Dr Jocelynne A. Scutt

Dr Jocelynne A. Scutt is Anti-Discrimination Commissioner for Tasmania, operating under and administering the Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 (Tasmania). Prior to becoming Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Commissioner in October 1999, Dr Scutt was in private practice at the Melbourne Bar, where she specialised in administrative law, anti-discrimination and equal opportunity, tax, corporate law and banking, criminal law, immigration, property and equity, human rights and the rights of Indigenous people. She is founding director of Artemis Publishing and of the consultancy Light & Power, and co-founder of Steadfast Communications. She has been a director of the Victorian Women’s Trust, a member of various boards including the Victoria Law Foundation, Social Biology Resources Centre, New South Wales Women’s Advisory Council, the Australian Institute of Political Science, and of the Copyright Tribunal. 

After graduating in law from the University of Western Australia in 1969 (LlB), Jocelynne Scutt attended the University of Sydney where she gained a Master of Laws (LlM) degree and Diploma of Jurisprudence (Dip. Juris) before studying overseas at Southern Methodist University and the University of Michigan in the USA, the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and the Max-Planck-Institut in Germany. She gained another Master of Laws (LlM) and her Doctor of the Science of Jurisprudence (SJD) in Michigan in 1974 and 1979, and Diploma of Legal Studies (Dip Legal Studies) from Cambridge in 1976. Subsequently she gained a Master of Arts (MA) from the University of New South Wales (1984) and in 1994 was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws (LlD) (Honoris Causa) by Macquarie University. She is suspended, midstream, in studying film and television at the University of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), and is currently writing on ‘Golden Girls, Wise or Wanton Women? Diana, Marilyn and Grace’, an ethical insight into the cult of celebrity and attempted denial of women’s agency. 

Jocelynne Scutt has worked with the Australian Law Reform Commission, the Australian Institute of Criminology, the Victorian  Parliamentary Legal and Constitutional Committee, and was Deputy Chairperson of the Law Reform Commission, Victoria, before going into private practice at the Bar. She practiced primarily in Victoria, as well as in Tasmania and the Northern Territory, and practiced also in New South Wales, South Australian and Western Australia, as well as doing opinion work in the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland. 

Some of her books are Even in the Best of Homes - Violence in the Family, The Baby Machine - Commercialisation of Motherhood, The Sexual Gerrymander - Women and the Economics of Power, Women and the Law, Breaking Through - Women, Work and Careers, Taking a Stand - Women in Politics and Society, Living Generously - Women Mentoring Women. She is editor of the Artemis ‘Women’s  Voices, Women’s Lives’ series (ten books published and five at various stages of production), has a number of books in the planning - including Reputation - Image, Ethics and Respectability, and has recently completed a book on equal pay, for the Australian Federation of Business and Professional Women, National Council of Women and New South Wales Trades and Labour Council, Wage Rage - Women’s Struggle for Equal Pay.

Under the nom de plume Melissa Chan she has published crime novels and short stories and co-edited anthologies (with J. Terry). She has read her work at various venues/writers’ festivals - including Adelaide Writers Festival 1994. 

You can access Dr Jocelynne's Scutt paper, "Definitive Moments - Capturing the Politics of Bullying" in the Centre's November Issue of the Leading Issues Journal. She presented this paper at the Bullying Conference which she organised in Hobart in October 2000

Tasmania Anti-Discrimination Commission Website: http://www.justice.tas.gov.au/adc/adcfrontpage.htm 

Interview with Dr Jocelynne Scutt

Do you see yourself as a leader? 

This is a problematic question for most women, and for me. 

It raises notions of overwhelming and overweening ego. 

Why? because 'leader' and 'leadership' are words we

generally see used in a world where they apply too often to the 'puffed

up' and self-important. women generally don't see themselves (or

operate) in these terms.

Leader of what?

I see myself as working to build on the work of women of the past to

gain a better future for women and hence 'the world'. I see myself

working *together* with women (and the few men who recognise injustice

operating against women and disadvantaged minorities - including women

and men) to achieve this.

What does being a Feminist mean to you and do you regard yourself as

one? 

Being a feminist is to believe in the right of women to be regarded

as fully human, as beings with a right to economic independence and

equal access to the polity, with equal rights in politics and society. I

have always been a feminist and see the need to live always as one - and

ultimately to die as one. I cannot see a time when feminism and

feminists will not be necessary - essential - to the growth of the

common good.

What motivated you to take on the position as Anti-Discrimination

Commissioner for Tasmania? 

A new act, a new commission - and the power

and right to establish the office and to provide the initial

interpretation of the act in terms of claims of discrimination and

prohibited conduct. It was time to move on - and being a

(nonhypocritical) republican, I could not make application for silk 

(qc still in Victoria) and hold my head up!

What is your opinion of the pre-selection practices of our major

political parties with respect to women and how can these practices be

challenged to reflect equality and non-discrimination? 

The preselection processes should be challenged as unconstitutional. 

Iwould love to run this argument in the high court.

Do women as victims lack credibility in the legal system and if so,

what are the implications of this for the legal system and society?

Yes. and not only as victims - as litigants, as barristers and

solicitors (practitioners), as expert witnesses, as magistrates, as

tribunal members, as judges etc etc. The implications for the legal

system and society are immensely, and immensely sad. It means that

notions of justice in the context of the law are foreign.

In your view, does the current industrial relations environment of

enterprise bargaining disadvantage women and is this also the case for

men? 

The current industrial relations system of enterprise bargaining,

individual contracts and Australian workplace agreements is enormously

disadvantaging to all lower paid workers, of which the vast bulk are

women. It advantages those with the greatest power and status. How many

women do we see taking on the role of chief executive officer, doing a

thoroughly incompetent job, and leaving with the most enormous golden

handshake, plus waggonloads of shares or share options (probably both)

as well as the plaudits of the financial press? The mind boggles at the

'merit' operating in this world!

In your analysis of the history of women's oppression, do you think

much has changed for women? How far have women really come?

Women have made enormous advances - the vote, right to stand/run for

political office, right to go to university, to practice various

professions previously denied to women - law, medicine, etc, right to

enter various trades denied - electrician, plumbing, metal trades, iron

and steel manufacture, etc. Women have won rights in the family sphere -

although these rights are more often honoured in the breach. Hence to

the downside - the struggles are 'the same' although at a different

level now - for example, we have the right to go to university, enter

professions etc and hence the 'right' to be bullied and sexually

harassed in them, as well as not gaining the right to be accepted as

'equal' or equally meritorious or more metorious, etc.

Still, the struggle has had its huge successes and we're still in there.

I think 'the other side' has just begun to wake up to the fact that we

are not about to go away nor to give up the struggle. (surprise

surprise)

What three areas would you focus on if you had the power to create

fundamental reform for women?

* equal economic power and resources;

* abolition of power over and substitution of 'power together' and

'power alongside';

* dissolution of the class system which is running riot under the

current system - with vacuum cleaner nozzles in the pockets of the poor

snuffling up their money/resources (little and few as they are) into the

pockets of the rich, whose greed is being bolstered daily - nay hourly

or by the minute, through government policies and corporate practices.

What strategies would you recommend to women to use to help

themselves and each other in their workplace and community?

Recognise the huge trust women of the past have bestowed upon us, and

not ignore women and those who are poor (here and in other countries) in

the fight to scramble up the ladder at a rapid rate of knots (which will

of course, even if you don't recognise it, be far, far slower than any man

on that same ladder). Pay attention to the women under the concrete

canopy - at least with a glass ceiling over your head, you can see the

sky.

What are your feelings about reconciliation from a personal and a

legal point of view?

'Reconciliation' is useless if we think of it from dominant white

society point of view. It is also useless if it is 'just words'. Why do

aboriginal people have to get water access, electricity access, roads,

garbage collection etc out of funds from ATSIC, and not as a matter of

course through the sources from which non-aboriginal people expect these

services to come - namely, 'ordinary' government and local government.

What use is 'reconciliation' if aboriginal people, in huge numbers,

continue to live in so-called third world conditions? If aboriginal

culture is destroyed or exploited or expropriated for 'white' dominant

society purposes?

Why do you think Australia should become a Republic?

Australia is an independent country. Hence, the need for an Australian

as head of state. The Windsors have nothing to do with Australia and

nothing to offer.

The first step must, however, be determining upon the powers of the

office of president (this holds true for the governor general and

governors if Australia remains a monarchy which it won't).

What are your long-term aspirations?

I have never had a five year plan or any year plan. Don't believe in

them. My long term aspirations are that women achieve all the goals set

out above.