by Diana Temple
Women Into Politics Inc, a coalition of major women's organisations to which WISENET belongs, held a successful Saturday 'Forum on Political Equality' in Sydney on 12 August 1995. It was attended by more than 80 people, and was addressed by a number of women with high profiles in the political scene.
Dr Marian Simms, a Reader in Political Science at the Australian National University, led off with an account of her research on affirmative action and the Australian party system. She dealt with the history of women trickling into Parliamentary seats in recent years, and approaches taken by the main political parties to be seen to be encouraging more women into politics.
A table of the numbers of women elected to the House of Representatives and the Senate since 1980 shows a depressing tendency for the small increases in numbers of women Members of Parliament in all parties in the 1980s not to have been sustained in the '90s.
The total number of women members of the federal House of Representatives and Senate increased from 13 to 27 from 1980 to 1989. In 1993 there were 29 women, and in 1995, 31, which is 14 per cent of total members.
A series of talks from women across the political spectrum followed. They were Mrs Kathryn Greiner who is a candidate for election as Lord Mayor of Sydney (someone asked when we were going to change to a less sexist term); Dr Meredith Burgmann MLC who is a well known Labor activist and former lecturer in Politics at Macquarie University; Ms Wendy Machin MLA, National Party, who mentioned the difficulties of representing a country electorate in the NSW Parliament while caring for two babies; and Senator Vicky Bourne, a member of the Australian Democrats.
This very informative day finished with small group workshops.