Women overrepresented in marginal contests, while more men preselected in safe seats for federal election
Female candidates are overrepresented for marginal seats at the next federal election, while safe seats for both major parties remain dominated by males, an analysis by Guardian Australia shows.
While the major parties are yet to finalise all candidates for the forthcoming federal election, an analysis of those preselected so far for parliament’s 35 marginal seats shows that about 60% of the candidates across both major parties are female.
But amid the ongoing push to increase the number of women in parliament, the federal election will also see at least six incumbent female MPs being challenged by male candidates in marginal seats.
This includes Coalition candidates challenging sitting Labor MPs in Lilley, Cowan and most likely Gilmore, while Labor men are challenging sitting Liberal women in Bass, Robertson and Lindsay.
Labor, which has preselected 34 of the 35 lower house seats with margins of 5% or below, has a total of 22 women running and 12 men – including incumbents.
The Coalition, which is yet to finalise preselections in New South Wales and in some Queensland and Victorian seats, has preselected 15 women and 10 men.
Excluding incumbent MPs, Labor has preselected 10 new female and seven male candidates, while the Coalition has preselected nine and five respectively.
But while women outnumber men for marginal seat contests, the analysis shows that when safer seats have come up for grabs, men have been more likely to secure preselection.
For the Coalition, male candidates have prevailed in the Queensland seats of Bowman, Flynn and Dawson – all held on margins of more than 8% – which have been left vacant by the departure of Liberal Andrew Laming, and Nationals Ken O’Dowd and George Christensen.
Henry Pike, the new candidate for the seat of Bowman, was successful over four female candidates and was the sole man who nominated for the seat.
In Victoria, the Liberal party has chosen Keith Wolohan to run for the safe Victorian seat of Menzies, which is held on a 7% margin and is being vacated by long-serving MP Kevin Andrews.
The Coalition is yet to decide who will take over the seats of Flinders and Nicholls in Victoria, and Hughes and Bennelong in NSW, all of which are being vacated by male MPs.
The NSW Liberal party has en
dorsed a target of 50% female candidates for the federal election, but despite the prime minister, Scott Morrison, saying he is “determined” to boost the number of women in his ranks, factional negotiations are still under way.
While Labor has boosted the number of women preselected in marginal seats, it has preselected men for the safe seats of Spence in South Australia and the newly created seat of Hawke in Victoria.
In both seats, which boast margins of more than 10%, women had sought preselection.
In Spence, Alice Dawkins, the daughter of Keating minister John Dawkins, accused the party of undermining its own rules for female quotas in winnable seats, while in Hawke, former Labor state secretary Sam Rae was chosen despite a push from Labor women in the state for the prized seat to go to a woman.
In the House of Representatives, Labor has 17 women in seats with margins higher than 5%, compared to 32 men. For the Coalition, it has just eight women in these safer seats, compared to 48 men.
The attempt by both major parties to increase the number of women in parliament comes after sex discrimination commissioner, Kate Jenkins, undertook a review into the culture of Parliament House that found gender inequality was a key driver of bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault within commonwealth parliamentary workplaces.
Jenkins recommended that to address the problem, both major parties should adopt new targets to achieve gender balance among parliamentarians “as part of a 10-year strategy designed to advance gender equality, diversity and inclusion”.
In the current parliament, there are 104 male MPs and 47 female MPs – representing just 31% of the House of Representatives.
According to a parliamentary library paper published in November, just 24 of the Liberal party’s 90 federal MPs and senators are women, representing 26.7%.
For Labor, 46 of its 94 federal parliamentarians are women, accounting for 48.9%.
Just six out of 21 National party parliamentarians are female, as are six of the Greens 10 parliamentarians.