South Australia switches parliament to gender neutral

Victoria and Tasmania are the final states to gender-neutralise their parliamentary standing orders, as South Australia becomes the latest to abandon gender-specific terms.

The NSW Lower House.

Victoria and Tasmania are the final states to gender-neutralise their parliamentary standing orders, as South Australia becomes the latest to abandon gender-specific terms and move to refer to His Majesty King Charles as “the sovereign”.

A South Australian parliamentary committee this week recommended standing orders adopt language that is neutral on gender and sexual identity, removing gendered pronouns he, she, him and her from its official documentation.

The move comes nearly 20 years after the NSW upper house first revised its standing orders in 2004 to make them gender neutral. Last year, they were revised once more with references to Her Majesty being changed to the sovereign because of the age and ill-health of the late Queen Elizabeth II.

The state’s lower house removed gender-specific language from its standing orders in 2006 to modernise the terminology used in parliament.

The Northern Territory removed gender-specific language from its standing orders in 2016, changing references to Her Majesty to the “head of state or their representative”.

While there are still three references to “chairman” throughout the standing orders, a parliamentary spokesperson said “this would appear to be an oversight”.

Queensland parliament standing orders have been non-gender-specific since at least 2004, as are other documents such as the Code of Ethical Standards. For example, chairman was replaced with chairperson and officers are referred to as “the speaker” or “the clerk”. However gender-neutral language is not enforced in references to people in debate in the House or announcements.

But, while many state parliaments have taken large steps to de-gender official documents and proceedings, some have not.

The Victorian parliament has no plans to amend the standing orders and parliamentary procedures to make all language gender neutral. While committee leaders are referred to as “chair” rather than “chairman” in standing orders, there will be not be any effort to remove gender pronouns from procedures.

Similarly in Tasmania, there have been no recent changes or reviews to the use of gender-neutral language.

The Western Australian parliament did not respond to The Australian’s request for comment; however, its standing orders appear to be gender neutral besides references to “His Majesty the King”.

A spokesman for the South Australian government, led by Premier Peter Malinauskas, said the decision to remove gender references from standing orders would “modernise the parliamentary workplace”.

“The changes include important reforms to allow maternity leave, breastfeeding infants in the chamber and committees to meet electronically,” he said.

“With record numbers of Labor women elected to the parliament, it makes no sense for them to be called ‘chairman’ when overseeing a committee.”

SA Opposition Leader Michelle Lensink said the Liberals supported the changes.

“It’s important the parliament continues to represent all South Australians by reflecting community expectations and the simplifying and updating of references now brings us in line with other jurisdictions across the country,” she said.

SA-Best MLC Frank Pangallo criticised the move, saying “wokeism has even penetrated the workings of parliament”. “I don’t think (gendered pronouns) caused any harm or offence in our community. I think this is sort of the left elements in politics that are exerting themselves,” he said.