Despite an unexpected defeat at the Federal Election on Saturday, the Australian Labor Party has continued its progress towards gender equality with 44 women elected to Federal Parliament, compared to only 26 women in the Coalition parties.
As candidates recuperate after a hard fought election campaign, sights have now turned to who will lead the Labor Party.
“We’re proud that even in the face of a difficult defeat at the polls, the ALP has maintained its record representation of women in the parliamentary caucus. When all seats are finalised, we expect Labor to be at 47%. This is an extraordinary achievement,” said Ms Tanja Kovac, National Co-Convenor of EMILY’s List Australia. “That’s double the representation of women in the future Morrison Coalition Government. Despite picking up a swathe of new seats, the majority of these went to men.”
EMILY’s List Australia provided progressive Labor women with early donations to boost their campaigns, training, mentoring and volunteer resourcing. It supported a total 61 women at the election.
“We congratulate our sitting members who were returned to their seats and to the three new members who secured victories over the Coalition - Libby Coker in Corangamite (VIC), Peta Murphy in Dunkley (VIC) and Fiona Phillips in Gilmore (NSW),” said Ms Kovac.
As candidates recuperate after a hard fought election campaign, sights have now turned to who will lead the Labor Party.
“EMILY’s List Australia extends its thanks to Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek for extraordinary leadership over six years. Together they set the standard for what shared leadership between men and women in our party looks like. As we turn towards a new generation of leaders, we must not take a backward step on the path to equality,” said Ms Kovac.
Ms Kovac said “We have an extraordinary talent pool of women in the federal parliamentary caucus. And we have multiple leadership positions – Leader, Deputy Leader and Treasurer in the House of Representatives and Leader and Deputy Leader in the Senate. It’s essential that women – who have delivered for Labor in key seats – are also represented in the new leadership team.”
Nominations for the Labor Leadership Ballot will close on Monday 27 May 2019.