Op Ed: The continued quest for gender equality in the Queensland Parliament
Gains and losses from the Queensland state election
By Licia Heath, CEO of Women for Election
The Current State of Female Representation
Before the recent state election, Queensland ranked last amongst all Australian states and territories with female representation in its parliament at only 30%. This was a dismal reality for Australia’s third-largest state by population and economic output.
The recent election results show a modest gain for women in Queensland politics, with 36.5% of the parliament now being female. Critically, hidden within these numbers are several ‘firsts’ that should be recognised, and some disappointing losses – thus is politics!
The Wins: Several ‘Firsts’
In electorates spanning from Far North Queensland to the Sunshine Coast and Greater Brisbane, male MPs have been replaced by women, resulting in female representation hitting an all-time high of 36.5%—an increase of over 6% from pre-election levels.
The state election also resulted in two historic firsts: Bisma Asif became the first Muslim woman elected to the Queensland Parliament as the Member for Sandgate, and Ariana Doolan, at just 22 years old, became the state’s youngest ever female MP as the new Member for Pumicestone. At Women for Election, we are acutely aware of the additional barriers faced by culturally diverse women, as well as young women, when running for public office and we applaud Bisma and Ariana for breaking the electoral glass ceiling!
We are also pleased to see the success of Kerri-Anne Dooley, whose election as the Member for Redcliffe represents the culmination of six attempts at public office. This proves what we at Women for Election know to be true: very few people are elected on their first attempt. We know that women may need multiple campaign attempts before they’re elected. Equally, women need to be asked to run multiple times before they choose to step forward. The combination of these two factors makes a strong case for why women need greater access to support, training and mentoring to achieve the same electoral success as men.
While we celebrate Kerri-Anne’s election, we also celebrate all the women who ran—whether it was their first, third, or sixth time. Elected or not, you have changed the conversation in your electorate just by running. That’s why our mantra is running is winning!
The Losses: A Few Unfortunate Backslides
At the Cabinet level, there are fewer women in key positions. The newly sworn-in LNP Ministry includes only six women in its 19-member cabinet, down from nine women in the previous ALP government’s cabinet of the same size.
At the electorate level, it is disappointing that the state’s only Torres Strait Islander representative, Cynthia Lui, lost her seat of Cook in Far North Queensland. She was the first and only Torres Strait Islander woman elected to any parliament in Australia.
Additionally, in four seats women were replaced by men including Cook, Keppel, Mackay, and Pine Rivers. In all four instances, ALP women were replaced by LNP men, highlighting a concerning disparity between Queensland’s two major parties. The ALP is nearing gender parity in its pre-selection of candidates, with 49% of its 93 candidates being women, while the LNP preselected 40% women.
It’s easy to focus on the major parties, but in Queensland, the most gender-imbalanced preselection was from the third most prominent party in the parliament, Katter’s Australia Party, which preselected just one woman, accounting for 14% of their candidate pool.
Achieving Gender Parity: Why It Matters
Even with the gains made in the recent state election, Queensland still has one of the lowest rates of female representation in the country, neck-and-neck with South Australia.
What needs to change? The first and most obvious action is to encourage more women of all political persuasions to run for public office in Queensland. In the recent election, women accounted for an average of 40% of the candidates across the state’s 93 electorates. Two electorates, Hervey Bay and Kawana, had no women on their ballot papers, while 28 electorates had 25% or fewer female candidates.
We know that there is a clear (albeit unsurprising) correlation between the number of female candidates and the number of women elected to parliament, so the focus must be on building a stronger pipeline of female candidates.
Research consistently shows that achieving gender parity in government leads to better and more inclusive policies—not just in areas often deemed ‘women’s issues’ like eliminating violence against women, childcare, and universal healthcare, but across all policy areas that benefits all communities.
Therefore, supporting more women to run for public office in Queensland and achieving gender parity at all levels of government in Australia isn’t just a matter of gender equity; it’s a public policy imperative.