It's taken more than 40 years for Elizabeth Reid to speak publicly about the time the governor-general tried to "make out" with her.

When she was hired by Gough Whitlam in April 1973, Ms Reid found herself in a job that had never existed anywhere else in the world: women's adviser to a prime minister.

For nearly three years, she worked side-by-side with Whitlam to develop ground-breaking policy around child support, domestic violence refuges, rape crisis centres and the single mother's benefit.

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She also worked closely with the governor-general Sir John Kerr — a man whose legacy was defined by his decision to sack Whitlam as prime minister on November 11, 1975.

Now, for the first time, Ms Reid has detailed new claims of an unwanted sexual advance made by the (then) governor-general when she was an adviser to Whitlam.

Ms Reid spoke about the incident during an interview covering her early career in politics recorded for the new ABC podcast series, The Eleventh.

Her most serious allegation concerns a time when the governor-general, who had been drinking, tried to "make out" with her.

They were in a tight space, and he pressed his body up against hers.

"I mean, he was pawing me … with his hands and his body."

"I had to get out of here to disentangle myself from it," she said.

Reid said she distinctly remembered "a shuffle", and feeling his undergarments through his shirt, "because I remember at one stage thinking, 'Oh, oh, that man is wearing a corset.'"

These allegations were never put to Sir John Kerr, who died in 1991.

Ms Reid acknowledges that he is unable to defend himself.

Elizabeth Reid worked as Whitlam's adviser for women more than 40 years ago. ( ABC News: Alex Mann )

Although she wants to put the experience on the public record, Ms Reid doesn't describe the incident as a sexual assault.

"Would I call it sexual assault? I have no doubt that the intention was somewhat similar to that," she said.

"I don't think he was as successful as he would have liked to have been.

"I didn't feel sexually assaulted, put it that way, because … he exuded an air of incompetence."

She said it was part of a pattern of behaviour that made it uncomfortable to work with Sir John Kerr.

"He had a strong sense of entitlement. What I've since learned is that that sense of entitlement, it's a mark of misogyny."

"I just think the man was constantly inebriated. There comes a level of inebriation when you just go after what you want."

Intense media scrutiny

In the 1970s Ms Reid was at the forefront of a new wave of the women's rights movement.

She'd been going to meetings, marches, writing academic papers on abortion law reform and demonstrating in the streets.

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But the women's adviser role felt like a real opportunity to change things from the inside.

"The state was saying to us: 'You demonstrate, you write articles damning us, not giving you these things. OK. Come and tell us what we need to do.'"

Some in the media branded the shortlisted applicants for the role as "Gough's Supergirls".

And from her first days in the job Ms Reid faced intense scrutiny.

She remembers the first press conference she gave from the lounge room in her own home as a "baptism of fire".

"They sat around and they asked me a whole series of questions: 'What do I think about abortion? What do you think about homosexuality?'" she said.

The next day, the headlines screamed: "PM's Supergirl says legalise pot [and] abortion".

Elizabeth Reid attracted hyperbolic coverage in the press during her time in politics. ( ABC News )

Journalists made gratuitous references to her not wearing a bra and the fact she did not live with her daughter.

The opposition found a student newspaper article she'd written on masturbation and read it out in Parliament.

Ms Reid did her best to get on with the job.

Her two-and-a-half years in Whitlam's office earned Ms Reid a place in history as a feminist trailblazer who fought against misogyny and discrimination against women.

But even in this role, she was subjected to the very behaviour she was fighting against.

Awkward social encounters and a marriage proposal

Ms Reid first worked closely with Sir John Kerr in late 1974 when he approached her for help writing a speech to the Associated Country Women of the World.

Sir John had been hand-picked by Whitlam to be the governor-general, and had big ambitions for the role.

He didn't see himself as a ceremonial figurehead.

He saw his position as powerful: one up from the prime minister, with a direct line to the Queen.

Sir John Kerr was the Queen's representative in Australia. ( Supplied: National Archives )

Ms Reid normally lived in Canberra, but when the two happened to be in Sydney at the same time, Sir John Kerr would invite her to dinner at his official residence and the two would work together. But, over time, their relationship became increasingly awkward.

Once, while Reid was staying at the prime minister's residence next door to the governor-general in Sydney, she saw Kerr stumble through the vegetable patch and appear at the window.

Later that night, he was invited to a party she was attending.

On another occasion, he proposed to her.

She recalls him asking: "Why would you work for the second most important person when you could be married to the most important person in the land?"



"It was obvious that the man was interested … and I wasn't," said Ms Reid.

Sir John's first wife, Lady Alison (Peggy) Kerr, had died earlier that year after a long illness, and it was known that he was looking for company.

"It's human for people to be infatuated, to lust, to love — all these are human reactions. And this was a man who had lost his wife," she said.

"He was clearly searching for another wife and he was clearly considering whether or not I would be an appropriate person."

Understanding her experience through a present-day lens

Ms Reid resigned in October 1975, after she organised a women's conference where Whitlam was heckled by protesters, which drew negative press coverage.

Buried under a seemingly endless stream of controversies, Whitlam's advisers saw the negative headlines as a threat to the government.

They asked her to move out of the prime minister's office and into the public service, but Ms Reid refused, instead offering her resignation.

A few days later, she packed her bags and left the country, calling herself a "refugee from the media".

Ms Reid didn't return to live in Australia permanently for 40 years.

Elizabeth Reid resigned from her job in October. By November, Gough Whitlam had been dismissed as Prime Minister. ( National Library of Australia )

Despite the progress towards gender equality in the 1970s, the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace would not be addressed until the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act the following decade.

Even for those rare women in senior roles, there were no established channels for reporting sexist or harassing behaviour. Correspondingly, there was a strong reluctance for victims to speak out.

Ms Reid said nowadays "people would be appalled" by Sir John's alleged behaviour but, at the time, there was little such public conversation.

While she was still in the role, Ms Reid tried to push these interactions out of her mind. Reid spoke only to her closest friend, who has since confirmed to the ABC that Ms Reid had confided in her how little she liked to be alone with Sir John.



"I think that I wasn't allowed the luxury of feeling. I had to get up the next day and face him in a formal situation or face the Prime Minister," Ms Reid said.



"I had so much work that had to be done that I didn't have time to think about these things."