The politician’s wife
While immensely PROUD of her husband’s role, Victoria’s “first lady” CATHERINE ANDREWS is focused on her own social, cultural and family passions. By Sophie Tedmanson. Styled by Philippa Moroney. Photographed by Julie Adams.
“SHE IS A STRONG PERSON, DETERMINED AND DRIVEN, INTELLIGENT AND COMPASSIONATE”
Catherine Andrews is standing in front of the towering taxidermied body of Phar Lap. Te wife of the Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is explaining how, as a child on a school trip to the Melbourne Museum, she came across Australia’s most famous race horse and had an epiphany: seeing history up close in such a way sparked in her a life-long fascination of times gone by. “History is fascinating,” she says. “Tere’s always so much to learn, there’s so much to discover. It’s what it tells us about the past and how it drives us to the future. It gives us so much to refect on and that we’re all part of the world in which we live and the universe and the choices we make and how they determine our own paths and the paths of others – it’s all interwoven.”
She is the wife of the man charged with creating a new history for Australia’s second most populous state. And Andrews is acutely aware of the signifcance of her position, as both a long-time historian of Melbourne and now its unofcial frst lady.
“Tere’s just so much that I love about being here in Melbourne,” Andrews says. “And then, in a funny turn of events, my husband becomes the Premier of Victoria and then we become part of the history of this state as well. So, it’s about knowing our place in the world and I’m so aware that we’re such a part of it. But I work very hard to do what I can, to connect our cultural institutions – including the museum.”
While politics is in the veins of her husband, history – particularly that of Victoria – is Andrews’s passion. She has worked on research and programming in the Public Records Ofce of Victoria, and has a master of public history from Monash University, during which she was commissioned by Museum Victoria to write her thesis on the history of the institution, hence her knowledgeable turn as tour guide during our interview. “Tere are 17 million objects in the collection here,” she says with a smile, as we stand at the entrance.
Andrews is also an ambassador for the Royal Historical Society of Victoria (RHSV), one of her new roles. “I’m trying to elevate the status of history and our knowledge of history and our understanding of history right across the state,” she says.
Her favourite places are museums and libraries where she immerses herself in literature – later she sends me a story in the New Yorker about the discovery of ancient Byzantine shipwrecks found during the construction of the frst-ever tunnel under Istanbul.
“All periods of history really fascinate me and all characters of history – I feel like I’m Alice [in Wonderland] – just falling down the rabbit hole and I never know what’s at the bottom,” she tells me later. “It’s that ‘ you-never-know-what-you’re-going-to-fnd’ aspect to it that’s completely fascinating.”
If you count social media as the best insight into a person’s private thoughts, then Andrews’s Twitter handle probably best sums up her multitasking persona: “Proud partner, mum of three, freelance words, @SunSmartVIC and RHSV [Royal Historical Society of Victoria] ambassador. Foodie, bookworm, runner and arts lover. Collingwood. Labor.”
Catherine Kesik grew up on the Mornington Peninsula, the daughter of a lawyer father. She met Daniel Andrews during her second year at Monash, spotting him one evening engrossed in Sale of the Century in one of the common rooms at the university, where the pair were both studying Australian politics and international relations.
“I walked into the room and I hadn’t seen him there before and he knew all the answers. And was hilariously funny and at the same time I was like: ‘ Oh, this is interesting’, so I sat down. He remembers exactly what I was wearing that day. He was like, ‘whoa’, she says laughing as she recalls her outft: a psychedelic bodysuit and tight purple jeans. She was just 17 and it was 1991 (for the record, today she is dressed stylishly chic in a black Scanlan Teodore skirt suit). Her husband has vivid memories of that frst encounter, too. “I knew immediately that Catherine was someone special,” he says, adding: “I’m so lucky to have met her and have her in my life. She is a strong person, determined and driven, intelligent and compassionate. She’s a great mum and my very best friend.”
“I’M NOT VERY GOOD AT SAYING NO … IF I THINK I CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO PEOPLE’S LIVES”
Te two married on New Year’s Eve in 1998 and now have three children – Noah, 13, Grace, 11, and Joseph, eight – and juggle raising them with their roles as the new “frst couple” of Victoria. A year on since her husband came from “out of left feld” to become the 48th Premier of Victoria, Andrews has thrown herself into her role as the Premier’s wife. She is regularly pictured by his side at events and publicly supports his progressive policies: when he was health minister, he passed a law to legalise abortion, he supports gay marriage, earlier this year he established a royal commission into family violence, and he has promised to legalise “living wills”.
Earlier this year the couple, who led the Gay Pride march in Melbourne in February, even took their children to see Gayby Baby, the documentary about children of same sex parents, which was controversially banned by the New South Wales government from being screened in schools. Victoria’s Premier later said in a post on Facebook that the New South Wales government “couldn’t be more wrong”.
“We just wanted to take our kids to a flm that was on during the flm festival and it was just the most gorgeous flm about being free to be who you are,” says Andrews. “And Daniel hasn’t been shy in saying that’s how he feels, and that’s how I feel. And he was actually the frst premier to lead the Gay Pride march here earlier this year. It was defnitely one of the moments of the year where we just felt … how fantastic that we can say, you know, that this was the right thing to do. And to support everyone no matter who you are and no matter what you are – everyone should have the right to feel equal.”
In September, Premier Andrews faced his frst real leadership issue when ongoing strikes over a pay dispute with the Rail, Tram and Bus Union crippled the Melbourne transport system. But for the most part his tenure has been relatively free from controversy.
“I’m so proud of him. He’s a man of his word and he is so determined to deliver everything he promised he would in the last election. And there’s not enough of that in Australian politics. I couldn’t be prouder to be standing alongside him and helping him in that world, I suppose. Helping him with that work, it’s hard work, but it’s good work and it’s worthy work.”
While honoured to play the supporting role, Andrews says public ofce is not for her, recalling the line quoted by most politicians’ wives around the world: “Tere’s only room for one politician in the family.” Instead Andrews, who until last year worked as a freelance writer and editor, prefers to juggle her associations with various cultural institutions and boards with being wife and mum.
“At home I’m trying to fnd matching hockey socks versus soccer socks, I can never fnd the shin guards, I’m standing at my kitchen bench stirring something on the stove top, flling in school forms – I’m no diferent from any other working mum,” she says. “I’m on the phone, I’m taking calls, I’m organising birthday presents parties and trying to organise what time Daniel’s going come home and yeah, I have to get up very early to do my runs.”
Andrews is petite and athletic. She rises at 5.30am every morning for a run and does a ballet class once a week. “I am very committed to the physical form of ballet,” she says. “I love it – I just think it’s that only pure expression of physical endurance.”
Last year she ran her frst marathon – a 52-kilometre ultra marathon along the Mornington Peninsular – a bucket-list goal with best friend Kyra-Bae Snell they both wanted to complete before they turned 40.
Snell, who frst met Andrews at college, describes her as “confdent, sassy and super-fun” and a friend of “great empathy”. “We both love learning, exercise and people. And we’ve always found time to put into our friendship and support each other – through university days, work, marriage and raising three kids each.”
She says that despite her new and demanding public role, Andrews “always puts her family frst and tries to make it work”. “Everyone is busy and she is even busier now that Dan’s Premier, but she still fnds time for the important things like family and friends,” Snell says.
As well as her role promoting the historical side of Melbourne, Andrews is also working with myriad other organisations: the Torch Project – reconnecting Aboriginal prisoners in Victoria with their culture through art; she is an ambassador for SunSmart, promoting awareness of the dangers of UV; and supporting cultural institutions including the restoration of the Dome promenade atop the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Royal Exhibition building. Fashion is another of her passions, particularly championing Melbourne designers and ethical fashion. When we meet it is the middle of Melbourne Spring Fashion Week and it had just been announced that the 2016 Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival will be held in the Melbourne Museum precinct.
“I’m not very good at saying no to anything [if] I think I can help … if I think I can make a diference to people’s lives, whether it’s health-related or in a holistic sense with people’s wellbeing, then I can’t say no. So I put my hand up for it.”
She adds: “Tis is an amazing responsibility. I think it would be remise of me not to be stepping up and working really hard for the people of Victoria. Daniel often says: ‘If you have the opportunity then you have the obligation.’ I believe that.”
While Andrews is relishing her new role – and has even started documenting her position to be recorded for historical prosperity, of course – she shuns the title of unofcial frst lady of Victoria. Traditionally, she corrects, that title went to the Governor’s wife, until Linda Dessau was appointed the frst female Governor. “So there’s not really a title for me,” she ponders. “But people do call me the unofcial frst lady of Victoria.”
So, I ask, what would she like to be called instead? She doesn’t skip a beat: “Catherine Andrews.”