Big increase in the number of women elected in Tasmania and South Australia
Big increase in the number of women elected in Tasmania and South Australia
The number of women elected to councils in Tasmania and South Australia increased in the recent municipal elections.And for the first in Australian history more than one-third of Australian councillors are women.
“The elections in Tasmania and South Australia resulted in a large increase in the number of women elected to councils,” said ALGWA National President Cr Coral Ross. “We are delighted that now more than one-third of councillors are women, but we still have a long way to go.”
Before the elections, 32.8% of Australian councillors were women. Now 34.94% of Australian councillors are women.
The biggest increase was in Tasmania, where the number of women elected increased by more than one-quarter from 31% to 39.9%, or 105 of the 263 elected positions. In South Australia the number of women councillors increased by over one-fifth from 29.34 to 35.4%
The results mean Tasmania has overtaken Victoria with the highest percentage of women councillors elected at a general municipal election. Victoria is second with 38.1%, followed by WA with 36.21% and South Australia moves from last to fourth spot with 35.4%, followed by the NT 33%, Qld. 32.5%. NSW is now the only State below 30% female representation with 29.5%.
The ALGWA would like to thank the State Associations in Tasmania and South Australia for their hard work – together with the State ALGWA branches – in running candidate forums.
Unfortunately, despite the increase in women elected ALGWA Presidents in both Tasmania and South Australia lost their elected positions in the elections but have lost none of their passion for representing Women in Local Government
“We put out a positive message about empowering women and how local government is valuable and rewarding. It is a great role,” said ALGWA Tasmania President Debra Thurley.
“We were given great assistance by LGAT – we both held several candidate forums. It was a great result,” she added.
In South Australia the ALGWA organized eight “WomenCan” candidate sessions.
“We worked very hard for this to happen,” said ALGWA South Australia President Betty Gill. “Councils came on board and the Local Government Association of South Australia worked very hard and we worked collaboratively together. There was a lot of publicity for the election and a lot of young candidates.
“Our aim was to get over 30%. We did much better than we expected,” she added.
Any queries please contact:
Cr Coral Ross 0438 005 225