Women MPs battle to make an impact

Australia’s Ambassador for Women and Girls, Natasha Stott Despoja, says countries like Australia can learn a lot from prospective female parliamentarians in the Pacific.

Fewer than five per cent of MPs in the Pacific islands are women, compared to a global average of about 22 per cent and about 30 per cent in Australia.

Stott Despoja recently visited Tonga, where she met some of the women who are battling to make an impact in Pacific politics.

She says female politicians in Australia face nothing like the difficulties that women in public life have to contend with in the wider Pacific.

“Hearing aspiring female candidates in Solomon Islands and how they get into a canoe in order to go door-knocking in their communities – and how it makes our door-knocking opportunities seem somewhat less fraught,” she said.

“We were usually most scared about dogs nipping at our heels, or voters who vehemently disagreed with us – it’s a very different circumstance if you’re a female candidate in some of these countries.

“Whether it’s weathering potential violence or threats, or dealing with corruption levels that mean women are automatically disadvantaged, not only because they don’t have the money to run campaigns, but they don’t have the money to pay off officials.”

The group of 30 women from across the Pacific which met in Tonga came up with strategies for boosting female political representation in their countries.

Initiatives such as mock parliaments and mentor programmes are designed to give women a better understanding of politics and parliament.

Stott-Despoja says the proof of progress on boosting participation comes when the countries go to the polls – as Fiji will next month.

“Women from Fiji – be they aspiring candidates or civil society representatives – are very concerned about the prospects for the election of women,” she said.

“On the other hand too, they’re putting up their hands, they’re running for parliament, they’re getting trained, they’re educating themselves about the processes.

“So there’s small progress being made, but we’ll wait and see how some of those elections that are due to unfold pan out.”

The Pacific Women’s Parliamentary Partnership Project is a 10-year initiative that partners Australian and New Zealand women MPs with Pacific female politicians and aspiring candidates to improve representation across the Pacific.

Stott Despoja says she and other politicians should be inspired by the struggles and successes of their Pacific counterparts.

“We’ve had the vote for more than 100 years – these women are dealing from much lower bases – some countries have only had independence in the last 20, 30, 40 years – so it’s worth acknowledging that their rate of progress may seem slow, but it’s quite extraordinary,” she said.

“When you couple that with the obstacles – be it employment issues, be it patriarchal cultural issues, and of course omnipresent violence against women and children – you realise women have got some barriers to deal with.

“When they overcome those it’s terribly inspiring, and I think female politicians and aspiring politicians could learn a lot from these extraordinary efforts.”