Federal election 2019: Sharp dip in number of female Greens candidates

The Greens will field just two female candidates in its 12 strongest lower house seats at the May election.

Greens leade Richard Di Natale, with Kooyong candidate Julian Burnside, has said he is proud of the diverse group put forward by the party. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

The Greens will field just two ­female candidates in its 12 strongest lower house seats at the May election — a dramatic change from the 2016 poll when the hard-left party contested the same seats with eight women and four men.

Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek accused the Greens of “breathtaking” hypocrisy on gender equality after the replacement of women with male candidates in inner-city seats in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

“The Greens party is falling apart at the seams and it’s not hard to see why: they’ve lost a third of their members because of internal factional warfare and a toxic bullyboy culture, including allegations of sexual harassment of women,” Ms Plibersek told The Australian.

“As they do on pretty much every issue you can think of, they talk a big game but never deliver.”

Greens leader Richard Di ­Natale said before the last election he believed the party could win eight seats by 2026, including the Melbourne electorates of Wills and Cooper, which had primary votes of 30.83 per cent and 36.23 per cent respectively.

But male Greens candidates have replaced women in both seats for this election, as well as in the Melbourne seats of Ryan and Kooyong.

 

Greens women were also relegated by male candidates in Ms Plibersek’s electorate of Sydney and the seats of Brisbane and ­Griffith.

The rural seat of Richmond was among the Greens’ best performing seats in 2016, with a primary vote of 20.44 per cent, but it is not included in the analysis as the party has not announced a candidate.

About a third of Greens candidates in NSW and Victoria are women when all seats are taken into account.

A Greens source defended the numbers, saying some female candidates were replaced with gay men, which increased diversity in the party.

Senator Di Natale said he was “incredibly proud of the diverse group of candidates that the Greens are putting forward”.

“Unlike the Labor and Liberal parties, the Greens have a proud history of gender equality without quotas — 60 per cent of our state representatives and half of our federal partyroom are women — and that’s a tradition being continued by amazing women candidates like Steph Hodgins-May in McNamara and Penny Kyburz in the ACT,” Senator Di Natale said.

“Perhaps if the Labor Party spent less time attacking the Greens and more time working on its internal culture, they might not need quotas to have a chance of matching our record on gender equality in parliament.”

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews accused the Greens of having culture problems last year after it preselected a rapper who released misogynistic material.

There have also been sexual ­assault allegations against figures in the party’s NSW and Victorian branches.

Victorian Liberal senator Jane Hume accused the Greens of struggling to attract women because of sexual assault allegations.

“Look beyond the sanctimony and platitudes and there is an ugly side to the Greens,” Senator Hume said.

Griffith MP and Labor frontbencher Terri Butler said the Greens replaced a “well-regarded” female candidate with a man in her seat.

“They are running a bloke against me, they are running a bloke against (Labor’s) Ged Kearney,” Ms Butler said. “They are all talk and no action on women.”