Julia Banks

Julia Banks was a successful corporate lawyer with a couple of decades of leadership under her belt. Not one to shy away from an argument, or a challenge, she felt the tug of politics around 5 years ago.

In 2016 she decided it was time to try and toss out the Labor member for the Melbourne seat of Chisholm who’d held the seat for 17 years, Anna Burke… and win the federal seat for the Liberal party. And she did! The seat became known as the one seat in the one-seat majority, and the only seat won from Labor in the 2016 election.

But her enthusiasm for morphing from lawyer to legislator soon turned sour. 

In fact worse. Julia found parliament and her party’s power plays stank. 

What she later called out as ‘gender bias, bullying and intimidation’ has since become a regular headline describing the current Australian government…. 

But back in 2018, when Julia quit the Liberal party and became an Independent, she was the first woman to so boldly turn on her own party. 

The move was described in the media as “a blistering farewell” amid chaos and political thuggery. 

What followed was a relentless attack on Julia Banks sanity … from death threats to numerous attempts to discredit her. 

Not only did she survive and fight back … she has now dedicated herself to tackling face-on the scourge of sexism inherent in Australian politics.

BroadTalk is presented by Virginia Haussegger AM. It is produced by Martyn Pearce for BroadTalk Media.

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