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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-03-19 Daily Xml
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Women's Representation in Politics

Ms CLANCY (Elder) (14:50): My question is to the Deputy Premier. Can the Deputy Premier please update the house on the representation of women in South Australia?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water) (14:51): I am delighted to answer this question. Last year, I had the pleasure of being invited to be on a committee overseeing a program hosted at the University of Adelaide called Pathways to Politics for Women. It's a course designed for women who think they would like to be an elected member of either council, state parliament or federal parliament. It is an excellent course that will continue to run, and it responds to a desire from a number of women to work out whether there is indeed a pathway for them to be represented in parliament.

If you look on this side of the chamber, there is a relatively easy answer, which is: there is a pathway. There is a pathway that has resulted in more than half the members on our side of the chamber being women. The seven who won the seven seats that were necessary to win for the government to be on this side of the chamber joined seven existing members of parliament in safer seats, so no longer do you see that when there is a loss, most of the women disappear; what you now see is that women are spread—as are men—through the marginal seats and the safer seats.

That is an important and instructive lesson for women interested in being in politics, but it didn't happen by accident. It happened because we changed the rules a number of years ago—led by, from memory, the wonderful foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong—to have a quota that needed to be reached over a period of time, and we also had a determination from the leadership, particularly, of course, from Peter Malinauskas, but I and the senior members of the opposition at the time were also involved in going out and finding women who were interested and prepared to run for parliament and who would, of course, be able to represent their communities in the way in which those seven have. It worked, and it is wonderful.

Not every woman in the community is going to want to be in the Labor Party, unfortunately; we are not a single-party state. If you look at some of the smaller parties, the Greens, for example, do very well with women. It is variable with some of the others, but there is often a good presence of women. But if you happen to be Liberal-leaning, what a terrible time to think about wanting to be in politics. Not only do we have, I think, when elected, around 12 per cent of the membership on the other side being women—that has gone up a tiny bit because one man has left the party in order to go over—but we have also had the appalling message sent by the mess that was the selection for the Senate over the weekend for people who were already sitting, but a little vanity exercise for a right-wing anti-vaxxer to be able to demonstrate—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Morialta under 134.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Standing order 98, sir: it has been found by yourself and other Speakers that the minister is in no way responsible for internal party matters.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! That may be. It's certainly an important ruling. However, the question is very broad and is directed at representation with respect to the state. Of course, senators represent the entire state, so I will listen carefully.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: The message that was sent to the women who went through the Pathways to Politics for Women course, who might be considering doing that, who are interested in being on the Liberal side of politics, was it doesn't matter if you have been—I think I will quote Senator Birmingham—'a highly effective cabinet minister'. It doesn't matter if you have been part of 'an outstanding part of our leadership team'. If you're a woman and if you are progressive, if you are not an anti-vaxxer, then you will be humiliated by being dropped to number two. That is the message that was heard by every woman in this state about the attitude.

Of course, I exempt the two women on the other side. They are shaking their heads, sadly. I think it is wonderful that they are there. I feel for them what it must be like. Who celebrated having Alex Antic? United Australia Party Senator Babet thought it was a good thing. He thought it was wonderful. He is the one who thinks that the COVID-19 vaccine is more dangerous than COVID-19.

The SPEAKER: The Deputy Premier's time has expired.

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