International Women’s Day

ROBBIE CAMPO

On International Women’s Day, we were delighted to be able to welcome St Aloysius College Alumnae, Robbie Campo back to the stage! Robbie delivered an inspiring, motivating, and humorous speech to all students, a condensed version of which we share below.

“International Women’s Day is celebrated right around the world; and provides an opportunity for everyone to think about how the world is progressing in affording equality to all women and girls. This year’s theme for IWD was Women in Leadership: achieving equality in a post-COVID world.

Coming here to talk to you today gave me the chance to reflect on how my six years at St Aloysius shaped my educational path, my career choices and my outlook on life, and provided me the skills and confidence to recognise and exploit many of life’s opportunities including leadership roles. I am now an executive in a superannuation fund, Cbus. I am also a board member of two organisations; Victoria Legal Aid, and Women in Super, which advocates to improve gender equality for women in terms of their superannuation outcomes.

Today I thought I would talk about: ● My six years at St Al’s, and what were the important things that I learned while I was here ● A little bit about my journey since 1986 when I completed year 12 here ● How my path forward did not go in a straight line from school, but that my education here certainly gave me the foundation to take on leadership roles which are interesting, creative, and allow me to improve the lives of others ● I am also going to talk about how we need to achieve better gender equality for girls and women in Australia, especially addressing the gender retirement gap.

My parents chose St Aloysius because it was a school that combined a solid academic program with a strong focus on developing resilient, respectful, compassionate, and strong girls. There was a strong sense of community within the school, and a strong connection with the North Melbourne community through social justice programs that girls would be involved in at various stages of our secondary schooling. The student community was culturally diverse, with girls coming from far and wide but mainly from Northern and NorthWestern suburbs, and over the six years I was here saw a steady influx of girls from refugee families.

Back then, there were still several nuns involved as staff members, including the principal Sr Frances, although my favourite was an English literature teacher Sr Mae, who, through the course of any lesson would passionately flip between poetry and the Hawthorn football club. She transferred her love of literature to me (and I suspect all her students), but thankfully as a Collingwood supporter, the love of Hawthorn did not rub off! We could not have contemplated that St Al’s would ever become co-ed. We had to make do with seeing boys from our two brother schools, St Mary’s and St Joseph’s, on the tram to and from school, or during the ballroom dancing program we did in year 9.

I particularly loved the drama program and involved myself in every extracurricular drama activity I could, including the Catholic Schools Drama Festival, the Rock Eisteddfod, performing each year in the St Al’s Day Festival and other performances the school held. My involvement in various drama activities did give me early opportunities to test my leadership skills, although I think that my classmates would probably tell you I was more of a bossy director than a natural leader.

Towards the end of year 12, I was not sure whether I wanted to study acting or law, two very different life paths. I auditioned for acting school, and knew that if I did not get in, I could pick up law as my second

International Women’s Day

ROBBIE CAMPO

preference. I did end up getting offered my first preference - a place at drama school. I do think it was a tribute to the breadth of my education that I got to choose between these very divergent paths. The acting course I did was 4 years, and while I loved it, I got to the end of it and thought that it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life, and so went back to my second preference and studied law.

Because I had a very strong commitment to using my law degree to tilt the scales of justice in favour of those who had less power, less money and who had less access to education and other opportunities, I never really had ambition to work in a law firm. After practising law for just a few years, I did a sharp career U-turn when I got offered a job in an industry super fund, where now, one of the most exciting parts of my job involves going to Canberra and talking to politicians about changes to superannuation laws that will affect our members. It is quite something to be involved in talking to Ministers, senators, and journalists, and directly influencing the making of laws.

I have been involved in developing our programs to promote what we do to our members, and I am also involved in advocating for our superannuation system to deliver fairer outcomes for women.

In Australia and around the world, we still have a long way to go in ensuring that women achieve full equality. Women are significantly under-represented in parliaments, holding only one-quarter of parliamentary seats worldwide. In Australia, we fare only slightly better, and still fall short of the 50/50 goal: 30.46% of Australian MPs are women.

“In Australian companies, women represent just 17.1% of CEOs and 14.1% of board chairs. In fact, there are more CEOs called Peter than there are women CEOs!”

While women comprise around 47% of all employees in Australia, they take home on average $253.60 less than men every week (full-time ordinary earnings). The gender pay gap extends into an even bigger difference in terms of retirement outcomes, with women ending up with only about 60% of the superannuation savings of men. As a result, one in 4 single women who are retired are living in poverty and the fastest growing group of homeless people are retired single women.

My journey into the leadership roles I am in now did not follow a straight path, I can certainly see the impact of my education at St Al’s: a solid academic foundation, a passion for life-long learning, a strong creative streak, a commitment to making our society one which is fairer and where we are not leaving vulnerable members of our community out in the cold.

I would urge you to use your years here to pursue the things you are passionate about, and maintain a strong focus on your studies, as this is going to provide you with the best foundation for whatever life path or paths you wish to explore. As my experience has shown, your paths may not be in a straight line, and they might be different to what you think they will be. But the opportunities that will be available to you, the next generation of women leaders, will be yours for the taking. So, make sure you grab those opportunities with both hands and an open heart!

Although it is 35 years since I left St Aloysius, I have always proudly considered myself a St Al’s girl. It has been such a great pleasure for me to be able to come and speak to you today and in finishing I invite you all to think about where you might be in 35 years’ time, and to recognise how your critical secondary school years here at St Al’s will shape your lives, career paths and values.

Robbie Campo pictured with College Co-Captains Maggie Twyford and Bethany Pearce.

Happy International Women’s Day and thank you for listening to me.”

Robbie Campo

Class of 1986