History

The 2022 Ernies Awards began with excellent pre-publicity as the media discovered it was the 30th and final awards night. Andrew Hornery wrote his usual gossip
column preview in the SMH which he has done for the last decade (after the retirement of Deb Jopson).

On the night, women were excited and happy to be there at the final bash but sad at the same time.

The winners of the various categories are always a bit predictable but the winner of the final Gold Ernie, the journalist Paul Kelly was a bit out of the box. It was quite hard to explain to the media why the women had chosen his statement that “the women’s movement won’t decide the next election”.

There was an air of triumphalism in the vote, not so much horror and outrage but triumphalism because we all knew that Paul Kelly was wrong – that in fact women
had decided the 2022 election.

The dress theme was ‘come as your gal hero of the last 30 years’ and we had suggested from Dolly Parton to Grace Tame. There were a number of Grace Tames but surprisingly few Dolly Partons. We had really expected the gals to go to town on one last chance to get into fishnet stockings.

However, there were some wonderful dress-ups. There was a horde of Greta Thunbergs chanting “how dare you!”; some excellent Ruth Bader Ginsburgs in her
famous lace collar made from someone's petticoat or a paper doily; there was Pussy Riot (including our host Penny Sharpe) under thick woollen ski-masks; and a table full of women wearing masks of the fistula doctor Catherine Hamlin.

Yvette, as always, donned a moustache and this year came as her fave boy, Tony Armstrong. She was so convincing that even Tony Armstrong eventually tweeted that she had got every detail right – including the purple t-shirt.

Meredith’s son and daughter-in-law came as her, not only in correctly multi-coloured wigs, but wearing her clothes including the pink Tartan jacket that she wore to many Ernies nights. Carmel Tebbutt mentioned that she recognized the jacket before she recognized the son.

The presenters were an interesting bunch. Former Queensland Premier Anna Bligh had the honour of presenting the Judicial Silver Ernie to the Queensland police and
gave an elegant but loaded speech.

Other presenters were former deputy premier of Queensland, Jackie Trad, deputy premier of NSW Carmel Tebbutt, media commentators Dee Madigan and Jane Caro, and Ernies regulars, Robin Fortescue, Jo Haylen, Rose Jackson and Verity Firth.

The photo op of the night, the gold Ernie was presented by 1980s pin-up girl, Jane Singleton.

The final Ernies year was topped off by the news that the Coonamble Times was doing an in-depth story of Ernie Ecob’s time as an AWU organizer in that town.

Many groups (particularly young women) came up to us during the night and offered to continue with the Ernies, which was terrific. But we had decided to, like Ash Barty, bow out on a high and we're still very sure that was the right decision.

We thanked the Parliament House staff, including Tony, who told us proudly that he had been in attendance at twenty Ernies Awards.

At the end of the night, we ceremonially handed over our archives to Maggie Patton from the State Library who assured us that our papers would be in there with the Miles Franklin manuscripts and ‘other famous dox’.

And remember “Keep them Nervous”

Eric Abetz and the ‘Streisand Effect’

Gosh, what is it about lockdown that breeds controversy?

This year, brought the usual chaos and drama on steroids, despite the fact that once again the Ernies judging had to take place via Zoom with the Ernies Council of Elders presiding.

First of all, we decided that the good Ernie should go to Liberal MP Russell Broadbent for an excellent speech about the need to consult women only to discover at a late date that he was a soft anti-vaxxer. So we squashed that one.

After we had sent out the final list of winners, we got approached by Senator Eric Abetz’s office who told us that the Senator flatly denied having made those comments, even though they had been read out in Parliament by the Speaker of the Tasmanian Parliament.

Given that we have gone 29 years without ending up in court. We readily agreed to the Abetz office request. We agreed to add the word ‘alleged’ to the citation for the Gold Ernie. So we sent out a new media alert to that effect.

The media then reported the Senator’s denial that he had made the remarks. More publicity!

On the whole, social media was huge and there was much support for the eventual winners, including the Trump (for repeat offenders) for Scott Morrison. Individual women started tweeting out the winners as they were reported.

One of the write-ups was in the Sydney CBD column, which gave us our first Ernies cartoon in the mainstream press. (Apart from our wonderful Fiona Katauskas numbers)

And Meredith is extremely pleased that she was drawn with nice arms. Because we always remember the famous, Gold Ernie winner of 2001, Mark Patrick who said “Sleeveless is a bad look on Australian women, particularly for those over 30”. Ouch.

 ERNIES TRIUMPH THROUGH COVID

Ernies in the time of Covid was obviously going to be a bit different. Blokes hadn’t stopped saying terrible things so there needed to be a place for these to be properly aired, even if we couldn’t come together in our traditional boozy and boos-ey dinner.

Fiona Katuskas started us off with her wonderful covid-defeating cartoon for the invitation. That was our obvious theme for the year. Women were the brave and hard working front line health workers, teachers and carers. They were also the retail and hospitality workers who were the first to lose their jobs.

We decided to have a virtual Ernies event where a ‘Council of Ernies Elders’ would sit in judgement on the quotes. We asked some of the original Ernies gals to join the normal organising group and then this group of faceless women set off into zoom land. We had always been accused of rorting the results so this was our chance to actually do it. Aided by a few gins and much laughter we were remarkably unanimous in our decisions.

Without the heat and passion of a normal Ernies dinner, we found we were able to really concentrate on the quality of the quotes rather than just booing the blokes who got up our noses. Consequently, the winners of the various categories were all considered worthy laureates and the Gold Ernie winner was a smash hit (probably not the appropriate words).

The media did not miss a beat. They treated the virtual event with the same seriousness (or lack thereof) as they usually did. The coverage was excellent. Once again the event attracted a lot of social media as well as mainstream reporting. The Sydney Morning Herald previewed the event for the 28^th straight year.

We just hope that we never need to do it this way again. For one thing, Yvette wants to get back into the moustache vibe and we all rather missed the chaos and jolliness of the night.

Fifty years since the 1969 equal pay decision

The night celebrated 50 years since the 1969 Equal pay decision which was a big step in the long (and unfinished) struggle of Australian women for wage parity. For the fancy dress theme we asked women to think along the lines of the US women’s soccer team who had just convinced a stadium of 72,000 people to chant equal pay; and of course our own equal pay icons Edna Ryan and ACTU leader Sally McManus. There were plenty of Megan Rapinoes with purple hair (Captain of the US team and leader of the equal pay push) and a few gals in Sally McManus masks but on the whole not a great night for frocks. The select few are obviously holding out for a theme where they can slip back into their fishnet stockings (sigh).

A sad moment occurred when the inaugural Margaret Jones trophy was awarded for the best nominations of 2019. Queen of the Ernies, Margaret died earlier in the year and we think it was the first Ernies dinner she had missed for over twenty years. Inaugural winner was Prue Brown.

However we were able to celebrate two huge victories during the year. Our bete noir for 27 seasons, the AFL Footie Show died a tired misogynist death and hopefully the dreadful Sam Newman has left our airwaves. Secondly the awful ‘Wicked Campers’ bunch (rental vans with supposedly hilarious sexist slogans painted on them) was banned from Victorian roads by the Andrews Government. Yayyy

We raised $3000 for Djirra, the Aboriginal community controlled organisation which auspices the National Forum of Family Violence Prevention and Legal services.

Fifty years since 1968, the year of student revolt

The theme was fifty years of student revolution from 1968 to 2018 and we encouraged the Ernies gals to dress along the theme of Angela Davis, the 1960s black power icon from 1968 to Emma Gonzales, the young student from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High who led the anti-guns march on Washington earlier in the year.

Costumes tended to be from the 1968 end of the spectrum with lots of hippie headbands and moratorium badges. A standout was Wendy McMurdo who wore the original ‘Make Love Not War’ t-shirt worn by her sister on the front page of all the papers in the sixties.

At least we managed a complete Pussy Riot act late in the evening.

The raffle money was collected to go to the students from the anti-guns march but when we tried to send $3000 to a group called “Keep Guns off Campus” we were prevented by the bank because of their anti-terrorist filter. The algorithm had clicked in over the mention of ‘guns’ in the title. True.

Margaret Jones, the great feminist icon and mentor to many was awarded the ‘Queen of the Ernies’ trophy. This trophy will now be awarded each year to the Ernies gal who nominates the most winners.

25 Years of ‘The Ernies’

The night celebrated an auspicious anniversary – 25 years of ‘The Ernies’. Who would have thought!

The theme was Wonder Women, a nod to a year of fabulous female movie and TV roles – from super heroes and NASA scientists to Doctor Who.

Women arrived in their invisible jets armed with kick arse boots and PhDs.

There was a whole table of ‘Merediths’ and somewhat disturbingly, a table of Handmaids, and a beautifully kitted-out team of Matildas. The eventual winners of the Frock-off were two impeccable Dame Roma Mitchells in full bottom wigs (and perhaps otherwise full).

In a moment of supreme serendipity, the Member for Port Stephens, Kate Washington, collected the Gold Ernie on behalf of her nemesis, former Port Stephens Mayor, Bruce McKenzie for naming a Refuge after himself although convicted of domestic violence. Kate was thrilled! Bruce wasn’t and was quoted the following day in the Newcastle Herald saying, “the women who get together to get drunk at Parliament House can get stuffed”.

The Girls Always Shine at the Olympics

The dinner celebrated 60 years since the 1956 Olympics and the theme was ‘Golden Girls’ where we fittingly remembered our heroines such as Betty Cuthbert. The gals decided to come as sporting stars or just themselves decked out in gold lame as usual (and weird hats).

The “Frock off” was won by a perfectly kitted out women’s cricket team…so well disguised that we didn’t recognize close friends. There were also plenty of synchronized swimmers and women footballers. One silly woman (no names) read the invitation wrong and came as Don Bradman.

The early favourite for the Gold was NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay who told a female MP “Building a road is not like buying a handbag, Eleni” but the Gold Ernie eventually went to the lawyer for a taxi driver charged with sexual assault who said “The attack would not have happened if the woman had sat in the backseat”.

Paying Tribute to our first female Premier, Joan Kirner

It was 25 years since Joan Kirner was elected as Australia’s first female Premier and many women on the night paid tribute to Joan by donning polka-dot outfits. There were also many well presented Hillarys and Julias but Linda Burney stole the show as Cammeraygal leader, Barangaroo.

There was some short-lived concern that the Ernies would suffer a dearth of nominations with the ousting of Tony Abbott as Prime Minister. However, the Australian Football Federation romped it in to win the Gold Ernie for not fairly paying the Matildas. We are reliably informed that the Matildas were thrilled with the result. And AFL player, Luke Ablett, who was following the proceedings on twitter was also chuffed to win the Good Ernie.

First in the world to win suffrage

We celebrated 120 years since women in South Australian were the first in the world to win the right to stand for Parliament. Guests dressed as suffragettes honouring those who had fought for our right to vote.

Even though Julia Gillard had been out of public office for some time, she still evoked huge hostility from other politicians and some sections of the media – from Clive Palmer “I couldn’t throttle her (Gillard), so I had to get to Parliament to get rid of that woman” to John Howard’s “I think it (the misogyny speech) is the worst possible way of promoting a greater involvement by women in public life.”

To celebrate the Ernies coming of age, women dressed as they did for their own 21st.

Our Parliamentary host, Linda Burney wore a onesie Sandra Dee would be proud of. One guest came as 8 months pregnant. There were perms a-plenty, the occasional kaftan and fishnets, as always, made an appearance.

Many categories featured dramatic boo-offs in one of the worst years ever for misogyny in Australia. The sheer vitriol of comments directed towards Julie Gillard shocked guests and Mal Brough was a worthy winner for his offensive fundraiser menu. Anna Bligh, assisted by Marty Belch (aka Yvette Andrews), presented the Gold Ernie to Wesley College students for distributing stubby holders bearing the words “It’s not rape if it’s my birthday.” Unsurprisingly, Tony Abbott won the Clinton for Repeat Offenders.

Not only has the Ernies come of age, out-surviving many serious awards, it is now broadly acknowledged in the top ten weirdest awards world-wide. And with a whole new following online, the Ernies look likely to continue for many years to come.

Celebrating 20 years of the Ernies

The ‘Twenty years of Ernies Awards’ dinner was a huge milestone. Most serious awards don’t last that long but the ‘Ernies’ just keeps getting stronger. The dress code was ‘Come as your favourite Ernies winner’ which proved a bit of a hit. There were plenty of Shane Warnes, Tony Abbotts (yes in budgie smugglers), Bob Ellises, Bill Heffernans and generic rugby league players. For those women who could not control their urge to get into fishnet tights once again, they came as Liz Hurley (to go with Shane Warne) or Miranda Devine.

Lobbying for favoured sexists was intense. Three tables of gals from ‘Destroy the Joint’ created such an uproar when they thought Alan (women are destroying the joint) Jones would be pipped at the post by Barry O’Farrell (called our host Linda Burney a hooker…mmm bit of a pattern emerging there), that the boo-monitors felt intimidated and we almost had to call for a recount.

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Female Eunuch

The Nineteenth Annual Ernies dinner was a visual feast with Lady Gagas mixing it with Dolly Partons, Janis Joplins, Nancy Sinatras and a few Spice Girls. A solitary Nana Mouskouri was a standout. The frock-off was judged by Little Patti herself who awarded it to our own diva Joan Sutherland (aka Patricia O’Brien).

At the business end, the Gold Ernie was won by Andrew Bolt after an enthusiastic “boo-off”against Tony Abbott for his famous photo shoot in front of “Ditch the Witch” and “Bob Brown’s Bitch” signs.

We won the ultimate stamp of extreme gravitas when the winner of the Gold Ernie was announced on the 7pm ABC Television News. It was a pity that the MC was pictured wearing a turquoise wig and two chops around her neck during the winning announcement.

Celebrating 50 years of the pill 

The theme of the night chose itself and women turned up in “love-child hippie mode” and once again in the inevitable fishnets.

As it was an election year it was fitting that Tony Abbott received eight separate nominations for such shockers as “…what the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing…” However he was pipped for the Gold Ernie by St Paul’s College students who set up a ‘Define Statutory’ Facebook page which described itself as ‘pro-rape, anti-consent’.

As it was forty years since The Female Eunuch was published Louis Nowra received extra loud boos for his description of Germaine Greer as “a befuddled and exhausted old woman. She reminded me of my demented grandmother”.

Celebrating 40 years since the 1969 Equal Pay decision and Woodstock

Somehow fishnet tights still happened for the hippie theme.

Kyle Sandilands was the most despised nominee of the night but he was pipped at the post for the Gold by Pastor Danny Nalliah who proclaimed that Victoria’s bushfires were punishment for the State’s lenient abortion laws.

The Good Ernie went to NRL chief David Gallop for saying the league was embarrassed to be linked with sexual assault, violence and alcoholism.

Celebrating 20 years of the National Pay Equity Coalition and PAID MATERNITY LEAVE!

Puffed sleeves and giant floppy bows proliferated as bad maternity frocks hit the Strangers Dining Room at Parliament. The dinner also commemorated 20 years of the National Pay Equity Coalition who were the original sponsors of the Ernies.

The Mayor of Mt Isa, Councillor John Molony won the Gold for his extraordinary invitation to “ugly women” to come to Mt Isa where men were so desperate they would be able to find a husband although there was strong support for Bob Ellis who wrote of Hilary Clinton “She is a stranger to consistency, sincerity and (at a guess) oral sex”.

Celebrating the launch of the Ernies Book

2007 was different to other years as the dinner took a break and was replaced by the launch of the Ernies Book. This was a shorter but equally raucous affair and men were invited for the first time. They tended to stand at the back of the room and clap nervously as the winners were proclaimed.

Senator Bill Heffernan with his “deliberately barren” remarks about Julia Gillard won the Gold but he was pushed hard by Sheikh Taj el-Dene Elhilaly with his “uncovered meat” comment.

Senator Heffernan phoned us the next morning demanding to know what was wrong with his statement. “I’m a farmer” he told us “I know about bulls and cows and rams and ewes”.

Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission

And also thirty years since early Ernie contender and baseball writer Dan Cook coined the phrase, “The opera ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings.” Dress theme was ‘Opera Diva’ so the place was alive with Valkyrie horns and flaxen plaits.

Our nomination of honorary Australian Tom Cruise for his “I’ve got Katie tucked away” comment was reported around the world including on Fox News America which trumpeted,“Four hundred of Australia’s most powerful women have just voted Tom Cruise not the sexiest but the most sexist celebrity in the world”.

When Gough Whitlam got awarded the Good Ernie for his comments about the RU486 debate, guest presenter Little Patti burst into an impromptu rendition of “It’s Time”. It was marvellous.

Celebrating the 30^th Anniversary of International Women’s Year and the 30^th Anniversary of No-fault divorce

As bling was the theme, fishnets were inevitable and ubiquitous.

Sheikh Feiz Mohammad won the Gold Ernie for saying that victims of rape had no-one to blame but themselves and on a similar theme Colleen McCullough won the Elaine for her extraordinary defence of the Pitcairn Island rapists.

Once again we had to eliminate a ripper international quote with Jude (it’s Sienna’s fault I cheated) Law continuing the wonderful tradition of blaming everything on women.

Celebrating the 20^th Anniversary of the Federal Sex Discrimination Act and 100 years (& 13 days) since women first cast their vote in a NSW State Election

The theme of ‘team bonding’ arose out of the outrageous events surrounding the NRL team bonding sessions. When league players attended the police station to be questioned they wore thongs and stubbies, hence the the “dress inappropriate” theme. We expected Willie Mason wigs (we got them) and one disgusting Reg Reagan.

The Gold winner was a League chief who said “Let’s believe nothing happened in Coffs Harbour”.  In contrast, the Good Ernie was won by Adam Goodes for saying his mother was his inspiration and taking her to the Brownlow Medal dinner. We love men who are nice to their mums.

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of Australia ratifying the UN Convention on all forms of discrimination against women

This year we had heaps to celebrate. It was 20 years since the First NSW woman was elected to Federal Parliament (and she was there in the audience), 20 years since Australia ratified the UN Convention on all forms of Discrimination Against Women and of course the historic victory of feminist icon Billie-Jean King over misogynist Bobby Riggs on the tennis court…hence “Give them a serve”.

The ‘frock-off’ was judged by Jeannette McHugh, the woman whose election 20 years before we were celebrating. Ernie try-hard Jeff Corbett from the Newcastle Herald wrote “there will be 400 pairs of hairy legs and tufty armpits booing over dinner, not to mention some very blubbery midriffs…”

Celebrating 100 years since the first time women voted in NSW

The dress code of green, white and violet, the secret code for ‘give women the vote’ predominated.

A new trophy was added for the burgeoning ‘Clerical’ category and this was called “The Fred”. The inaugural award went to Archbishop Pell, who also took out the Gold Ernie for “Abortion is a worse moral scandal than priests sexually abusing young people”.

We were reported extensively in the ‘Malaysian Star’ and once again the BBC wanted to know “What is it that makes Australian men say these things”.

Mark Latham rang from Germany to find out what he had been nominated for. We were certainly keeping them nervous.

Celebrating thirty years since the publication of ‘Damned Whores and
God’s Police’

With a theme like that, nun’s habits and feather boas proliferated at the frock-off which was judged by the author herself, Anne Summers. The eventual winners were the ‘Marrickville Methodist Ladies’ Club’ in suitably temperance garb.

Style Consultant  Mark Patrick streaked the field in the Media Category with (one of our all time favourites) …”sleeveless is a bad look, especially for women over thirty”. The guest presenter Judy Nunn stripped to her black bra and posed, Charles Atlas style, saying “I’m 56 and I think the man’s a dickhead”.

John Howard won the Gold in a rare boo-back (change from the original winner who denied the quote) with the prophetic words that “there was no appropriate woman to be Governor General”. Quentin Bryce was amongst the guests at the dinner.

Celebrating the 25^th Anniversary of International Women’s Day

The 8th Ernie Awards took place amid much media speculation about how we would deal with the fact that the original Ernie had just died. David Penberthy pointed the finger at us: “Mr Ecob may well have had the last laugh. He has left Sydney’s feminists in the tasteless position of holding an event poking fun at him just twenty-four hours after his funeral.”

In the Olympic year it was totally appropriate that the Gold Ernie was won by Cathy Freeman’s manager Nick Bideau for saying, “I never turned away from Cathy, no matter how fat she was…” It was also the year that a new trophy  ‘The Warney’ (a gold plated mobile phone) was added to accommodate the huge number of appalling comments by sporting stars.

On 2 October we made it as a clue in the Sydney Morning Herald Crossword. ..‘Dingo could get an award’. The answer of course was ‘Ernie’.

Celebrating the 30^th Anniversary of the 1969 Equal Pay Decision

Because 30^th anniversaries are celebrated with pearls the theme for the night chose itself. The dress code was ‘posh frock and pearls’ which revealed a previously unknown fetish among Australia’s feminists. The best display was from Eva Cox and Virginia Spate who looked like old fashioned burlesque queens in ropes and ropes of pearls. They easily won the frock-off judged by fashion icon Maggie Alderson.

Popular nominations were David Oldfield, Piers Akerman and Alan Jones but a little known and anonymous magistrate won the gold for yet another put down of a rape victim.

Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the founding of the National Pay Equity Coalition, the official host of the Ernies

The occasion was again packed. The style police allowed anything, except for some reason, yellow jumpers or platform sneakers. The quote for the night was from British feminist Edna O’Brien who said, “The vote means nothing to women. We should be armed.”

A new award for repeat offenders was added. It was called “The Clinton” for obvious reasons, and John Howard won for failing to appoint a Sex Discrimination Commissioner for 12 months and refusing to recognise the term “Chairperson”.

One of the waiters introduced himself to us as Pauline Hanson’s boyfriend and behaved in a most disgustingly sexist manner. He was, of course, comic Godfrey Bigot. But some women didn’t get the joke and kept complaining about the drunk waiter with his shirt sticking out his fly.

1998 was the year that lobbying began in earnest. Conversations were overheard out on the smoking balcony – “Well, we’ll vote for Bettina in the Elaines if you support Piers in the other.” The voting (or rather booing) was particularly heated.

Ernie Page MP won the Good Ernie for sacking sexist Maitland Council. He said he had “greater motivation” because he wanted to show that “even Ernies can be SNAGs.”

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Anti Discrimination Act

1997 was the first time we held the awards ceremony as a dinner. It was a jolly night, enjoyed by many newcomers including an entire table from Beecroft Rotary Club.  Although we now had space for 400, we still had problems fitting everyone in.

The invitation declared that “the judges’ decision is obviously not final as much disputation occurs” and this was certainly the case in 1997. It was also the year that heralded the first of the “frock-offs”. A high standard was set with Justice Lee Drake taking out the poshest frock award.

There were a record eighty nominations and once again those nominated displayed some anxiety. Nick Whitlam wrote to us, “I see from today’s SMH that I am a candidate for an Ernie tonight. Although I realise it will not disqualify me and will only marginally diminish the likelihood of me receiving an award, you should know that the correct quote is…….”

The ‘Gold Ernie’ win by Olympics Minister Michael Knight made it clear that any statement which implies that the reason women don’t get positions is because they’re decided on “merit, not sex” is particularly galling to women.