Why would the analysis of election issues by a feminist lobby group be of interest to voters? If you feel that many of the issues that concern you have been overlooked, we may have something to offer.
Before the election was called WEL decided we needed to focus on fairness; on a collection of issues that made life more civil and reduced some of the tensions in families and workplaces that made life harder. These obviously had a gender dimension, but they are also about making the way we all live fairer.
It is now 38 years since some of us got together to discuss surveying candidates on their views on women in the 1972 election. Politics was almost exclusively male and policies tended to reflect this. Women were assumed to be kept by men, had no rights to paid jobs, equal pay, access to child care, contraception or terminations or any protection against domestic violence. Australia has changed dramatically because we were able to put these and other social issues onto the political agenda. However, there are still problems to fix and systematic unfairness to women, so we are still here as an electoral lobby.
This has been an odd election campaign, singularly lacking in social issues and big ideas that capture the imagination. This makes voting decisions harder for those who may not be rusted onto a particular party, and want to know what is on offer. If you are interested in social equity, you may have been frustrated by assumptions that all voters are interested in is their (male) hip pocket nerve. There is plenty on the economic/money angles both at macro and micro level, and bribes for particular categories of voters. However, there is not much if you are interested in living in a society that is fair in the way it distributes power, resources and rewards.
So check our election pages on this site and look at our fact sheets on various policies. We have also put a fairness measure on some party proposals. These are being updated as new announcements are made. The changes we hoped for in child care, equal pay and other related areas haven’t happened, but there is an interesting battle on paid parental leave.
Next week we will tally up our assessment and give you the material you need to make a socially responsible decision. So watch this page!
Eva Cox, Chair WEL Australia
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