|
Page 3 of 3
Similarly, she is very committed to TAFE in NSW, which she has chaired for that past seven years. "It is one of the few genuinely, transforming organisations in Australia," she says with pride. She attributes the interest in home decorating television programs with the increased uptake in skill-based courses which can lead to trades. "But industry has to stop thinking of training as business welfare and we have to pay apprentices better."
Yates says she has always been motivated by a social conscience and that any kind of injustice "makes me angry, which is why I have campaigned for women." Still, she defends the advertising industry on issues of young women and body image ("I blame male dress designers") and is proud of helping draw up the code of ethics for the Advertising Federation of Australia.
Trying to live by the principle of "do no harm", Yates says that while she may have at times "behaved badly, through temper, rage or impatience", she has "always tried to act with integrity". She has refused, for example, to have anything to do with the tobacco or gambling industries.
An optimist and a Labor supporter she was deterred from entering political life by the salaries and lifestyles and says the only other job she'd have liked would have been the CEO of the Australia Council. She says the arts still have a long way to go in making themselves more accessible and more relevant.
In their cottage in the Blue Mountains - Yates and Skinner's first home after years renting a house in Paddington - Yates relishes her first garden after a lifetime of apartment living.
She still rents a small apartment in Potts Point, travelling by train to Sydney three days a week where she coaches a select group of corporate executives. The train "gives me more reading time", she says. She enjoys fiction - which includes the authors she liked as a child, such as Jane Austen and George Eliot - and biographies. "Relaxation begins the moment the train starts to climb out of the Sydney plain," she says.
She and Skinner rise early to be in the garden by 7.30am, where they potter till lunch time "sporting a gardener's tan," she says. "A particularly daggy fashion statement!" She enjoys cooking dinner in the cool of the evening - the area's climate was a factor in their decision to move, "We wanted seasons and we both find that as we get older, the heat can be debilitating," she says.
With her retirement from the corporate world approaching, Yates says she's looking forward to more holidays abroad -her favourite destinations are Maui, Paris and Spain and anywhere she and Skinner can indulge their mutual passion for cathedrals.
Tall spires seem an appropriate interest for a woman who has aimed high and reached the top.
Caroline Baum is editor of Good Reading magazine.
|
