Margaret Guilfoyle

Guilfoyle's first term in the Senate began on 1 July 1971. She was re-elected in 1974, 1975, 1980[1] and 1983,[4] retiring on 5 June 1987.[1] When she began her political career, she and Senator Nancy Buttfield were the only women in parliament. There were no female members in the House of Representatives. Guilfoyle was Australia's seventh female senator and the third from Victoria, after Wedgwood and Marie Breen. Over the course of her career, an additional 19 women were elected to the Senate.[5]

Soon after taking her seat, Guilfoyle joined the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Government Operations.[1] As part of the latter, in December 1973 she joined Ellis Lawrie and Bob Cotton in submitting a minority report that advocated the abolition of inheritance tax; their recommendations were eventually adopted almost a decade later.[6] Guilfoyle was appointed to the Senate Select Committee on Foreign Ownership and Control of Australian Resources in 1972, and the following year joined the Joint Committee on Prices. The Herald described her as "a housewife with a big say on prices",[1] while The Sunday Telegraph reported that she would be "looked upon by Australian housewives as their special friend in Canberra".[7] She in fact took pains to avoid being pigeonholed as a spokesperson for women.[1] According to her biographer, Margaret Fitzherbert, her choices of committee "reflected her professional interests and experience, and, in sidestepping committees that were overtly concerned with family issues, marked her apart from the women who had preceded her in parliament".[7]

In June 1974, Guilfoyle was appointed to Billy Snedden's shadow ministry as the Coalition spokesperson for the media. She supported Malcolm Fraser in the March 1975 leadership spill, and when he was successful, she was moved to the higher-profile education portfolio. Following the dismissal of the Whitlam Government in November 1975, Guilfoyle was appointed Minister for Education in Fraser's caretaker ministry. That made her the first woman to hold a cabinet-level ministerial portfolio;[8] she was the second woman appointed to cabinet, after Enid Lyons, and the second to be given a ministerial portfolio, after Annabelle Rankin.[lower-alpha 1][5] In December 1975, following the Coalition's victory at the 1975 election, Guilfoyle was appointed Minister for Social Security in the second Fraser Ministry. Her new portfolio was initially placed outside of cabinet, but she was reinstated in July 1976 after Ivor Greenwood's retirement. According to Fraser, she "contributed significantly to cabinet debates ... she could be totally relied on and she could think for herself – she wasn't a captive to the bureaucracy".[1]

In the social security portfolio, Guilfoyle was seen as skilful in balancing political and financial considerations.[10] She strongly resisted pressure to cut her department's budget, arguing that regular increases were needed simply to maintain existing programs. She believed any cuts would be unpopular with both the general public and her party's backbenchers, and there was no guarantee that they would pass the Senate. Fraser agreed with her rationale, and in 1979 she secured a "sizeable increase" in her department's budget.[1] She had an often tense relationship with Treasurer Phillip Lynch, who complained to Fraser that she was the most uncooperative minister in identifying potential spending cuts.[11] During her tenure, Guilfoyle oversaw a major reform of the national child endowment scheme, introducing direct cash payments rather than tax rebates. She helped establish it as a permanent measure, renaming it the "family allowance", and resisted calls to introduce means-testing.[1] As well as running her own department, Guilfoyle was also placed in charge of the new Office of Child Care within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.[lower-alpha 2] Working with Marie Coleman as the office's director, she oversaw a major expansion of the federal government's activities in the childcare sector, introducing or expanding funding for preschool, daycare, after-school care, and youth refuges.[12]

After the 1980 election, Guilfoyle was appointed Minister for Finance, effectively becoming the deputy to the treasurer, John Howard. She viewed her position as that of "chief accountant for the country".[13] Beginning with the 1981–82 budget, government ministers were required to take budget submissions to Guilfoyle for approval. That role had previously been filled by the Expenditure Review Committee (ERC), a panel of five ministers. Under the new arrangement, the ERC only reviewed submissions if a minister had failed to come to an agreement with Guilfoyle.[1] She was a key member of the Review of Commonwealth Functions Committee, a cabinet subcommittee nicknamed the "razor gang" that was tasked with cutting government expenditure. Its report, handed down in April 1981, recommended that hundreds of functions and programs be abolished, reduced, or transferred to state governments.[14] Guilfoyle remained finance minister until the government's defeat at the 1983 election. She was made spokesperson for finance and taxation in Andrew Peacock's shadow ministry, but resigned the position after the 1984 election, and spent her remaining years in the Senate as a backbencher.[1]