More than a century after the first woman was elected to an Australian parliament, Victoria has achieved a milestone that has been sought for decades: gender parity among MPs.
After the election of Labor’s Eden Foster in the seat of Mulgrave, vacated by former premier Daniel Andrews, there were 64 women and 64 men in Victorian parliament’s lower and upper houses.
Victoria follows the ACT and Tasmanian parliaments, which reached gender parity in 2016 and 2018, respectively. But the state is well ahead of other mainland parliaments, including at the federal level (44.5% female), in New South Wales (42.5%) and Queensland (31.2%).
Of the 64 female MPs in Victorian parliament – 39 of them are in the Labor caucus, 16 are from the Coalition and nine are on the crossbench, including five Greens.
It comes more than a century after Edith Cowan became the first woman elected to an Australian parliament. She was first elected as an MP in the West Australian parliament in 1921.
The premier, Jacinta Allan, said the achievement came exactly 100 years after women were given the right to stand as candidates in the state’s lower house.
“Over that period of time, there has been a huge amount of work by women and men across Victoria to see this day happen,” Allan said on Wednesday.
“It means that when visitors come to the parliament – particularly the school groups that come through the parliament on tours – they will see a parliament that reflects the community that they live in, they will see a parliament where there are men and women in equal numbers.”
Allan said she was particularly proud of the Labor movement, which she said had done much of the heavy lifting across the nation on gender equality.
More than 55% of Victorian Labor MPs were women and the majority of ministers in Allan’s cabinet are also female.
“You can see the impact of their voices throughout our work,” Allan said, referring to commitments such as making kinder free, abortion more accessible and the roll out of free pads and tampons in public toilets.
The state’s Greens leader, Samantha Ratnam, said while it was important to celebrate the milestone, Australia still had a way to go on ensure parliaments reflected the community.
“We need to increase the diversity across all parliaments so people from all parts of our community are given a seat at the table,” she said.
“We want to see migrant women, we want to see trans women, we want to see working-class women and we want to see women of diverse faiths in parliament’s chambers having their voices heard.”
Georgie Purcell, from the Animal Justice party, agreed there was still more work to do.
“While we’re making progress, in my experience there are still so many barriers facing women who want to make it in public life – whether that be because of their past, their age, their disability or other stigmas,” she said.
“You can’t be what you can’t see, and there are still far too many women or gender diverse people who don’t see themselves in our parliament. We must ensure that the work doesn’t stop here.”
