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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-02-26 Daily Xml
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WOMEN IN GOVERNMENT

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (15:21): Some people may call it a sad pastime, but I have had a lot of joy in watching the federal question time and parliament on television.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. S.W. KEY: Yes, some members say it is sad but I am very interested to see how the federal Labor government is faring, and I am pleased to say that it is faring very well. One of the things that is particularly exciting is to see our Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, in action, not to mention the other women ministers, who I think have done a fabulous job in very difficult times in less than three months, in getting into their portfolios and studying their work.

I am very pleased also to see that there are now a number of women who have leading roles in parliament. I am reminded that Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is now head of Argentina. There is Michelle Bachelet in Chile, who won last year's election and became the first female president in Chile. Helen Clark, who is well-known to us, is in her third term as Prime Minister of New Zealand, and she is the second female in that position after Jenny Shipley. We have Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from the Philippines, or GMA, as she is known, and she, of course, is the second woman president after Maria Corazon Aquino.

In Mozambique, Luisa Diogo is the first woman to become a prime minister in an African republic, and she has been there for nearly four years, possibly five now. We have Tarja Halonen in Finland, who is seen as a pioneering politician, in her second term in office. We have Angela Merkel in Germany, modern Germany's first woman leader and also the youngest chancellor since the Second World War. In Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is the first elected woman president and also Africa's first elected female head of state. So, we have some pretty impressive things happening with regard to women politicians.

I am reminded of all this because I have started rereading the wonderful publication In Her Own Name by Helen Jones. Helen Jones, by the way, as well as being an eminent South Australian historian, is also the sister of Jennifer Cashmore. You can see the likeness of these wonderful women and their commitment to other women in South Australia.

One of the areas that is not really covered in this book—and there may be some budding women historians out there who may like to cover this area—is International Women's Day. I am sure our Minister for the Status of Women will have a lot to say about that next week, so I do not want to go into that territory. It is an important occasion in South Australia. We are very proud of the fact that we are the second place in the world to achieve women's suffrage after New Zealand, which beat us by just a few months, as I understand it. Next week we have International Women's Day. The committee that has been organising International Women's Day has been going for some 70 years, I understand, and was particularly influenced by things that were happening overseas. We have all heard about the demonstration of the garment workers in New York City, demanding improved working conditions and equal pay, and also, in 1917, a strike by Russian women who moved that there needed to be a demonstration about demanding bread and peace. Even though this was not exactly supported by their comrades, it was a very important occasion that we go on to celebrate all over the world.

I understand that a number of places have an official holiday for International Women's Day: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Italy, Kazakhstan, and many others.

Time expired.

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