GENDER, PARTIES AND THE VOTE
Gender equality and the treatment of women have been persistent political and policy issues throughout the 46th Australian Parliament. In today’s analysis, Associate Professor of International Relations Katrina Lee-Koo (@KateLeeKoo), from Monash University (@MonashUni), explores how gender equality and the treatment of women are likely to shape the vote at Saturday’s election. This piece originally appeared in the Monash University Politics and International Relations report The 2022 Australian Federal Election: Themes, Challenges and Issues May 2022 and is republished with permission. You can view the full report in its original format here.
Image from Manny Becerra, Unsplash
Data from the 2019 election suggest a growing gender gap in voting patterns. At the last federal election, women were much less likely than men to give their first preference vote to the Coalition (38 to 48%), and they were more likely to vote Labor (37 to 34 per cent) and the Greens (15 to 9%). This is a change from the 1990s when women were more likely to vote for the Liberals and men for Labor.
WHY ARE WE SEEING THIS SHIFT?
Most visibly, there is a trust gap between the Liberal Party and many Australian women. The Morrison Coalition Government’s handling of recent high-profile gender issues both inside and outside of Parliament House suggests to many women that he fundamentally fails to understand why women are angry. The Prime Minister’s statement in Parliament regarding the 2021 March 4 Justice (‘not far from here, such marches…are being met with bullets’), his response to the alleged rape of a staffer in Parliament House (‘I discussed it with Jenny’) and the allegations of gender-based harassment and sexual violence against senior Government ministers have potentially tainted the views of women against the Government.
In addition, the loss of senior women, from Julie Bishop in 2018 to Connie Fierravanti-Wells just prior to the start of the election campaign, has left an indelible wound on the Morrison Coalition Government, with these women voicing varying levels of criticism over the treatment of women in their party.
The Labor Party is not immune to accusations of a toxic culture. Yet Labor—through employment of its quota system—has managed to secure 43% female representation in the lower house compared to the Liberals’ 21%. Moreover, in a March Roy Morgan Poll, Labor’s Penny Wong and Tanya Plibersek were ranked the first and third most trusted leaders, while Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton were identified as the least trusted leaders.
The compounding of these issues may shift some votes, including towards female independent candidates: for some voters it evidences a culture of male privilege within our political leadership.
HOW HAS THE MORRISON GOVERNMENT RESPONDED TO GENDER CONCERNS?
But is the Morrison Government’s failure to adequately respond publicly to gender concerns also reflected in its policies?
In the March budget, the Government announced $1.3 billion in funding for women’s safety. While this is a $200,000 increase on the previous year, experts indicate it lacks sufficient detail and falls far short of the promises to eliminate violence against women.
Efforts to close the gender pay gap (which sits at 22.8%) in the recent budget have similarly been piecemeal. Recently announced tax cuts were argued to entrench gender inequality and followed a ‘blokey’ COVID-19 recovery package that was seen to prioritize male-dominated trades and industries.
COVID-19 exposed the fragility in childcare, aged care, nursing and other female-dominated sectors. It also revealed the precarity of women’s work and the gender-based inequalities in unpaid labour and care. Labor has moved faster than the government in these areas, announcing high-profile policy packages in the care economy.
Women are changing the way they vote; rhetoric and policies that understand women’s experiences of discrimination and violence, paid and unpaid work, and structural inequality will matter in this election.
Posted by Lisa J. Wheildon