Women in Parliament

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (15:38): I have been fortunate enough to have served the people of South Australia in this place for almost 16 years. During that time, I have seen incredible change and progress made across South Australia. One area of change, however, which disappoints me is the representation of women in politics. There has been much public discussion over the years about the place of women participating in particular in federal politics in Australia. We have seen our first female prime minister subjected to disgraceful slurs and commentary. We then watched Australia elect Mr Abbott as prime minister, and instead of taking the opportunity to increase the diversity of his cabinet Mr Abbott appointed a cabinet with only one woman in it.

Even now, the Turnbull Liberal government has only five female cabinet members. Turnbull has even gone so far as to mislead Australians about having—this was his quote—'more women in my cabinet than any previous government'. The gender inequality in our federal parliament is so bad that our Prime Minister has to resort to making up stories about it.

Although the state of women in federal politics is woeful, South Australia also faces challenges. When I was elected to this place in 2002 over 40 per cent of Labor members serving in the South Australian parliament were women, and 25 per cent of Liberal members were women.

In the other place, SA Labor at 43.5 per cent had the highest proportion of women of the two major parties in any lower house in Australia. We were truly at the front of the fight for equal representation. However, these numbers have dropped over the last 16 years. Sadly, now just over 32 per cent of all Labor members are women. However, that downfall pales into insignificance in comparison with the numbers of the opposition. The percentage of women representing the South Australian Liberal Party in 2002 was 25 per cent and it has now shrunk to a disgraceful 18 per cent.

Over the last 16 years, the number of women in total across all parties serving in the South Australian parliament has gone from 30 per cent to just over 26 per cent. The United Nations recommends a minimum proportion of 30 per cent of women in parliament. The Parliament of South Australia has failed this standard.

The Labor Party of South Australia meets the standard through a determined and persistent commitment to equal representation, but we can and will do better. The opposition's lack of commitment to gender equality disenfranchises South Australian women from having real input into decision-making. I suspect that one of the reasons the opposition has shown time and time again how woefully incapable it is to represent and serve the people of South Australia is that it continues to fail to give women in South Australia the equality, respect and opportunities they deserve.

The opposition's continued dereliction in nominating and supporting women in parliament is shameful and numbers as low as theirs have no place in our civilised democracy. However, I certainly acknowledge that improvement can be made on all fronts. Indeed, unfortunately, the number of women in this place representing Labor has dropped and that is something that must and, I am sure, will change. However, that decrease is nothing compared to the loss of female representation in the opposition.

I know that the Labor Party has worked hard and will continue to work to encourage and support more women to enter parliament. We support women to achieve office, represent our state and increase the robust and excellent decision-making abilities of our state. However, I see no evidence that the South Australian Liberal opposition aspires to this. In fact, the last 16 years has indicated that they have been, as I said, derelict in their efforts to address gender equality. This is shameful.

For the upcoming 2018 election, I am very pleased that over 40 per cent of candidates and members currently announced by the SA Labor Party for seats in the other place are women and half of our known Legislative Council candidates are women. The progress made by the opposition is moderate, to say the least. Less than 25 per cent of their members and candidates for the other place heading into the next election are women, and I remain concerned about the gender representation in the opposition's nominations for the Legislative Council so far.

I also note that despite Mr Xenophon's stated purpose of changing South Australian politics, of the six SA-Best candidates known to be standing for the election, only two are women. I call on all parties and members of the South Australian parliament and in particular I call upon the opposition to do more, to be better and to ensure that the future of the South Australian parliament is representative and inclusive of women.