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CATHERINE Harris is a formidable woman. Just ask her son, Lachlan.
The woman who proved a difficult burr for the Howard government to shake when it inherited her as the director of the Affirmative Action Agency over a decade ago, yesterday sent the Rudd Government into a spin with a few chosen words on morning radio.
In her sights was the decision to name only one woman among the 10 discussion group chairs for Kevin Rudd's landmark Australia 2020 summit to be held in April.
Shocked and disappointed, Ms Harris let rip with a broadside about the lopsided message that it sent to young women when nine out of 10 of hand-picked "best and brightest" were men.
She wondered aloud whether women "even got put into the pool".
"I feel like screaming, `Hello! Kevin!' I can't believe it."
As it turns out, a simple phone call to her son would have done the trick. Ms Harris's son is Mr Rudd's senior media adviser.
But family sensitivities were irrelevant after Ms Harris's spray sent the Rudd Government -- which until now had bathed in the glow of the first female Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard -- into damage control.
Ms Harris, who chairs a family food grocery empire in NSW, Harris Farm Markets, said women brought a different perspective to chairing meetings than men, particularly those mired in 1970s thinking who simply "did not get it ... don't perceive".
"It is not just that we are not getting different points of view, but it is also because we are not getting role models," she told Deborah Cameron on ABC Sydney Radio 702.
"There's Therese Rein. He (Mr Rudd) has got a successful wife, he understands that most women are not at home looking after the grandchildren and children.
"They also have lots of other jobs as well and this is just such a shock.
"What do all the young women coming out of school and at universities (think)? They look up at this group of the supposedly 1000 great thinkers in Australia and nine out of 10 (of the leaders) are men."
Ms Harris, a mother of...