1. Political Equality for Women

1.1 The Commonwealth Sex and Race Discrimination Acts should be amended to apply specifically to political parties

Rationale. Political parties can and do practise sex and race discrimination without fear of legal penalties because they appear to be are exempt from the provisions of the Commonwealth Sex and Race Discrimination Acts. Former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Sue Walpole concluded stated: "The Sex Discrimination Act prohibits specific acts of discrimination in specific areas of life. The equal participation of women in political life is not one of these areas, despite the obligation in CEDAW" (Here We Come, Ready or Not! p.41. A collection of papers edited by Jane Gardiner, p.41, Women Into Politics 1998).

If they political parties were subject to the same legislation that applies throughout the public service and in private enterprise, they would be compelled to apply the principles of non-discrimination and their members would have recourse access to the law if they believed they had been discriminated against. The application of such laws would discourage discrimination and encourage a greater number of women, Aboriginal and non English-speaking background candidates to put themselves forward for pre-selection.

If the practice of non-discrimination is widely accepted as the ethical standard in Australia, and if the political parties set the agenda and standards in public life, there is no excuse or argument for exempting political parties from the same standards in relation to their employment practices, election of officers, pre-selections or any other business they conduct.

1.2 Amendment of the Commonwealth Electoral Act

1.2.1 The Commonwealth Electoral Act should be amended to provide for the appointment of three additional Electoral Commissioners, - one appointed on the recommendation of the Australian Bar Association, (1 person) and two appointed on the recommendation of the Australasian Political Studies Association, including one with expertise on sex discrimination issues - (2 persons) to provide expert advice, to represent the interests of voters, and to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.

Rationale. The present Currently, the Electoral Commission consists of a Chairperson who is a Federal Court Judge, a First Assistant Commissioner who is the Chief Executive Officer, and one other, usually the Australian Statistician. All three are the Australian Electoral Commissioner, a Deputy Commissioner and a First Assistant Commissioner, all career public servants appointed by the government. While the integrity of these men is not questioned, theythey may well be men of integrity (and they are all men in April 2001), they are servants of the government of the day. Should the Commission's work be enlarged to supervise the internal processes of the political parties, skilled advocates of the public would enhance the reputation of the Commission for integrity and impartiality.

1.2.2 The Commonwealth Electoral Act should be amended to require the political parties to incorporate natural justice and anti- ddiscrimination principles in their rules, procedures and practices and to comply with Australia's commitments under the UN Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Aagainst Women (CEDAW) Article 7;

1.2.3 The Commonwealth Electoral Act should be amended to require the political parties to show cause why they have nominate approximately failed to have approximately equal numbers of women and men as candidates for pre-selection in winnable seats at each election, with penalties for failure to comply;

1.2.4 The Commonwealth Electoral Act should be amended to penalise political parties which do not pre-select equal numbers of women as candidates for winnable seats (that is, seats with a margin of 5% either way). The penalty should be a 5% reduction in their public funding for every 5% (or part thereof) that they fall short of pre-selecting 45% of women or men.

Rationale. These measures are designed to motivate the parties to pre-select more women and ensure that more women are elected to our parliaments. At present both the major political parties tend to pre-select women for marginal or unwinnable seats, reserving most of the safe seats for their male candidates.

The major political parties, because of their dominance of our parliaments, are responsible for Australia's failure to meet our obligations under the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination agAgainst Women, Article 7, which requires member states to promote political equality for women, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 25, which requires member states to institute political equality for all citizens. The measures outlined above are "interim measures" designed to promote political equality for women as allowed under CEDAW Article 4.

Women who say that they wish only to be selected and elected "on merit" need to be reminded that they owe their preferment not only to their own merits but also to the work of generations of women who opened doors for women in the critical areas of education, employment and politics. As well, the merit criteriaon frequently does not apply to men seeking selection to public office. They frequently owe their preferment to favouritism and factional behind-the-scenes deals in which the party branch members have little or no say influence. Such behind-the-scene factional deals are described in detail (Alan Ramsay Sydney Morning Herald 31/3/01 and Brad Norington Sydney Morning Herald 7/4/01.).

Since 1990 women's organisations in Australia and internationally have intensified their efforts to persuade the political parties to accept and promote equality in political representation. In Australia, the non-party political Women Into Politics coalition, established in 1992,, has promoted political equality for women in all parties and in local government through publications, conferences and seminars. Women within the parties, through Labor's Emily's List and the Liberal Women's Forum for example, have worked towards having get more women pre-selected and have supported women with political aspirations with training, money and workers.

Women's representation in our parliaments has risen from 13% in 1990 to 23% in 2000 - an increase of approximately 77% (Dr Marian Sawer, ANU, 2001 Year Book Australia, ABS 13/01/01).. The Yearbook This article provides an historical and statistical overview and statistical tables showing the percentage of women parliamentarians in both the Federal and State Parliaments). If the current rate of increase were maintained, 50% could be reached by 2020 (Dr Marian Sawer, Letter to WIP March 2001).

In March 20010, the Inter-Parliamentary Union listed Australia as 21st 2nd in a table showing countries in descending order of numbers of women in lower or single (legislative) houses, equal with Switzerland, where women received the vote only in 1971.. Australia still lags well behind north European countries.

In a recent press report headed Legal Changes Essential to Build Numbers of Women in Parliament (10 March 2001), the UK Equal Opportunity Commission compares and analyses the levels of women's representation in seven countries. Their findings were that the single most influential factor in increasing the numbers of women candidates for pre-selection, outstripping more than social and cultural issues, was the use of special measures such as quotas and "zipping" or alternating women and men on the lists of candidates,; and that the law must be changed so that political parties are in no doubt they can use special measures to boost the numbers of women they select. The full report is to be published in June 2001 (see website http://www.eoc.org.uk).

In France a parity law, which came into effect in 2001, prescribes that parties must have equal numbers of male and female candidates in their lists for local and European Union elections.

Justice, and efficiency and the public interest demand equal representation for women and men.

1.2.5 The Commonwealth Electoral Act should be amended to require the Australian Electoral Commission, in consultation with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, to assist the political parties in reforming their pre-selection rules and procedures to ensure that fairness and equity prevail.

Rationale. Pre-selections are rarely conducted under rigorous and fair procedures. In effect, in the major political parties tThey are usually carried decided out by a small number of members powerbrokers.of the major political parties, with greater weight given to head office nominees than to local members. Furthermore, As well, the total membership of the parties is minuscule compared to the power and influence that the parties exert in public affairs. As Paul Sheehan notes (Sydney Morning Herald 13/5/00), the parties are unrepresentative of the electorate and open to manipulation and branch stacking. The branches have largely become a method of delivering jobs to influential male party members, and this results in males constituting approximately 75% of the membership of the legislative houses branches of our parliaments.

Particularly graphic examples of this delivery of parliamentary seats to influential males were detailed in an articles by Alan Ramsay (Sydney Morning Herald 31/3/01) and Brad Norington (also Sydney Morning Herald 31/3/01). The articles showed how the factions in one of the major parties were, through factional deals, in the process of overriding the wishes of local local party branch wishes members in order to deliver and decisions to deliver both lower and upper house parliamentary seats to favoured party members favoured by the powerbrokers.

Placing the supervision of pre-selection procedures under the control of an independent Australian Electoral Commission would do much to ensure that more democratic processes awere instituted and that branch-stacking, nepotism, favouritism, corruption and cronyism are reduced or eliminated. (The AECAustralian Electoral Commission already has the experience of supervising elections forunion elections where members elect to have it so supervised unions, state authorities and non-statutory organizations such as the NRMA.).
A first step in reform might be a legal requirement to give a weighting of 90% to the votes of the local party voters in any pre-selection, thus inhibiting the activities of party power brokers.

While electors are regularly outraged by the machinations of party pre-selections, draconian procedures like the not very successful US primaries, where persons must registered as specific party voters to can vote, in pre-selection, should only be considered if the political parties fail to reform their pre-selection procedures.

1.3 Cabinets and Shadow Cabinets should be approximately 50% male and 50% female as a matter of equity. The parties should be required to implement this reform over two elections.

Rationale. As a group, female ministers in equal numbers with men would have more influence in bringing their own experience and expertise as women to bear on the deliberations of Cabinet and Shadow Cabinets compared with the current situation where lone female voices are could be all too easily dismissed, and where/or male male perceptions of the common good have been the norm. In April 2001, the Federal Cabinet had one woman minister out of 16, and 3 women out of 10 in the outer ministry, and 13% overall. The Shadow Ministry had 5 women of 26 members, 19% overall (2001 Year Book Australia, ABS 13/01/01)). Equal representation in Cabinets is necessary to allow female opinion to be heard, accepted and respected.

1.4 Each parliament should establish a standing committee with a mandate to examine the impact on Australian women of all proposed domestic policies, programs and legislation, on Australian women and to examine the impact of Australia's foreign aid and international treaty policies and programs on women world wide.

Rationale. Parliamentarians bring to the deliberations of our parliaments and of their parties different life experiences and different areas of expertise. The norm of Australian political life has to date been largely been the male life experience, the male life style and male expertise.

It is often wrongly assumed that the effect of policy and legislation on women will be the same for women as for men. Many policies and programs are developed without consideration of women's priorities and needs, their different life pattern and their roles as primary carers of children and the aged as well as contributors to the paid workforce.

Such a standing committee is also essential in for protecting women's hard-won gains, which are frequently under challenge,. such as Recent examples include the proposed amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act 1983, which attack the marital status provisions of the Act; and the disregard of women workers' welfare in industrial rights by the dismantling of centralised wage fixing and the regulated labour market under both Labor and the Coalition Pparties, which has resulted in again widening the gap between men's and women's average wages and eroding women's working conditions.

Australia's foreign aid policies can have detrimental impacts on women without having any may affect on men.affect women differently to men. Would Australia have refused foreign aid to fertility programs which allow abortions if women were equally represented and the program scrutinised by women MPs before it was legislated.? Would Australia, or other nations, have been so tardy in having rape in war declared a crime against humanity if women were more politically influential? If Australian women were more politically influential, Wwould Australia have delayed in signing the UN Optional Protocol to give women across the world access to the international instruments when they are denied justice at home if Australian women were more politically influential??

The ability to confer across party lines in a standing committee would allow women MPs to consider all sides of an issue and would bring a broader female perspective to policy-making at all levels of the political process. Policies designed on a "one size fits all" basis ignore the all- too- often indirect discriminatory effects on women.

Women MPs are well placed to make constructive input relating to the gender analysis of policy and many women consider that they have a responsibility to do so.

Women's Charter for Political Reform with Rationale

1. POLITICAL EQUALITY FOR WOMEN

1.1 The Commonwealth Sex and Race Discrimination Acts should be amended to apply specifically to political parties

1.2 Amendment of the Commonwealth Electoral Act

1.3 Cabinets and Shadow Cabinets should be approximately 50% male and 50% female as a matter of equity. The parties should be required to implement this reform over two elections.

Women's Charter for Political Reform
with Rationale