Natasha Stott Despoja disappointed more women not in parliament

Natasha Stott Despoja had high hopes for 2022 – but the “woeful” pace of change has ruined those dreams.

Equality campaigner Natasha Stott Despoja says she is “hugely disappointed by the woeful pace of change’’ in electing more women into the nation’s parliament.

Ms Stott Despoja, 52, who is a member of the United Nation’s committee on the elimination of discrimination against women, said she had hoped “by the time I was in my 50s, that we would have equal numbers of men and women (in parliament) and hopefully our diversity and difference reflected and represented, and that hasn’t happened yet’’.

According to the federal parliamentary library, there were 103 men and 47 women in the House of Representatives last month. Women fared better in the Senate, making up 40 of the 76 seats.

In the lower house, 43 per cent of Labor MPs were women, 22 per cent of Liberal seats were female-held, while the National Party had 13 per cent. Australia ranks 50th worldwide for the number of women in lower house seats.

Speaking to the Future Generation podcast 2Fold, Ms Stott Despoja, who was elected to the Senate as a Democrat in 1995, said “women in politics, particularly for me, has been heartbreaking, not just the experiences that we’ve seen exposed particularly in recent times, but the lack of parity’’.

Natasha Stott Despoja. Picture Matt Turner

However, Ms Stott Despoja said there were some signs that improvement was possible and referenced the recent South Australian election, where Labor now has 14 women out of its 27 MPs.

“I’m not being partisan about this, but what I am excited by is what looks like almost parity in our state parliaments,” she said, adding that SA was yet to have a female premier.

She also said the rising numbers of women running as independents was encouraging.

The “Voices For’’ movement of roughly aligned women started with Cathy McGowan in the Victorian federal seat of Indi and has grown since.

“The two-party rigidity never really suited us and while that’s not going to be broken down very quickly, the idea that people are looking at independent voices, and particularly women, says something about our system,’’ Ms Stott Despoja said,

“I hope that the women’s vote, if there is such a thing these days, will actually see change, because there is absolutely a dire need for more women in our federal parliament and I suspect those female independents will be a part of that momentum.’’

Originally published as Natasha Stott Despoja disappointed more women not in parliament