Why Australia Still Needs More Women in Parliament

(17:33): I rise to speak about a leader that we have lost, a leader who really did change this country, and not everyone who comes to this place and then leaves can say that they changed this country, but Susan Ryan, indeed, did. I often say I was lucky to grow up in Bob Hawke's Australia, but the reality is I was also lucky to grow up in Susan Ryan's Australia, the Australia that she built that was a much fairer place than it was before she entered this place.

Equality and opportunity for Susan Ryan weren't just words. They were her mission on the day that she was elected to this place and every day that she served as a Senator. Susan was born in the middle of World War II and studied an arts degree at Sydney University. Like my mum, she started her working life as a teacher, but she became Labor's first ACT Senator at a time when, finally, the Whitlam government, in 1974, legislated to create proper representation for the ACT. It's amazing that, to this day, we still debate how we make sure that the territories are properly represented in the parliament. She was a feminist, she was pro-women, she was pro-choice and she was republican.

I've been lucky to be here to listen to the speeches from the Member for Newcastle, the Member for Brand, the Member for Macquarie, the Member for Kingston and the Member for Griffith. She genuinely inspired, encouraged and propelled a whole generation of future Labor leaders. She made Australia fairer for women. When you make Australia fairer for women, you also make it fairer for men. There were no longer any subsidies, effectively, for the employment of men, because we finally got to a point where things were truly equal. Indeed, the legislation that she put through the parliament fulfilled Bob Hawke's promise of bringing Australia together. We heard that she did work with the Women's Electoral Lobby, harnessing the power, the belief in collective organising, that you can actually change things and you don't have to accept things as they are.

She served at different times as Minister for Education and Youth Affairs, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on the Status of Women, Special Minister of State, which is an important portfolio for all of us who serve in this place, and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Bicentennial, in 1988. She served the country after she left this place as Age Discrimination Commissioner, Disability Discrimination Commissioner and, indeed, with the Whitlam Institute.

What strikes me in reading through so much of her life history and where she found herself in the seventies, in this place, is that it was 1977 when she became the first woman on the Labor frontbench. The Labor Party had existed in this place for 77 years with no women on our frontbench. Indeed, we had women elected some 30 years earlier, with the great Western Australian, Dorothy Tangney, entering the Senate as the first woman in the Senate and first Labor woman in the Senate, but it would take another 30-plus years for any representation on the frontbench. We know that, without representation in that place, you don't truly have a voice at the table. I am someone who cares deeply about campaigning and making sure that Labor truly puts itself forward to all Australians, and I believe that Labor is the only party that can govern for all Australians. She was focused on the electoral challenge of the gender gap. Decade on decade, women had not supported the Labor Party to the same extent that men had. She formed a national women's policy committee with two aims: to ensure the improvement of Labor's policies for women, but also to make sure that we were communicating to women when they vote about why it is in their interests to vote Labor.

In her biography, Susan Ryan writes that she was alienated from conservative sectors of the community for being a feminist. Today doesn't quite reflect the alienation that she would have faced on a daily basis. Indeed, at times, there were robust conversations within her own party, but she continued to fight through. That's the really amazing thing: she was not discouraged and she was not slowed down; she saw that was further confirmation that she was on the right track. I want to pay tribute to The Canberra Times obituary that they published in their editorial. It noted that this city of Canberra was part of what enabled her to flourish. The Canberra Times says: “... like so many others, she discovered in Canberra a community in which she could flourish and grow.” That is a really lovely thing to say about our nation's capital.

Sometimes The Canberra Times might over-defend Canberra, but on this occasion The Canberra Times is 100 per cent right. I also note Eva Cox—and I think sometimes politics can lack optimism—in what she had to say. She notes that Susan Ryan was an 'optimist'. That is another thing—that, when you're trying to do big reform, you have to be optimistic about the benefits that it will bring rather than just get stuck in the negativity of the current situation in which you're in. Eva Cox says: Pessimism can be catching. I think too many on the left have caught it today. But unless you believe change is possible, there is no possibility for a better society. So I want to pay tribute to the optimism of Susan Ryan as well. I want to look at Susan Ryan's first speech. She calls out, very simply, in plain language that we probably don't use as much in this place today, 'The sexist organisation of our society.' When she's talking about the representation of women, she says: “… the sexist organisation of our society has many more important ramifications than the fact that there are not many women members in Parliament.”

That is not to say that those things are not important, but it is a reflection of a person who recognises that she was not in the Parliament to better herself. She was in the Parliament to better hundreds of thousands of women who needed a Parliament to do its job for them, and that really struck me in reading her first speech. I'll finally note that, on that issue of representation, there is still a long way to go. In the House of Representatives, just 31.1 per cent of the membership are women, and often that's quoted as a good thing: “Look how far we have come! Look at what we've done! We've achieved!” Thirty-one per cent is not an achievement; thirty-one per cent is a sign that we have a very, very long way to go in this place. I think it's also a reflection that we probably still have a long way to go in bringing true gender equality across Australia. Vale, Susan Ryan.