Goulburn's Pru Goward appointed an AO in Australia Day honours

She was the ABC's first female political correspondent, fought a landmark battle for paid maternity leave and for women's rights, and in politics, worked to reform the way authorities dealt with domestic violence.

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Pru Goward embarks on life after politics

How sweet it is: Pru

The former Goulburn MP has been appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). It is the second highest appointment in the Australia Day Honours List and recognises Ms Goward's "distinguished service to the people and Parliament of NSW and to women's affairs."

"I was thrilled. It's wonderful to be acknowledged like that and I was impressed it was done in Labor's time," she said.

"I thought that was a great comment on their sense of merit."

Ms Goward's career spans a "mixed bag" of media, women's affairs and politics.

Born in Adelaide, she said her nurse mother was the first woman to work in her family and always wanted her daughter to have opportunities she didn't.

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Pru studied economics at Adelaide University.

"I went to my first women's liberation rally when I was 19 years old and I never looked back. It seemed absolutely right to me," Ms Goward said.

In the early 1980s she became the ABC's first female political correspondent to host her own current affairs radio and television programs. It required a level of toughness that politicians and the audience didn't always like, she said.

From 1997 to 1999, Ms Goward was executive director for the Office of the Status for Women, within the Prime Minister and Cabinet's department.

In 2001, Prime Minister John Howard appointed her to a five-year term as federal sex discrimination commissioner.

"I read a lot about women who'd done 'firsts' and how they ended up in anti-discrimination courts," she said.

"I realised that during my time at the ABC nobody had prepared me or them for how it would work....It was a tumultuous time."

She and her team embarked on a campaign for paid maternity leave, which was secured eight years after Ms Goward's appointment to the federal role

"It was crazy brave because I'd inadvertently taken on the government that had appointed me," she said.

"I thought they would support me but Tony Abbott said 'over my dead body'.. It was a huge campaign generated wholly by our belief it was the right thing to do and I think it has turned out to be so."

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In 2007, Ms Goward successfully ran for the seat of Goulburn, which she held until her retirement in 2019.

She held ministerial portfolios in family and community services, prevention of domestic violence and asexual assault, mental health, women, and planning.

The former MP said she was proud the coalition had halved the number of children in home care and given them permanency.

"We didn't do it with more money but by changing attitudes to families and recognising that you need to build on their strengths rather than destroying them by taking children away," Ms Goward said.

"Putting a child in foster care for 10 years is a terrible life."

Similarly, she was pleased with what she saw as improvements to domestic violence approaches and changing police attitudes.

Ms Goward stepped down in early 2019 to look after her husband, former political journalist, David Barnett OBE. He passed away in August, 2022.

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Since politics Ms Goward has served as adjunct professor at Western Sydney University. She is currently a senior member of the Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal, working in the NDIS division, and reatins her Goulburn home.

There's also been time to reflect.

"In retirement I've recognised that we are all pebbles on a beach and everyone makes a bit of a difference. That is what humanity's about," Ms Goward said.

"...David would be proud. Every time we spoke he told me how well I'd done. His belief in me was sometimes all there was and I'm just so sorry he's not here to see this. He would be thrilled."

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