Ellis happy to leave with Labor’s house in order

Labor MP Kate Ellis yesterday said she felt comfortable in stepping away from politics given the increase in female MPs.

Kate Ellis with Sam, 3, and Charlie, 1, at Parliament House in Canberra. The MP says she is doing ‘what’s best for me ... and 15 years is a good crack’. Picture: Kym Smith

Outgoing Labor MP Kate Ellis has declared she is “truly mortified” by claims her exit from politics shows being a mother is incompatible with a successful political career.

The member for Adelaide yesterday said she felt comfortable in stepping away from politics given the increase in female MPs in the Labor caucus since she entered the parliament as a 26-year-old in 2004.

Delivering her valedictory in the House of Representatives, Ms Ellis fought back tears as she described the pressure she faced as a young woman to succeed in the then male-dominated profession.

“Rightly or wrongly, I felt an overwhelming pressure that it was up to me to prove that a young woman could succeed here and hopefully make it easier for those who followed,” Ms Ellis said. “What changed for me is not that I thought I couldn’t be a woman, a mother, and do my job but actually that the pressure lifted.

“One day I looked around me and I just saw this inspiring army of passionate, talented, hard-working women that we have in our caucus and I knew I could go.

“There is no shortage of remarkable Labor women who will fly the flag, achieve amazing things and prove to all that a woman’s place is in the parliament.”

Ms Ellis, the youngest woman to be elected to the lower house and Australia’s youngest minister, quit Labor’s frontbench in 2017 when she was pregnant with her second child, Charlie, and announced she would retire at the upcoming election.

After her speech, Ms Ellis said she did not yet have her eye on a future career. “I’m really sad to be leaving here. I feel that there is so much more to do,” Ms Ellis said.

“I don’t know what the future holds but I’m looking forward to starting a new chapter.”

Ms Ellis said work and family balance was something many Australians grappled with.

“Different people come to different conclusions and it is a really personal thing,” she said. “But ultimately this is not about what is best for women in politics but what is best for me. And 15 years is a good crack.”

Ms Ellis urged the Coalition to back Labor’s quota system to increase the number of female MPs. Labor has nearly 50 per cent female MPs while the Coalition has fewer than 20 per cent in the lower house. “If they are that uncomfortable using the word quota, they should come up with a different word for it and just do it,” Ms Ellis said.

“We have actually seen the evidence. It is not just in politics, it is in sports, it is in banking, it is in a whole lot of sectors. Gender inequality doesn’t just fix itself.”

Ms Ellis became the minister for sports and youth after the 2007 election and later moved to the portfolio of employment participation and childcare.