What the abolition of the seat of Higgins tells us about the way the political system treats women candidates
Are women being set up to fail?
On April 20 this year, Browen Bock and Lucy Bradlow launched their job-sharing candidacy for the federal seat of Higgins in Victoria. Not long after, the AEC Redistribution Committee announced that Higgins was one of the seats they were recommending be abolished as part of their regular review of electoral boundaries. In this guest post, the two candidates explain how this decision, and the way in which it was made, speaks to bigger structural problems in how our electoral politics treats women.
Let’s start with a simple, complex proposition: we need more women in political leadership. To achieve that goal, and to make such equity a lasting part of our political landscape, we need to think creatively about the structural reforms that might be available to us. How might we do this?
Labor has said they are addressing the issue, and it is important to recognise that their 2023-24 Women’s Budget Statement does so directly:
The Government is committed to driving the actions needed to progress women’s representation in leadership across public, business, community and political spheres. Having women of all backgrounds and experiences in visible, influential and decision-making positions across all levels and sectors of society is vital to driving cultural change and ensuring diverse views and experiences are represented at decision-making tables.
Following this, they made a $5 million investment in Women for Election Australia to equip and encourage more women to enter politics. The Women for Election program is an excellent initiative that operates around Australia to draw in a diverse group of women to encourage and equip them to run for political leadership at all levels of government.
With women still only making up 39.1% of the House of Representatives, these commitments and investments are vital. But are they just setting women up to fail when the system itself is designed to exclude them?
Being a member of Parliament at any level—but particularly at the federal level—is an all-encompassing job. It requires unpredictable and long hours, and travel to Canberra for up to 22 weeks of the year.
In Australia, women spend more time than men doing unpaid care work and are significantly more likely to work in part-time or casual positions. The very structure of the political role is exclusionary for women, and that’s not even considering the gendered online abuse that women politicians are subjected to.
In the public and private sectors, one way employers are trying to attract more women into leadership roles is to change the role to suit the person—not the person to suit the role. They are offering more flexible models of leadership, more part-time roles, and more opportunities for job sharing.
There is no reason this couldn’t be done in a political context. The current laws don’t specifically prevent it, though certain bureaucratic mechanisms, such as the AEC nomination form, would have to change to allow it.
Ultimately, though, the role of a Member of Parliament could be shared if there was the will and imagination to do so. In many ways, as we have argued, it would bring strength to the role. It would bring more collaboration, thoughtfulness, accountability and experience.
In this context, the proposal by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to abolish the seat of Higgins in Melbourne’s inner southeast can be seen as the latest example of how the system can set up women to fail.
Let us explain.
Due to population changes, the AEC needs to get rid of an electorate in Victoria. They started by appointing an all-male panel—the Redistribution Committee for Victoria— to decide which electorate should be abolished.
The Electoral Act (Commonwealth) of 1918 gives the Redistribution Committee powers to consider a broad range of factors to decide how to shift electoral lines and which electorates to abolish, including geographical and demographic features and obligations relating to any “community of interests, including economic, social and regional interests.”
In the 2024 report of the Redistribution Committee for Victoria, Proposed redistribution of Victoria into electoral divisions, the Committee goes into no detail on any of those latter considerations. It simply says that because of the movement of populations, it was decided that the electorate to be abolished should be in the East, and that because of “numerical requirements”, it chose the seat of Higgins. In other words, the Committee seems to have given no consideration to how the decision to abolish Higgins would affect one particular community of interest: women.
Higgins is important for women for two reasons.
First, it is the only seat in Victoria in which all declared candidates for major parties, and the independent, are women. Dr Michelle Ananda-Rajah is the current Member for Higgins; Dr Katie Allen was pre-selected as the candidate for the Liberal Party; Angelica Di Camillo was pre-selected as the candidate for the Greens Party; and we are the community-backed job-sharing independent candidate.
A simple Google search of all the electorates proposed for abolition would have given the Redistribution Committee more insights into the candidates.
The second reason Higgins is important for women is that it was the only seat in the nation with an Australia-first job sharing candidacy, and it is important to note that the AEC has been aware of our candidacy since 20 February 2023. Certainly, the significant media coverage of our campaign launch on 20 April would have made it clear our candidacy applied to Higgins. As well, we wrote to Commissioner Tom Rogers (the Chair of the Redistribution Committee) to ask for a meeting to discuss our candidacy. He replied referring us to the Attorney General.
The Committee's clear failure to consider any factors outside of geography and demography is inadequate.
An independent electoral commission is a cornerstone of Australian democracy. The transparent and considered process the Redistribution Committee goes through is admirable and essential. We only need to look at the gerrymandering processes in the U.S. to know how lucky we are to have an impartial system. But the fact that it was an all-male Redistribution Committee shows why the structures in place are so important in making these decisions and why we need to engage in an ongoing process of reform.
Job sharing would have benefits for many groups of people. But given the current state of our workforce, where most women work in part-time or casual roles, it would particularly benefit women. Allowing voters the opportunity to elect a job-sharing candidate in Parliament would be one way to increase the representation of women—particularly young women—in federal Parliament and it would enhance representative democracy.
So, we must ask: why wasn’t this effect on women considered by the Redistribution Committee? Are women not a “community of interest”? Perhaps if the Redistribution Committee had included a woman, it would have considered the effect of abolishing the one seat in the state that had these particular implications for women.
Our electoral process is already such an exclusive system. And now you can add to it that the system itself can take you down because no-one thought to add a woman to a key decision-making panel.
The process to get involved in politics, let alone put your hand up to run as a candidate, is a difficult one. You must have some connection to politics; you have to know people who can help; you need people who will fund you. If you’re a woman (or two women, in our case), you will also have people on social media making sexist jokes about you, using your image to create misogynistic memes, and even the mainstream media writing gendered and belittling articles about you.
The government can invest as much as it likes in empowering and equipping potential candidates. But until we fix the system itself and normalise reforms that are taken for granted in other workplaces, we will continue to struggle to get more women in political leadership.
Thank you Bradlow + Bock for Higgins, very insightful. And thanks, Tim, for giving these candidates an opportunity to present their views to an audience outside of Higgins.
Another interesting piece Tim.
It goes to also show that the limiting of the number of seats to 150 is creating issues for quality of representation also. Some electorates now have 110,000 people but this removal of seats means one less local MP for Victorian and NSW residents. Canada or UK have around 72,000 electors per constituency.
It’s getting to the point where the Lower House should be expanded so that we have a more balanced division of electors per seat. Although of course that would necessitate an increase in the Senate.