RURAL WOMEN

The Hon. C.V. SCHAEFER (14:58): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for the Status of Women a question about women in agriculture.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C.V. SCHAEFER: A recent article in The Age states as follows:

More than 52,000 Australian women call themselves farmers, yet four out of five paid board or management positions in the rural sector are held by blokes—and the federal government wants that to change.

The government is announcing targeted funding to help balance up the gender ratio in rural leadership positions and help more female farmers get appointed to the top rural gigs.

Minister for Agriculture, Tony Burke, announced $2 million to go towards leadership development and mentoring for rural women.

This is on top of $1 million announced in May for rural women's leadership grants and $50,000 for mentoring programs.

Mr Burke said women were still not properly represented in leadership roles in the agricultural sector, with less than 20 per cent of paid board and management positions in the sector held by women.

My question is: given that this government scrapped the rural leadership course for women and the rural mentoring structure some years ago, what specific commitment does the state government have towards training rural women for leadership positions, and where is the money in the budget?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for State/Local Government Relations, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises, Minister Assisting the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Energy) (15:00): I thank the honourable member for her question. I know that the federal government has recently announced a very important commitment in terms of funding to assist women in rural communities. I also know that we have a number of ongoing leadership initiatives in terms of our Public Service and groups established to encourage and mentor women within the Public Service, and some of those women are employed in regional centres.

We have sought advice in terms of any specific initiatives, in particular coming out of the recent federal announcement, and how they pertain to a new project in South Australia. Once we have received that advice, I will be happy to bring it back to the chamber.