Michelle on Harvey Community Radio – Women in the Workforce 2026

Sounds Like Harvey, Women in the Workforce 2026. You’re about to hear from volunteers from the Harvey community who have kindly agreed to be interviewed. They come from a diverse range of backgrounds and life experiences. Harvey Community Radio 96.5FM greatly acknowledges the financial support for this project from the Community Broadcasting Foundation.

Verity: Hi, I’m Verity, and today I’m interviewing Michelle on Sounds Like Harvey 2026, Women in the Workforce. Welcome Michelle.

Michelle: Thank you, hi, great to see you.

Verity: I’m really looking forward to our interview today, and I just would love to begin with you telling us a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, and maybe some of the experiences or moments from your childhood that really stayed with you.

Michelle: Well, I’m Michelle Moriarty, I’m the founder of Grief Connect, and if we go back way back when, 45 years ago now, I grew up in Bunbury and spent my childhood and teenage years bouncing around the place, and really enjoyed our beautiful town and countryside around here.

Verity: Great – and you went to school in Bunbury as well?

Michelle: I did – I went to St Mary’s and then Bunbury Catholic College.

Verity: Wow, okay, I did too, we share that in common. So thinking about school, I wonder if you had an imagination of what your future would be like, and maybe a particular career in mind back then, and what influenced that thinking around career prospects when you were young?

Michelle: When I was very small I wanted to be a hairdresser, because I was an only child but I also had a “god-sister” who was like a bigger sister, and she would always braid my hair and taught me how to braid, so I just thought hairdressing, of course, when I was young. And then as I grew older I really enjoyed time with younger children, and if you asked me in my early teens what I was going to do it would have been teaching, but I really wasn’t too sure either, because there were just so many options, but also a lot of pressure – when I was 15 we had to make decisions about subjects, we had to know what we wanted to do, and it felt like that anyway at a really young age. And I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, and at that point I didn’t know what social work was either, because there weren’t psychology or social work units at high school – they were all physics or maths or English, it wasn’t specific like they’ve definitely changed the curriculum now, which is great.

Verity: Yeah, there is that pressure still, I think, to kind of know exactly what it is you want to do from a really early age, and if you haven’t heard of something you might not know what the possibilities are out there. So I wonder if perhaps at that age you could cast your mind back and think – were there clear expectations or stereotypes around what might have been considered appropriate, especially for women at that time, when you were thinking about what you wanted to do in your future in the school years?

Michelle: Yeah, certainly as a female it was certainly looking at caring profession type work – my mum being a nurse and a midwife, delivering probably thousands, millions of babies, she can’t remember anymore because she’s delivered that many, which is amazing, she’s amazing. But yeah, there was more of that “care”, that “care industry”, that it felt like more of the worthy options back then as a woman. There certainly wasn’t the mechanical or the truck driving and the things that women are really getting out there and doing now, and agriculture was another industry – for me now, having a farm, my eyes have been totally opened to this whole world of agriculture and farming, and I’m a farmer now as well, but back then that wasn’t ever considered or discussed. Even at school I don’t recall having any conversations about agriculture and farming being a career possibility for me as a woman.

Verity: Okay, so you sort of felt yourself steered into the care type sector.

Michelle: Yes.

Verity: And then I wonder, as you’re leaving school and thinking about entering the workforce, could you tell us what was your actual first job, and what do you remember about that period of your life, transitioning from school into the workforce?

Michelle: Yeah, I didn’t transition very well, to be honest – I didn’t pass year 12, I left halfway through because I was too busy wanting to hang out with my mates rather than study, so that was not really what my parents were hoping for at that point. But I ended up moving out and I ended up working in a fish shop, filleting fish.

Verity: Wow, tell us about that.

Michelle: I worked for Helen Soulless at Leschenault Seafoods, and I worked with her and other women, including her daughters, and we would fillet fish. It was pretty smelly business, to be honest – I didn’t smell too good when I got home, I only wore certain clothes at that time, because filleting fish can be fairly gory, and then we’d be serving customers as well, so I did always enjoy that customer interaction, I’ve always been a people person, being social like that. But I loved it – it was honestly one of my most favourite jobs, because the women there, we just had a ball, we would have a joke and we’d laugh, and we’re still wonderful friends now, so it really had a big impact on me going forward. And then I ended up going to hospitality, working behind a bar, and I did not like that – a very different experience from my first job. And then ended up finding community services at our local TAFE in Bunbury, studied community services to Certificate 4, and that’s what got me entrance to ECU, Edith Cowan University, and then I headed over and did a Bachelor of Social Work, which was a four-year degree back then, and still is.

Verity: That’s amazing, and I’m hearing there’s lots of variety here already – you’ve talked about social work, community services, fish filleting, not many of us have that skill. But what I love is hearing about the relationships that you picked up, and that’s the meaningful part – obviously the work is meaningful, what you do is meaningful, but the relationships sound like they’ve lasted and had a real impression on you at the time. Is there anything else, in terms of just looking over your career and the variety of roles you’ve had, where there have been experiences or workplaces that have left the strongest impression on you, and why?

Michelle: I’ve really enjoyed, apart from the hospitality, all of the other jobs I’ve been involved in, for different reasons depending on the type of work, because they’ve been so different in terms of what I have done. One of my other really favourite periods of time in my career was working in London – I worked in East London as a social worker, in probation and then youth offending, I worked at Redbridge Youth Offending Team, I was the token Aussie on the team. It was just really well organised, really well run, and I became very good friends with many people on the team, there were still very clear professional boundaries in place even though those of us on the ground had formed close friendships, and I’m still in touch with them, and I can’t wait to go back to visit. That workplace really had an impact on me, and my profession being a social worker, most of us are women, there’s certainly a higher percentage of females in social work and community services, so the women friendships I’ve made have been really important to me, as have the male ones that have come up as well.

Verity: Fantastic, it does sound like you’ve been all over the place, and I’m loving hearing your story, and the reflections on when a workplace works well, and the processes are working well, and the boundaries are in place, and professionalism reigns – it just sets everybody up to do a great job, and then the relationships between co-workers is like the icing on the cake, it’s what you take away with you, as well as the skills you’ve learned in that job. So it sounds like you’ve had some great experiences in your working life, and I just wonder if we could zone out a little bit and think of work more generally – what does work mean to you beyond income, what motivates you to work, and what has work given you over the course of your life?

Michelle: Work has been an extremely important part of my life, but also in the bigger sense – I support a lot of widowed people through the Grief Connect widow support groups, and finding out who you are again as a widowed person, finding out who you are as a new identity, because you’re back to being just you, that really includes who am I in the workplace, because many of us do have to go back to work to sustain our home, our families, so that whole identity piece in terms of work and careers as women is really important, because it gives us meaning and purpose. For me, it’s about what do I enjoy, what makes me want to get up in the morning – work that doesn’t make me want to get up in the morning isn’t good for anyone’s mental health, but doing the things that fill our cup with energy, with purpose and hope, something to look forward to and enjoy, that meaningful piece of work, and what change can we make for the better, for the greater good as well as for us as individuals. What can we do to make the world a better place, even if it’s just very small things here and there – all of us contributing like that does have a big impact. And that’s that balance of filling our own cup with joy, knowing that we spend so many hours of our life potentially in work, and keeping that bigger picture of how am I contributing to make the world a better place.

Verity: I love that outlook. So I wonder if we could throw to your first song now – I think the one you’ve chosen is Katie Tunstall, “Suddenly I See”?

Michelle: Yes.

Verity: Tell us about what that song means to you, why have you chosen it?

Michelle: It was a song that really resonated with me when I was actually in England – I would listen to it on my Discman, after the Walkman, I’d carry all my discs with me and off I’d go, and that would be one of the songs I really loved, it just got me in the mood and motivated to start the day.

[Song: Katie Tunstall – “Suddenly I See”]

Verity: Welcome back to Sounds Like Harvey, Women in the Workforce on Harvey Community Radio 96.5FM, it’s your town talking. I’m Verity, and I’m welcoming back Michelle Moriarty from Grief Connect. Welcome, thank you so much for that song.

Michelle: Oh, that’s a good one, isn’t it?

Verity: It is a really good one. So, turning to your own journey as a woman in the workforce, I wonder if you could tell us about some of the most significant challenges you’ve encountered, and what strategies have helped you navigate those?

Michelle: Some of the challenges I’ve experienced in the workforce have been more around other people’s behaviours, because as we know, we cannot control other people’s behaviours, but we can certainly control how we choose to respond to their behaviour. So, upon reflection, going back, it would be more around speaking up earlier – and I think that probably had a lot to do with my confidence as a young adult, which has certainly grown now, being 45, the “care factor” in terms of offending anyone tends to ease, well, it certainly has in my case. But growing as a young adult through my career, being able to speak up was something that was a challenge, because I’d sort of look up to people and think, wow, they’re certainly in a position of power, and unfortunately sometimes – mostly not, but sometimes – people can abuse that sense of power, and that can have a ripple effect. When that ripple effect impacts others, that would be a time where I had felt challenged, on a personal level as well as for colleagues. So certainly other people’s behaviours have, well, not anymore, but certainly have been a challenge for me throughout my career. I also work with other people and provide supervision, and that can quite often be a challenge for the individual in their workplace, how they’re managing other people’s behaviours and what they can do, whether it be grievance procedures and following those, or speaking up to the right people in leadership positions.

Verity: And it’s great that you can recognise that you’ve walked through that – I imagine in a supervision role you get to actually share some lived experience and be able to say, I get it, I’ve been there, and provide some real positive process to a young person on how they can manage that, as well as the emotional support, that must be a really worthwhile thing for you, but also a really amazing thing to share with a young person who’s going through it. So, thinking about yourself back in those times, where you can’t control what other people are doing but they are providing those challenges, would there have been anything that might have made that easier for you, perhaps in the workplace or at home?

Michelle: Certainly peer support and family support have been a huge part of my career development, even though they’re totally separate, they’re so interlinked as well, because if we’re needing to come home and we’ve had a really rough day at work, it’s always been helpful for me to come home and talk to my husband – I got married in the last year, which is exciting.

Verity: Congratulations.

Michelle: Thank you. So to come home and just talk to him about what’s been happening – I work from home now, so he’ll come home and we’ll have a chat about our days, and sharing about how it went and what we could have done better, having that self-reflection around what’s worked really well today and what I’m excited about, because there’s always exciting things happening, but also for some of those more challenging times, being able to have a conversation around what that’s looked like and how we’ve been impacted.

Verity: Great, so peer support in a more professional, set-up sense, but also the family and friend support that we hopefully all have, quite key to managing those challenges, you think.

Michelle: Yeah, absolutely. And then also as social workers and psychologists we’re all required to have ongoing professional supervision – as a social worker I have to have monthly supervision with a dedicated professional, who is a male in my case, and I’ve had females before as well, being my supervisor, and we discuss the ins and outs of work and get advice and get gently challenged as well. That’s certainly been a really key piece in my career, being able to reflect and also take on challenge, even if it’s uncomfortable, which it never really is comfortable, being challenged and saying, actually, how could you have done that differently, sitting in that awkwardness and being able to go, let’s reflect and figure out what other path I could have taken, because that might be the better way for working in the future, trying something different. And I think care health does that really well – I come from a health background as well, so very used to peer supervision, and as I’ve branched out into other industries I think, wow, this is lacking a little bit there, so I wonder if it’s something other industries could learn from.

Verity: For sure. So I wonder if we could look back at your experience as a woman in the workplace – do we still face additional barriers, do you think, when it comes to recognition or advancement, and what sits at the heart of that, if you think that’s still there?

Michelle: Absolutely, I do think there are still many challenges for us as women, and one of the things, in terms of work-life balance, those parenting roles, working roles, trying to have it all, live it all – sometimes it can just be too much, and it’s okay as a woman to also go, actually, I can’t have it all, if we’re talking about challenges. There are periods in my life, especially having small children, where you’re trying to be able to manage and do everything, have a career and maintain that and be a fabulous mother at the same time, and be a fabulous partner and a fabulous housekeeper, all the things, the many hats we have to wear as working women. And it’s also okay to go, right, I can’t do it all, I just need to recalibrate and have a review – it’s not forever that we have to make changes, but we also have to make sure we’re okay in terms of having a healthy mental health level in terms of where we’re going. In terms of acknowledgement and recognition, though, and supporting us as women, there are many things out there now which I’m extremely grateful for – we’ve got the AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award, which I won in ’23, and then we’ve also got the Innovate with nbn Awards, they have a Women in Regional Business Award, which I also won in ’24. But these awards are excellent because they’re recognising women, it brings women together as well – AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award have an alumni which we’re part of, and those networking connections are incredible. I’m also now in the Australian Rural Leadership Program, that is of all genders, however it certainly is recognising rural needs and addressing that, giving us the support we need, because I certainly wouldn’t be sitting here without AgriFutures, back in the early days, 2023 – I don’t think I’d be sitting here, because that was certainly a changing moment, being recognised as a woman coming in and being able to have some support with the services I’d created, to also support women in regional and rural and remote areas.

Verity: That’s fantastic to hear, I’m really pleased to hear there are organisations out there recognising the incredible achievements of women and also providing the support for them on their journey in the workplace, or starting something new, like you did with Grief Connect. And to have an award winner sat across from me is pretty cool – really cool. I just want to give you big congratulations for that, Michelle, it’s something that should really have a great thumbs up for sure.

Michelle: Oh, thank you, I’m really appreciative of those opportunities, because they’ve helped expand my networks in terms of connecting, and that’s what, for me, being human is all about – connections and helping each other and supporting each other. And there has been nothing but openness and goodwill, going, okay, we can see what you’re doing is helping people experiencing grief and bereavement, what can we do – and there’s so much goodwill coming back from that, that I’m incredibly grateful for the many people I’ve met along the road in the last few years who have given me their time and guidance and advice to get to this point now.

Verity: I love that, people helping people – it sounds like it’s really at the heart of everything you’ve done, even from the influence of the earliest job you had, fish filleting with a wonderful group of women. So casting your mind back to that, and you’ve already mentioned that wonderful group of women, are there others who’ve inspired you in your working life or guided you, and could you pick out a few qualities or things they did that left a lasting impression on you?

Michelle: Yeah, look, my mother has had the biggest impression on me in terms of being a decent human and also caring – like I said before, mum’s a nurse, so she’s spent her whole career, which has been incredible, out in communities delivering babies locally, all over the place, supporting women at the most challenging time physically of their life, and bringing these little babies into the world safely. She’s had probably the biggest impact on me, because she has taught me to have a really strong work ethic, and to treat people with kindness and empathy, and be kind and be honest and transparent in the workplace, and that of course filters into daily life. Certainly my mum, she deserves so much recognition – I wish there was an award that just recognised how much of an impact she’s made on so many people’s lives, and so many women’s lives, delivering babies.

Verity: It’s great to honour her now with that – just to say she’s had such an impact on your life is a big moment to honour her, and I’m glad you’ve got to do that.

Michelle: Yeah, me too.

Verity: So for women leaving school and entering the workforce today, what do you think is genuinely different compared to when you and I started, both the opportunities they have to look forward to and perhaps the pressures that might be faced by them?

Michelle: I think one of the biggest differences is we have social media, we have phones, we have access to the internet and the wealth of information that’s on the internet, which for me wasn’t – I remember my dad getting the old computer box, the noise, how slow it was, but things are different now. We’ve got social media, we’re constantly scrolling, there’s all sorts of promotions for women, empowering women, inspiring us to feel confident no matter what we look like or what our interests are career-wise, and it’s also wonderful that other companies are embracing more equality in terms of numbers of women coming into workplaces, giving us the opportunity to come in and drive trucks and dozers and become diesel mechanics, and do all the things that may have previously been considered men’s work, and vice versa – it’s really around having that equality, and that seems to have changed. I think there’s still room for improvement, but we’re moving in the right direction.

Verity: That’s a great, real positive outlook for women leaving school – really, the world is their oyster in terms of what they can dream and actually achieve.

Michelle: Yeah, that’s great. And women in farming – I’m out there in the cattle crush as well, giving it my all, getting frustrated with the cows and the heifers that aren’t doing what they’re told, but it’s just giving us more opportunity, and women out there actually on farm, or doing the jobs previously considered men’s work, sharing their work, sharing their lives – this is what it looks like, you can do it too.

Verity: That’s great, actually encouraging people to think, I could do this, and there are people out there willing to help me and encourage me to do it, I don’t have to figure it out all on my own, there are really great examples, men and women, who are doing this job, so it provides a great platform for women coming out of school thinking, what is it, and maybe not so much that pressure to go into the very stereotypical roles like you mentioned before, that was there in front of you when you left school. So it sounds positive – I’m looking forward to seeing lots of young women who can listen to this interview and think, I’m going to go on a farm.

Michelle: But I also have a side business, and go and fillet fish maybe – it’s all possible for them, I think. Give it a crack is what I say, because you may not like it, and that’s okay, but you may really love it, and if you really love it, that’s life-changing stuff. Give it a shot.

Verity: I love it. So I think we’ve answered the last question, Michelle, but I’m going to ask it anyway – what is it that gives you optimism about the future for women in the workforce?

Michelle: Well, as women, what we know now is we can do anything that we put our mind to – so put your mind to it. It’s okay to be human, because we may have some small doubts, we may feel nerves or anxiety, but give it a crack anyway, because that enjoyment, finding that meaning and purpose, is so powerful, if you find the right thing that you really love to do.

Verity: Wonderful, I love it. Thank you so much for your time today, and for sharing a bit about your experiences in the workforce, it’s been great to get to know you. If people want to find out more about Grief Connect, they can have a look at that on your website?

Michelle: Yes, so I offer counselling, there are widow support groups, and the Grief Language Project seminars, so I can come to communities and talk about the Grief Language Project, which helps increase confidence in knowing what to say and do when we experience a death. But definitely have a look at my website, there’s lots of information on there to find out how I can help.

Verity: Awesome, thank you so much, and we’re going to go out with a really cool song – I love this one, probably from when we were younger, I think this one by Sheryl Crow, “All I Wanna Do”, is it one that you chose for a particular reason?

Michelle: Yeah, I love the vibe of it, it’s exciting, and life is about fun – we’ve got to make sure we have fun in our life, it’s not all work either, we’ve got to keep a good balance and have fun as well.

Verity: Love it – okay, thank you so much for being my studio guest today for Sounds Like Harvey 2026, Women in the Workforce.

[Song: Sheryl Crow – “All I Wanna Do”]