The education minister, Christopher Pyne, says the Liberal party needs more female MPs but doesn’t want a quota, while the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, pledges his party would set a target of 50% women Labor MPs by 2025. The minister assisting the prime minister for women, Michaelia Cash, who is by default in charge of the women’s affairs portfolio, has said her party should look at targets.
“I don’t think we’re afraid and I don’t think we’re unwilling,” she said. “I think it is a conversation that we need to have. Of course the Liberal party can do more, and I’m not going to stand here and say no, because the statistics indicate that clearly we should do more.”
So, with senior politicians on both sides of the fence acknowledging there is a problem, what is the current gender breakdown of politicians in Australia?
The parliamentary library produced a comprehensive report on the representation of women in Australian politics in 2014, which examined politicians across federal and state parliaments. Here are some of the key points from the report.
From a high point of 30.8% in 2009, the proportion of women in Australian parliaments declined to 29% in 2013:
Despite the decline, over a longer time frame increasingly more women have entered the Senate and House of Representatives federally:
Proportion of female senators and members in the commonwealth parliament, 1943–2013
But when compared with other countries Australia has declined in the rankings for women in parliament from 20th in the world in 2001 to 48th in 2014, according to figures compiled by the Inter-Parliamentary Union:
There’s a marked difference in the gender breakdown between the parties, too, with the Greens having a higher proportion of female candidates for both the lower house:
And the Senate:
Labor is the next best, followed by the Liberal and National parties.
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