A Letter from Australia: Australian women may play bigger role

Dear friends,

This month Australian politics has begun at long last to change its face from one where you see almost all men to one where many more women will sit in the Australian House of Representatives. Currently only 10 percent are women which is an indictment of Australia's political history.

A hundred years ago, women in the Australian state of South Australia were the first in this country to be given the vote, and the right to stand for Parliament. This was six years before the establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia.

But the first women were not elected in South Australia until 1926 and in the Commonwealth until 1943.

Rights are one thing, power is another.

Federally in Australia, while over 1,400 people have been elected since 1901 only 38 have been women Senators and only 22 Members of the House of Representatives. This is not very good.

The problem for women in politics in Australia has not been that we haven't had the rights so much as we haven't had the power in the political organizations to get elected. And women haven't organized as a separate group to make that happen.

My political party, the Australian Labor Party, has taken a decision to try and rectify this problem. At a conference this month, the Labor Party, the party which has been in government in Australia for 11 years, said that over the next three Parliaments the number of women pre-selected must be 35 percent of the number of winnable seats.

Women in the Labor Party, like women in the society as a whole, have been free to make the coffee and help in fund raising in the background, but not to drink the coffee in the back room of male power politics, or to spend the money on election campaigns.

Women, it is obvious today, should have better representation in parliament. Parliament should be more representative of the community which elects it.

If the system, in the political parties is somehow preventing this, then it is the system that has to be changed.

So the ALP introduced quotas: 35 percent of winnable seats by 2002.

Our system here is that all political parties have a process for choosing candidates to be put up for election -- the pre- selection process.

Then the people vote for the candidate of their choice in the general elections held every three years. What this new policy means in that rules will have to exist so that 35 percent of those in winnable seats are women by 2002.

Some men have found this threatening to their career opportunities. But over the next two elections I think we will see that there will be a much wider pool of talent to draw from.

And perhaps an increased majority for the Labor Party as women have shown that when given the chance they are trusted and popular, more so than men. Politicians all over the world are not held in the highest regard.

But it is not just political parties which have tended to ignore the talents of Australian women.

So have boards of companies, government authorities and other decision making bodies.

The Prime Minister said at a recent conference that 50 percent of Australian boards of directors and commissions, under jurisdiction of Commonwealth will be filled by women by 2000.

That is a real commitment by party and government, not just to pay lip service to 50 percent of the population but to do something about it.

No country going into the 21st century can fail to utilize the talents of half its people without suffering the consequences.

However, I know from personal experience how hard it is to be a woman, mother and wife in politics.

I was first elected in 1980, and have won five more elections since then, so it can be done.

Only three from my side in the House were elected in 1980, now it is only 10 ALP women members out of 80 in the House of Representatives.

Women have found it easier to get elected to the Upper House, in Australia, the Senate which is elected on a quota basis in each state.

When I became Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, and Territories, I became the first women cabinet minister from the House of Representatives, having to answer questions in the place where the main political game is played.

Also I was the first woman to have children while serving as a Member of Parliament. I was able to manage motherhood with politics because my constituency is in Canberra which is also the home of the Australian Parliament. It is not as convenient for Members who might live 2,000 kilometers from Canberra.

In the Australian Parliament there is a tradition that Members of Parliament live in their constituency and fly over every week when Parliament is sitting to Canberra. As Parliament sits about one third of the year that is a long time away from one's family.

Women in Australia have traditionally tried to do everything -- domestic work, motherhood, wives and careers. I could do this based in Canberra, but if I had lived in Perth, or Darwin or country areas in Australia it would have been very difficult.

There are no facilities in Parliament House of Members of Parliament for children. When we have school holidays, many of us, especially the women with small children, bring them to Parliament House. They wander around the corridors of Parliament playing and laughing and this brings a sense of normal life to the parliament -- which it needs. But with many more women, the place will have to change in more fundamental ways, the process of debating, hours of sitting, as well as facilities.

I have had many funny experiences with my children and politics. I have taken them to many functions and places with me.

One day, when I was Minister for Defense Force Personnel, I was negotiating with an American Admiral. My then four-year-old son Ben quickly put his head into my office and threw a paper airplane across the room which landed in the Admiral's lap. When I called Ben into the room he sat on the Admiral's lap while we finished the negotiations. They were of course very successful negotiations after that.

That is perhaps an example of the different ways women work. We still have primary responsibility for our children and this makes it very difficult combining political and family life.

Though we come from different cultures it is important we share as women our experiences of combining work and motherhood, our attempts to have an influence on the policies of our countries and our goals of improving the world for our children.

Ros Kelly has been a Labor Member of Parliament for Canberra, Australia's national capital, since 1980. She was minister for Defense Support from 1987 to 1989 and Minister for the Environment from 1990 to 1994.