Listening to women’s stories and the importance of giving them a safe home.

I come from a working-class background, and we had very little money growing up. My mother was the greatest role model you could possibly have. She was always helping people out at the Shrublands Bowling Club or working at St. Vincent DePaul in the stall. It was just what she did.

I went to a little convent school and our motto was ‘serviam’ which means ‘I will serve.’ In a way this idea has motivated me throughout my life. I've always believed that you have to be a contributor to society regardless of what form that takes and for me that meant serving in federal parliament. I know people are very cynical about politicians, but most of us are driven there by community service.

I was the first member of the family to finish high school and when I got involved in politics and became a cabinet minister, I never forgot where I came from. And now, it’s all come full circle because through my involvement in the Women's Housing Company, I've set up a scholarship scheme in my mother's name.

It's deep in my DNA; I’m a very intense, passionate person. When I look at the direction that my family's giving has taken, one area that we've given a lot of money is education. My husband David Morgan and I both realise that without education, we wouldn't have our family success. We’ve given a lot of money to universities to enhance opportunities for kids like us and I like to support the education of women, especially in the sciences.

After I got breast cancer, I became chair of the Breast Cancer Foundation and directed a lot of my resources into that. Now I’m really involved in women's housing, and I've brought my resources with me, the majority of which has been my energy, time and expertise.

I think it’s important to realise that you don't need to give in huge amounts. Even little bits can bring people so much joy. The scholarships that I give through the Women’s Housing Company, are a thousand dollars each - and you should see the joy that they bring to the women who apply for them. When I did the first round we had a little ceremony, and this woman came out to receive her scholarship with tears in her eyes. She told me that it was the first time she’d won anything and for her the joy came from knowing that someone believed in her.

When I was working full time in politics, it was mainly through my personal effort going into all the charities. But when I got breast cancer and took more time off, I became much more involved in the organisations that I was dealing with. As everyone who gives money knows, a lot of charitable organisations run on a shoestring budget and one of my talents is that I'm a pretty good marketer, I see what can be done and I can help make it happen.

Over the seven years that I was chair of the Breast Cancer Foundation we increased fundraising from 4 million to 19 million. That kind of increase changes an organisation. All the time I was saying, “ok, we want to do more of this or more of that. Who can we get?” And when we couldn’t afford to employ a proper human resource manager, I used my network of girlfriends to make it happen.

I have to say however that this ‘all in’ approach is not always the best, because often the organisation becomes too dependent on you. Now in my role as patron of the Women's Housing Company, I don't want to be involved in the organisation day-to-day. Instead, I want to add value in whatever way they want. The organisation has been running for 44 years, it’s the biggest provider of women's housing in Australia and they have a great team and CEO.

A few months ago, they decided to do a fundraising campaign around International Women's Day and asked me to speak because I've done a lot of public speaking. As I started working through the idea with them, I suggested that they could use some of our tenants. Given that public speaking can be scary, we started the Her Voice program to give these women tools to tell their stories. I funded the program and used my skill-base to help them find the story they wanted to tell. Out of our 1,700 tenants we found six who were interested, most of whom were victims of domestic violence. We helped them learn how to articulate their story in a way that wasn't too emotionally draining for them and could help them grow.

Over a six-week period, we told our story to 10 corporates and raised a lot of money. It was a phenomenal win-win because we established support groups within a lot of these big corporates who now know about our organisation. But most importantly, it really empowered these women. Watching their growth over this time has given me one of the greatest joys that I’ve ever received from my charity work.

When I give talks, I always pull out the lessons that these women have taught me, and the most important one is resilience. The power of telling these women’s stories is that everyone in the audience realises that even though its about someone else, we all have our own story of resilience. And I’ll tell them my stories about being in public life and how tough it was to be the first and the only female minister in the House of Representatives.

The big mistake I made was that I was so busy working while raising two kids and supporting a husband with a high-profile career, I didn't have enough time to listen to other women. I'm trying to make up for that now.

I intend to stay in the housing sphere because there is so much need. Currently we've got a 20-year waiting list and the biggest growth area is women over 50 years old. We've got money sitting there to alleviate housing issues so it’s about rallying together the private sector, the governments, and the not-for-profit sector, and making it all work for the benefit of homeless people. I think that partnerships between state governments and developers to create social and affordable housing has really great potential.

But I think we also need to take a holistic approach and help these women transit into workforce and help them get their lives together. Housing is complex area, and it’s intertwined with mental health and education. However, I really don't believe that you can educate someone unless they've got a roof over their head.

In my view we need to be doing the work at two levels: working with governments and organisations to get the best delivered programs, and then to tell the stories of the impact that these interventions can have. And, as often as we can, tell the stories to people who see what change they can make in their own lives.