Key Objectives

• ensure that Australian governments honour their commitment under the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Articles 7 and 8 to:

  take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the political and the public life of the country (Article 7)

  State parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure to women, on equal terms with men and without discrimination, the opportunity to represent their Governments at the international level and to participate in the work of international organisations (Article 8)

• seek commitment from the political parties and public institutions to examine their practices, structures and cultures, and to develop internal mechanisms based on equity principles and practice to increase the selection of women as candidates or appointees

• encourage and assist more women to assert their right to public office and to take responsibility for public policy matters

• encourage more women to stand for local, state and federal governments and to seek appointment to public boards and committees

• hold seminars and workshops for women on issues relevant to women's representation and for women wishing to participate in public life

• campaign publicly and continuously for more women in public life to ensure that parliaments and other decision making bodies are approximately 50% male and 50% female

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Rationale and Comment

Women do not have control over public matters which govern their social and economic well-being. Women have little influence on public policy or public decision making on the great matters of the day - on economic management, employment, war and peace, the environment, social welfare measures, foreign affairs or foreign aid. Women continue to rely on the good will of men in high office for their well-being.

Legislative reforms and programs benefiting women have to be constantly defended and/or negotiated as governments and policy makers shift their priorities, change the rules or perceive it is politically safe or expedient to change a service or policy that may be critical to the welfare of women.

The process of lobbying and defending could occupy all of women's political energy for another 100 years unless women collectively and decisively act to make our public institutions more representative of the females as well as the males in our population.

Events and trends by 2006 confirm the lack of political power of women. The NSW Anti-Discrimination Board has had its budget cut and in NSW it takes three years from the lodgement of a complaint to resolution of the complaint. The women's departments, both Federal and State, first had their budgets cut, then they were subsequently abolished. The Federal Government abolished the Office for the Status of Women in late 2004. The NSW Department for Women was also abolished in July 2004.

Agencies relevant to women, sometimes within government departments, have declined in budget or influence or have been abolished and grants to many women's non-government organisations (NGOs) have been reduced or withdrawn. Delegations to international conferences on matters related to women and equality are frequently led by male bureaucrats. Men in high places are again trying to tell women what is good for women. Governments and political parties have rationalised this as mainstreaming women's issues.

"Mainstreaming" means that women are no longer regarded as having special needs, needing special treatment or attention, and that all government policies and programmes apply equally to boys and girls, men and women. Politically aware women know that is a return to the policies of mid 20th Century, when programs that ostensibly applied equally to boys and girls, men and women were administered without any insight into community attitudes to sex and gender, and their effects. Biases in administration affect how males and females access opportunities and public programmes such as education and employment, government services and political office. Recent events suggest that women's needs and life patterns are not considered when policy, legislation or programs are posited.

An authoritative Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) Report on maternity leave, entitled Time to Value: A Proposal for a National Paid Maternity Leave Scheme (2002) which puts forward a feasible reform with modest costings, was debated in apocalyptic terms by male politicians, academics and business men, all of them secure in the knowledge that they know what is best for women, without respect for the wishes of generations of women who have lobbied for paid maternity leave for all the female workforce in line with the relevant ILO Convention.

A more recent HREOC report Striking the Balance: Women, Men, work and Family (2005) has been publicly debated with less rancour but also less likelihood of policy response. The recently legislated (2006) industrial relations (IR) changes appear to be in direct opposition to the tenor of the report.

Until those in power are persuaded to reform our political institutions, and until women are approximately half of our parliaments and decision makers, Australian women will continue to be lobbyists, not main players.

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Participation

You can assist in the campaign to increase the numbers of women preselected by parties or selected for public decision making positions by:

• joining the political party of your choice and working within that party to increase the number of women preselected for public office
• supporting women who stand for political office by donating labour or money
• joining Women Into Politics and working to assert women's rights to equal representation
• donating to Women Into Politics to assist it in achieving its objectives

Membership of Women Into Politics is open to both organisations and individuals.

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Homepage
Women Into Politics
PO Box 1144 North Sydney NSW 2060
Australia
Phone/Fax 61 2 9906 5945 or phone 9437 6916
Email wip@womenintopolitics.org.au
Web http://www.womenintopolitics.org.au/

Last updated 14 November 2006