0000 Kate Ellis | Author bios | The Punch