By Roger Clarke
BRISBANE — A public meeting of the Labor Women's Organisation on May 25 was addressed by a panel of speakers concerned about the low proportion of women among Labor MPs. The speakers were: Joan Kirner (former Premier of Victoria), Jim Soorley (lord mayor of Brisbane), Mary Kelly (former Queensland Teachers Union president), Paul Reynolds (Department of Government, University of Queensland) and Anne Warner (minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Family Services in the Queensland government).
Joan Kirner outlined her strategy to increase the number of women MPs in Victoria. The key element was to set a target of 40% women MPs by a definite date. If the target was not achieved, all preselections would be declared invalid. This was called a "target" rather than a "quota" because no single preselection would be required to result in a woman candidate. The factional wheelers and dealers would operate as usual, but risked having their agreements overturned if the target was not achieved.
Jim Soorley attacked the arguments of the right-wing Labor Unity faction which oppose the demand for more women candidates to "selection on merit" and "the need for training". Soorley asked if male candidates had always been selected on merit and had no need to be trained.
Mary Kelly outlined how the Teachers Union had implemented equal representation of men and women at both national and international levels.
Paul Reynolds demonstrated with examples that when women were selected as candidates, it tended to be for marginal seats. He warned that if the Victorian strategy was attempted in Queensland, it would require the dumping of sitting members and would result in an all-out factional brawl.
Anne Warner described her experience as the only woman Labor MP in the last Queensland parliament before the Labor Party won office — the "humour" of the MPs was simply embarrassing. Warner thought that the Victorian strategy could be applied in Queensland, because there would be sufficient "attrition" of sitting members once they qualified for superannuation!
Is a safe seat in parliament a human right? There is certainly no case for limiting this "right" to men, but the Victorian strategy for extending it to women is based on an acceptance of the present preselection procedures. When someone asked if a democratic selection would be overturned if it resulted in a male candidate, the answer was that the selection procedures are not democratic!
Wouldn't a better strategy be to campaign for democratic procedures within the Labor Party and for Labor policies to make the party accessible and relevant to women? Such a campaign, if successful, would also result in more women representatives, but as a by-product of wider gains, rather than as an end in itself.