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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-09-28 Daily Xml
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WOMEN IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (15:30): It is sometimes said that Catherine Helen Spence was the first female political candidate and that Susan Grace Benny was the first elected politician. Both of these women are South Australians and both have achieved these milestones in South Australia, but not in the parliamentary sphere. In the history of women's suffrage, voting for local government is generally discounted, making South Australia's 1861 local government legislation irrelevant in many cases, and jurisdictions that subsequently withdrew women's voting rights are not counted either. This enables New Zealand to become generally recognised as the first self-governing jurisdiction to give women unrestricted voting rights.

If the local council elections were included, then the election in 1905 of Susan Grace Benny to South Australia's Brighton council certainly must be noted. It made her South Australia's first female councillor and also Australia's first female politician, but she was not the first outside of Australia. Again, those pesky New Zealanders can claim a first because in 1893 Elizabeth Yates was elected mayor of the New Zealand local council of Onehunga, and the New Zealand dictionary of biography entry claims that this was the first time a woman was elected to a mayoral post anywhere in the British Empire.

Because we have local government elections almost upon us, I thought it was interesting to have a look at the local government sector, and this was also sped up by the fact that I was asked to represent the Hon. Gail Gago of the other place, Minister for the Status of Women, at the South Australian 2010 Year of Women in Local Government conference that was held recently. In looking at the positions in local government, at present—and this is before the election—in South Australia, women hold 17 per cent of the mayoral positions and 24 per cent of elected member positions in local government.

South Australia is obviously below the national average of 27 per cent. These figures have changed little over the last 20 years, sadly. In looking at the 1,273 candidates that have nominated for 714 seats across 67 councils, going through the metropolitan nominations, some 146 women have nominated for positions in the metropolitan councils. The information was not available for the regional councils, but I guess we could even say despite the huge number of nominations it does not look as if the women's percentages are going to increase.

We still manage in Australia to have top world figures for women's representation in local government, however, and we have a great number of high achieving women in South Australia in the local government sphere—for example, the LGA's own President, Felicity-ann Lewis, and Executive Director, Wendy Campana, of the LGA. Both are very good leaders in the local government area.

As we all know, our workforce in South Australia is ageing and half the workforce are approaching retirement; 19 per cent of local government workers in South Australia are aged over 55 and a further 30 per cent are aged 45 to 54. All these people are approaching retirement age, and the number of people at working age in Australia is expected to fall. Around half of South Australian local government sector employees are women.

Like some other industries and sectors, this participation rate is not reflected—and I bet you will be surprised—in the leadership of local government, with the result of only one-third of senior positions in South Australia's local government being held by women, and only four women in South Australia hold chief executive positions in local government, with one of those leaving in the near future. So men and women enter the local government workforce roughly in equal numbers, yet the local governments select 94 per cent of their chief executive officers from 50 per cent of the gene pool.

Time expired.

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