Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I entered the federal parliament in 1996, I was one of 23 women elected to the Senate. At the time, this represented a huge increase in the percentage of senators who were women: 30.3 per cent, up from 21 per cent. The House of Representatives also gained 23 women representatives, up from 13 in the previous parliament, but this represented only 15.5 per cent of the lower house. Despite Australia being a world leader in winning the right for women to vote and to stand for parliament, by the 1990s we lagged behind many European countries in the number and percentage of women in our parliaments. I will give a bit of a history lesson here. From October 1969 to May 1974, there were no women in the House of Representatives. Only in 1983 did the number of women in total in the federal parliament reach double figures, a jump then from a total of six women to 19 women.

In the 1990s, the United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union looked at the worldwide problem of under-representation of women generally in the world’s parliaments. The objective of achieving political equality for women centred then on the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, or CEDAW, and the Inter-Parliamentary Union plan of action to correct the imbalances in the participation of men and women in political life. We used to talk back in the 1990s about the aim of achieving a critical mass of women in the parliament, and experience from Scandinavian parliaments suggested that this critical mass was about one-third of the total number in the parliament. At this level, it would become easier for women to be pre-selected, to be elected and to influence the parliamentary agenda.

With the federal election of November 2007 and with the most recent state elections we have almost reached this critical mass. The percentage of women in lower houses in the Australian parliaments is 29.8 per cent, and 33.6 per cent in the upper houses. In actual numbers, Labor will have 40 women in this parliament—27 in the House of Representatives and 13 in the Senate—compared with the coalition’s 13 in the House and nine in the Senate. But equity and not just influence should be our goal. When we look today at the composition of the ministry we find that women have the strongest representation yet. Of the present ministry, including positions in the cabinet and outer ministry and parliamentary secretaries, 10—or 21.4 per cent—are women. Federal Labor has a record number of women in cabinet and led the way by electing Julia Gillard as our Deputy Prime Minister.

More than ever before, the ability of women in parliament to influence the agenda is now being demonstrated whenever there are conscience votes on matters affecting particularly women or only women. One example was the repeal of the ministerial responsibility for the approval of RU486 in 2005. Women senators representing the Australian Democrats and the Liberal, National and Labor parties—Senators Moore, Allison, Troeth and Nash—jointly sponsored the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Repeal of Ministerial responsibility for approval of RU486) Bill 2005 [2006], removing what in my opinion was an incredibly undemocratic power wielded until then by the insensitive Mr Tony Abbott. This whole experience was quite inspiring to me personally and I again commend the efforts of those senators. I was proud to support their bill.

Internationally, the picture on the progress of women’s rights as parliamentarians is in many circumstances often bleak and depressing. In some countries, women parliamentarians are subjected to violence and death threats for their attempts to advance women’s rights. Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, was killed on 27 December last year. Only in October had she returned to Pakistan from exile, saying: ‘This is the beginning of a long journey for Pakistan back to democracy, and I hope my going back is a catalyst for change. We must believe that miracles can happen.’ In February 2006, a Pakistani cabinet minister, Zilla Huma Usman, had been shot and killed by an assassin who claimed that she was not wearing proper dress and that she was defying Islam by holding a position of leadership. Yet just in the previous November the National Assembly of Pakistan had passed the Women’s Protection Act to protect the rights of women and to help to end excesses against them.

In Afghanistan, since the 2005 election a quota of 25 per cent of the parliamentary seats have been reserved for women. Malalai Joya is the youngest member of the Afghanistan parliament and works to promote Afghan women. A vocal opponent of both the Taliban and the warlords, her home has been bombed and she has survived four assassination attempts, has received numerous death threats and has been physically attacked in the parliament. Malalai Joya was in Canberra in March last year when she addressed International Women’s Day meetings and met some of us in the Australian parliament. When she returned to Afghanistan she was suspended from parliament—that was in May 2007—for criticising fellow parliamentary representatives. So far, calls for her reinstatement have been unsuccessful. The United Nations has a trust fund to eliminate violence against women and UNIFEM Australia, who sponsored the visit last year of Malalai Joya, contributes to this global UN fund. I would like to take this opportunity to commend UNIFEM Australia for its work to promote the safety and progress of women worldwide.

Last year, in May, we learnt that the Burmese military junta had again extended the house arrest of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi for another year. In the same week as the announcement of the continuation of her detention, approximately 60 of her supporters were arrested. Aung San Suu Kyi has spent 12 of the past 18 years detained by the military, which seized power after the National League for Democracy, established by Aung San Suu Kyi and supporters, won the 1990 elections. Over 1,000 political dissidents are prisoners in Burma. The generals in Burma have announced that they will present a new constitution for public approval in May this year, paving the way for elections in 2010. But they have banned Aung San Suu Kyi from running as a candidate. Australia was once regarded as a world leader in the global struggle for gender equality, and again we should play a part in supporting those brave women who stand publicly to oppose injustice and violence in their countries.

Last year, in an address to mark International Women’s Day, Dr Sarah Maddison said:

It is now clear that in recent decades the nation has resiled from this commitment and undone many earlier achievements.

Now in Australia we again have the opportunity for progress for women generally, and the election of increasing numbers of women parliamentarians will be one step towards this goal.

As we have already seen in Federal Parliament we can achieve an across-party unity of women promoting and voting on issues important to women.

Hopefully, with this will come a heightened social conscience and a willingness to support and assist those in other countries, like Malalai Joya, who have the courage to fight against injustice and violence.

These matters are worth reflecting on at this time, being in close proximity of International Women’s Day in the year 2008. I thank the Senate.