NSW election: A win for women? - Women's Agenda

NSW election: A win for women?

Saturday’s NSW state election saw a series of wins for women, particularly on Labor’s side of politics.

At current count, the total Labor representation in the lower house of the NSW Parliament will be made up of almost 50% women. Across all parties, women will now constitute approximately 30% of members.

A projected 10 new women will join parliament representing Labor as a result of Saturday’s election, a figure Labor leader Luke Foley placed front and centre in his concession speech on election night.

“I am delighted that we will have nine or ten new women in the lower house,” he said at the beginning of his address.

The Liberal Party had fewer successes when it came to electing women to parliament – only 12 out of 53 Liberal members, or 22%, of the new lower house will be women, compared with Labor’s 15 women out of 34, or 44%.

This makes one in five Liberal members women, compared to almost one in two on Labor’s side of the aisle.

The Greens managed to get an historic four members elected to parliament – half of whom were women.

Greens candidate Jenny Leong was overwhelmingly elected to the newly created seat of Newtown and candidate Tamara Smith was elected to the north coast seat of Ballina. While it was a surprise for Leong to beat Labor’s Penny Sharpe at the polls in Newtown, the biggest surprise came in Ballina – a regional seat in which the Greens have never before had a solid voting base.

Labor figures said they owed their success to a quota system the party uses when preselecting candidates – the rule dictates that 40% of its preselected candidates must be women. This election, Labor put forward a record-breaking 32 females candidates.

The 10 new female Labor members include former Summer Hill Mayor Jo Haylen and Blue Mountains MP Trish Doyle. Labor did also lose two female hopefuls from parliament on Saturday, however – both Balmain’s Verity Firth and Newtown’s Penny Sharpe lost their campaigns to Greens candidates. Both candidates were expected to win their seats with relative ease.

Young lawyer Eleni Petinos is a one new female member of the lower house representing the Liberal Party. At just 28 years old, Petinos is now among the youngest women in the NSW parliament.

Women also enjoyed some wins on the commentary front during Saturday night’s election – viewers were pleased to discover the ABC’s expert election panel was dominated by women.

Labor faithful Carmel Tebutt and NSW Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian joined the ABC’s Brigid Glanville and Chris Ulmann for the ongoing election coverage across the evening. Also prominently featuring in the coverage was ABC journalist Juanita Phillips, making the coverage conspicuously female-heavy.

Saturday night’s results undoubtedly bode well for women in parliament – let’s hope our politicians keep up the momentum.

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