Emma Dawson appeared on The Drum to discuss our new report The Way In: Representation in the Australian Parliament, in light of the news of Kelly O’Dwyer’s decision to quit politics. The episode also covered political misinformation. She was joined by director of the Gonski Institute for Education at UNSW Adrian Piccoli and astrophysicist Kirsten Banks.
“There’s been less movement towards diversity than we hoped, but we were not thoroughly surprised by the results. We have known for some time that Parliament does not really represent people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds,” she said.
“Labor introduced a quota system, that has led to them getting almost 50% representation of women in their team. On all projections they will have 50% of women after the next election. That’s due to a concerted effort to get more women in Parliament. Only by taking that kind of considered approach and making it a target and following that quota system that you can overcome a lot of the cultural and other barriers that exist within the system in the first place.”
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