Labor 2022 surge helps to turn around South Australia lagging behind all states in number of female MPs

The contrast between the 1965 South Australian Labor government in 1965, with only Molly Byrne as a female representative in the House of Assembly, and the 2022 Labor team with its women members in the House of Assmbly in the majority by one.
Images courtesy Australian Labor Party, South Australia

South Australia's 2022 state election brought some reversal of state parliament having the worst female representation in Australia. A 2020 South Australian Electoral Commission report found that only 29 % of the parliament – below the critical 30% deemed by the United Nations– were women and their numbers had decreased since 2006.

South Australia was 7.9% below the national average, 8.4% below the federal parliament and 28.5% behind Australia's then-gender equality leader: Tasmania. Up from 12% in 1985, the South Australian rate of women being elected to parliament as at 2020 indicated gender parity wouldn’t be reached until 2050.

Senior researcher Daniel Marx said that, despite South Australia being the first to allow women both the right to vote and stand for election in 1894, it was trailing the rest of Australia and much of the world in the number of women in parliament. Of the 47 MPs in the House of Assembly, only 12 were women, ranking last against all 15 Australian parliamentary chambers. South Australia also had the second lowest proportion of female cabinet ministers, behind New South Wales.

These figures came out when the Steven Marshall Liberal state government was in power. But Marx noted that South Australia's previous Jay Weatherill Labor government also only had three female ministers out of 14 in cabinet from 2016 to 2018, and four out of 15 ministers before that. In Mike Rann’s time as Labor premier (2002 to 2011), his treasurer Kevin Foley and transport minister Patrick Conlon were painted by critics as bringing a “brutish male atmosphere” to the parliament with insults hurled in “testosterone-fuelled chest beating”.

Labor brought a turnaround with its 2022 victory under Peter Malinasukas when seven new women were elected to ranks that doubled its female MPs to 14, one more than its male representation. Malinauskas appointed six women to his 15-member cabinet team, with Susan Close as his deputy and two more women as parliamentary secretaries.

The Liberal party had two new female faces, Ashton Hurn and Penny Pratt, who won seats in 2022 previously held by men. But this still left  the Liberals with 12.5% of women in the House of Assembly compared to Labor’s 51.9%. The Liberal Party had gradually increased its female candidates but not passed the critical 30% per cent at any election since 1985.

Labor previously has fielded women in more than one third of South Australian districts since 1997, peaking at 42.6% in 2010. The Labor party nationally had introduced quotas for female MP candidates in 1994, with target rising from 35% to 40% in 2002, 45% by 2020 and 50% by 2025.