Australia’s Ambassador for Gender Equality – a first among equals

It’s a long way from Cooktown to Canberra – around 30 hours’ drive on the Mitchell Highway as it snakes its way south – but it reflects the magnitude of the journey undertaken by Australia’s Ambassador for Gender Equality, Julie-Ann Guivarra.

From several formative years living in Far North Queensland in a house abutting the tiny Cooktown airport where her father was the manager (“My brother and I used to play on the airstrip when there weren’t any planes; it was a lot of fun”), to a career representing Australia on the world diplomacy stage, Guivarra’s life has been a series of firsts.

The first member of her family to go to university, she joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) after graduating from James Cook University, and rose to become the first Indigenous person to serve as a senior executive in the Australian foreign ministry. In 2018, she was appointed to represent Australia in Spain, becoming the nation’s first female Indigenous ambassador.

Guivarra, who was born in Cairns, has Aboriginal, Torres Strait Island and Filipino heritage – her great-grandfather was a Filipino pearl diver, her grandfather and great-grandmother from the Torres Strait. She credits both her own family’s background and the inherently multicultural mix of Far North Queensland for her ability to communicate with people from across the globe.

“It really is such a multicultural place with a fascinating diversity. There’s a confluence of Indigenous Australians, the Chinese community who came here for the gold rush, the Italians and Spanish who came here for the cane industry. I think growing up in an environment like that helped prepare me for the role of a diplomat, of being able to see different points of view.”

Despite being denied the opportunity to attend university themselves, her parents and extended family valued education. Guivarra’s path to tertiary study was “drummed into me from a very early age”, she says. “It was maybe even more important in the eyes of my family for someone of Indigenous heritage. They all talked about it as something that I was going to do. I almost didn’t have a say in it!”

Guivarra’s choice of DFAT, after successfully navigating the public service graduate program entrance process, gave her the chance to undertake postgraduate study with a Master of Foreign Affairs and Trade (now called a Master of International Relations) at Monash University. It was a formative experience, and she credits it with making her “a better-rounded diplomat” before her first posting.

“As a relatively junior officer, if I hadn’t had that element of the Monash master’s, I wouldn’t have had the confidence and acuity to deal with the different aspects of the job,” she says. “Some of the issues I was exposed to in the course certainly came up in the context of my day-to-day work, and made it a very valuable experience.”

Diplomatic life

Guivarra’s first contact with Canberra had come when she was a schoolgirl and wrote to the High Commission of Malaysia for help with an assignment, and it made a lasting impression. “They wrote back – quite unexpectedly, to my mind – and I thought, ‘Wow, a high commission writing all the way from Canberra’. It was such a huge thing.”

Now, after 23 years at DFAT, Guivarra remains very conscious of the notion of public service. “I’ve done a lot of trade negotiations, and I’m always aware of the significance of sitting behind the flag of Australia and representing the interests of an entire nation.”

Following successful postings to India and the World Trade Organization in Geneva, the ambassadorship to Spain commenced with the full nerve-wracking pomp and ceremony of a horse-drawn coach and being presented to the King of Spain. During her two-year tenure she dealt with situations ranging from a bomb scare at the embassy (“at such times you have to make very clear-eyed judgements about protecting your staff and any other people at the embassy”) to less high-octane assistance for Australians in need.

The Spanish, Guivarra was pleased to discover, were keen to hear about Indigenous Australia, including the state of reconciliation, the Stolen Generations, and the 2008 national apology to Indigenous peoples. “It’s almost like an extra role in representing Australia. In Australia, sometimes people are a little reluctant to talk to you about issues around being an Indigenous Australian, so I always try to make myself available,” she says.

Significant progress has been made at DFAT over the past two decades in this area. “When I started, I knew pretty much every Indigenous officer at DFAT; now there are around 120. We now run things like an ‘Understanding Indigenous Australia’ course, which is open to our own staff and diplomats from other countries as well. It can give a real accent of who we are as we represent Australia to the world. I want to ensure we do get to a point where it is quite normal to have an Indigenous woman who is an ambassador.”

Announced as Australia’s gender equality ambassador this year on International Women’s Day, 8 March, Guivarra is proud to take up a role Australia has maintained since 2011, one of about only 20 nations to do so. “It’s a very strong signal that it informs how we look at foreign and trade and development policy. It shows we are cognisant of the gender impacts of our work in that field.”

Central to Australia’s diplomatic efforts in the Indo-Pacific region, the role has pivoted since the coronavirus announced its world-changing effects only a week into Guivarra’s tenure.

Her role includes oversight of the $55 million gender equality fund for development programs, which are more vital than ever given the significant gender impacts of COVID-19. These include an increase in domestic violence globally, and the decimation of sectors where women are predominantly employed, such as tourism and hospitality, and the vital role women play in the healthcare sector.

“One of the challenges is making sure people apply a gender lens to what is happening during COVID-19, not just in the context of what governments do, but also how businesses respond, how civil society responds,” she says.

“I always welcome the opportunity to have a role where I can learn something new and make a contribution. In this space, as a woman from a different background with a lived experience in the workforce, I have plenty to learn, and plenty to give as well. I feel very privileged, and I also feel a great deal of responsibility.”