Labor leader describes ‘strong and clever’ woman and blasts news story that ignored ‘vital fact’ about her thwarted career

Bill Shorten has delivered a powerful tribute to his late mother, after a newspaper report attacked him for using her experience in the workforce to help explain his interest in politics.

The opposition leader criticised the Daily Telegraph report which said he ignored a “vital fact” about his mother’s thwarted desire to become a lawyer, saying he was glad she was not still alive to read the “rubbish” story.

In an emotional press conference, Shorten explained how his mother, who died in 2014, had initially been forced to take a teacher’s scholarship because she did not have the money to go to university.

Federal election 2019: Bill Shorten tears up as he responds to media reports about his mother – politics live Read more

“She came from very modest circumstances. She topped her school,” Shorten said of his “strong and clever” mother, Ann.

“She got the best marks. But no one in my family had ever gone to university. She was very keen to do law. She had a great brain. But [of a] family of four, she was the eldest. She didn’t have the money to pay for her tuition to go to university.”

The Daily Telegraph report criticised Shorten for failing to mention on ABC’s Q&A program that his mother went on to have an “illustrious” career as a barrister after a midlife career change.

Shorten said that his mother enrolled in law school in her late 40s, while working full-time and raising a family, and had “topped the law school” when she was in her early 50s.

But because of discrimination against older women, his mother had struggled to do her articles with a law firm who preferred “young and jazzy” types, completing her qualification at the Leo Cussen institute before becoming a barrister.

“She got about nine briefs in her time. It was actually a bit dispiriting. She had wanted to do law when she was 17, she didn’t get that chance, she raised kids, and at 50, she backed herself,” Shorten said.

“But she discovered in her mid-50s that sometimes, you’re just too old, and you shouldn’t be too old, but she discovered the discrimination against older women.”

Shorten said the experience of his “brilliant” mother had instilled him the value of education and shown him the importance of equality of opportunity.

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“My mum is the smartest woman I’ve ever known. It has never occurred to me that women are not the equal of men. It’s never occurred to me that women shouldn’t be able to do everything. That is why I work with strong women. That is why I believe in the equal treatment of women,” Shorten said.

“My mum would want me to say to older women in Australia – that just because you’ve got grey hair, just because you didn’t go to a special private school, just because you don’t go to the right clubs, just because you’re not part of some back-slapping boy’s club, doesn’t mean you should give up.

“I can’t change what happened to my mum. But I can change things for other people. And that’s why I’m in politics.”

In reference to the Daily Telegraph report, he said his mother would have told him to not “worry about that rubbish”, but passed on her frequent advice to the paper to “look it up” when doing their research.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, said he could understand why the story “would have upset him a great deal”.

“This election is not about our families,” Morrison said.