The Australian Women Premiers, Chief Ministers and Opposition Leaders: A Retrospective

A lot of hay has been made over the past few weeks over the Annastacia Palaszczuk (ALP) v Deb Frecklington (LNP) election being the first time an Australian State Government has had two women go head to head, and what that means for the country.

This is technically true but unfair to the ACT and NT, as our two main Territories have been carrying a lot of the effort at increasing women in leadership positions over the past 31 years. The election of Rosemary Follett as the first Chief Minister for ACT in 1989 started a trend that had resulted in at least one woman holding leadership of a State or Territory each year since then.

This is the second time the country has seen an election at this level with two women contesting the leadership role, with the first being the 1995 ACT Territory Election, where Rosemary Follett (ALP) and Kate Carnell (Lib) faced off for leadership, with Carnell winning that election.

There have only been three gaps in female leadership at State and Territory level since 1989, for a total of 447 days, where women have not held ANY of the leadership positions (and held opposition leadership during these periods): December to February in 1989/90 and 2014/15, and an extended period from October 2000 to August 2001.

In addition, last Tuesday, 27 October 2020, the combined Australian States and Territories passed another quiet invisible barrier – 50% of the positions of Premier, Chief Minister and Opposition Leader were held by women. This has been part of a gradual increase in positions over time.

•  NSW and QLD are both led by women: Annastacia Palaszczuk (ALP) in QLD and Gladys Berejiklian (Lib) in NSW.
• Both of their Opposition Leaders are women: Deb Frecklington (LNP) in QLD and Jodi McKay (ALP) in NSW.
• There are a further 4 female Opposition Leaders: Rebecca White (ALP) in TAS, Liza Harvey (Lib) in WA, Lia Finocchario (Lib) in NT and Elizabeth Lee (Lib) in the ACT.

Only Victoria and South Australia currently have no women leading the major parties, and only South Australia has never had a female Premier. Victoria has not had a female leader since Joan Kirner resigned in 1993.

Now, from this very rough visual, you can see the effect of various country trends over time. The Howard Years line up with a decrease in female leadership, which only truly began to recover with Anna Bligh (QLD ALP) assuming leadership in 2007. Before that, ACT and NT were doing the heavy lifting in maintaining women leaders, alongside Kerry Chikarovski’s (Lib) long stint in opposition in NSW. There is probably a lot of analysis to be done on the Liberal tradition of sticking a female caretaker Opposition Leader into government, but at this point I’ll simply note: while the ALP has definitely been the initiators and leaders of appointing women as leaders in most states, and no state or territory has had a Liberal female Premier or Chief Minister prior to having a Labor one, there are currently more women in leadership positions across the Liberal Party at state level than there are for Labor.

The Queensland State Election is a historic moment for Australia. But the equalising of female leadership at State and Territory level is equally historic. The next goal should be trying for 4 women as Premier or Chief Minister simultaneously.

(And for South Australia, cradle of women's voting rights in Australia, to sort itself out and join in the program!)

Queensland State Election Roundup

My Queensland State Election feelings, now all the dust has settled after a fair amount of drama.

The quote of the night, as repeated CONSTANTLY by delighted Aussies watching everywhere, was “The One Nation vote has collapsed”. And there was much rejoicing.

(Did you know? The One Nation vote collapsed)

James Ashby’s dummy spit interview, from the very first moment of his dead ‘hi’ through to the frenzied ranting about fruit and vegetable prices, ABC fat cats and fishermen being raped and pillaged, was a masterwork in WHY the One Nation vote has collapsed and why your average voter might feel that the party doesn’t exactly provide a useful voice in parliament. They hung on to their one seat, but they certainly didn’t make gains anywhere else. Pauline Hanson was apparently holding forth on Sky News about how the party would make up ground in postals, but let’s be honest, that won’t be happening.

My other highlight of the night was watching the returns for the Greens, as they picked up a second seat and eventually came third in a very tight three way contest in a third seat. Inner city Greens dynamics are getting more efficient about picking up seats, and I expect this is a tendency that will continue at both state and federal level.

A lowlight, on the other hand, was the frenzied accusations between the ALP and the LNP over who was more to blame for the Greens now having two seats in the QLD parliament. How dare either party preference the Greens strategically. Steven Miles particularly seemed rather unhinged about it all, which was astonishing given some of his fellow panellists.

I watched the ABC election coverage, as is traditional. Poor Antony Green was looking quite overworked, with the fact he’s had to back up from covering the ACT and NZ elections two weeks ago (so postals only finalised  the ACT seats on Friday), prepare for the QLD election and still be standing by to explain US modelling later this week. His throat ended up very dry – I’m actually surprised he hasn’t officially announced that he had a COVID test after all that coughing, just to reassure people.

This was the first head to head election for two women since 1995, and certainly the first one the rest of the country was paying any attention to. I must admit, the duelling pink/red v blue blazers on the party leaders made much more of a visual contrast than different coloured ties.

I was just so tired by the fact that Labor’s response to a situation where they looked a shoo-in for a return to government, either as a minority or a majority (and let’s be honest, by about 2 hours in it was pretty convincing that it was likely to be a majority government) was to spend as much time as possible telling the Greens that they have no interest in forming a power-sharing agreement with them and blaming them for daring to get into the lead in certain seats. It’s just… you have so many other things to celebrate. Maybe pissing off the Left is not exactly in your best interest?

I know, I know, Labor seems to think that Gillard’s minority government with agreements with the Greens and the crossbench were part of the reason that firstly Gillard got rolled and then they lost 2013, but to be honest, I think they’re reaching. The disgust at the idea the Greens dare exist and take “Labor” seats sounds so reflexively 1980s that I gasped a few times. It’s not like Lee Rhiannon is running for a seat, here. Your average Greens candidate in a likely seat these days is: a well educated, teacher-like daggy dad; a young queer woman; a visible minority. While the forever-runners continue in unlikely seats, the people standing in electorates where they have a real chance are the sort of people that you might have hoped to recruit to Labor for their energy and community involvement.

Also, as Scott loves to remind me, the ACT government has frequently had power-sharing agreements with the Greens to no ill effect. They signed the latest just this morning, and Shane Rattenbury is getting three cabinet positions out of it (which is a fair proportion, after contributing 6 out of 16 seats in this agreement). Jacinda Ardern just signed the Greens on with Labour to hold government in NZ, even though she didn’t need them, as she preferred to have them inside the tent with her rather than protesting on the outside. It can be done and it’s been proved to be effective.

In regards to the speeches – I haven’t seen people pointing fingers too loudly, but that was a shambles. The ALP and LNP should have been in closer communication. I don’t know WHY Palaszczuk headed for her party before receiving a concession phone call from Frecklington – were the LNP dragging their feet? Did she just want to party? But having Palaszczuk make her acceptance speech before Frecklington had even officially conceded, and then for Frecklington to start hers once Palaszczuk was already talking… it was decidedly odd.  

In summary:

• THE ONE NATION VOTE HAS COLLAPSED.
• HISTORIC THIRD TERM FEMALE PREMIER.
• Deb Frecklington has bowed out of leadership (but not Parliament) to spend more time with her family, after defiantly stating on Saturday night she was definitely staying on.
• DID I MENTION TWO GREENS SEATS?