Tanja Kovac

A big weekend of election results around the country has seen the ACT retain its crown as having the highest proportion of women in any parliament in the country — although it has slipped somewhat.

With its deliberately lilac colours and pretty, cursive script, everything about Women for Obama, from its logo to campaign techniques has been designed to appeal to American women.

There’s a simple reason why so many women find it hard to trust Tony Abbott on paid parental leave.

Despite three years of intense scrutiny around gender issues within Australian politics, the 2013 election has resulted in negligible change in the representation of women.

One of the ALP’s most powerful decision-making bodies last night intervened to allow preselections for next year’s Victorian election that flout party rules on the representation of women — in fact, under the deal women will go backwards.

If the Liberal Party had an affirmative action target, Mary Wooldridge would not have lost pre-selection for the blue ribbon seat of Kew, in Melbourne’s leafy inner east, to young wunderkind, Tim Smith.