Our 2022 election tracker is documenting female candidates

Our 2022 election tracker is documenting female candidates

In 2022, Australia now ranks 57th on the representation of women in national parliament, according to analysis by the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

It’s a significant drop over the past two decades, given we were ranked 15th back in 1999.

Check out our 2022 Federal Election Guide here.

Women’s representation in parliament matters. Not only does it help create a Parliament that better represents the community it serves – but it also sees better decision-making taking place and consideration for issues that have and can go ignored without gender diversity.

But women don’t even hold a third of the seats in the House of Representatives in Australia, accounting for just 31.1 per cent in 2022.

This upcoming federal election could change those numbers significantly.

Indeed, we could see the rising wave of female independents holding significant influence over how the next parliament is formed.

This could be the catalyst we need to break through that one-third female representation mark and later get on the path to something closer to a 50/50 split in women in the lower house.

That’s why we’ve launched ‘Women Elect’, our 2022 election guide identifying the female candidates across the major political parties as well as key independents who are running.

Women Elect will establish a record of the women who ran for office in 2022, highlighting those who ran for the Coalition, Labor, The Greens, One Nation, the United Australia Party, the independents as well as other minor parties.

Publishing these 340 plus profiles definitely does not mean that we support the views of all women who are running. Nor do we advocate for voting on the basis of gender without considering the policy ideas and platforms behind those who are running. This page has rather been established as a record, and an opportunity to highlight the substantive shift towards more women running for office.

It also provides some key stats on the gender gaps in those preselected to run for key parties, as well as the independents who are running.

When it comes to women preselected across the major parties, we’ve identified that:

* for Labor, it’s 41.7 per cent
* for The Coalition, it’s 27.2 per cent 
* and for The Greens, it’s 47 per cent 

As for where women do outnumber men? As independents. 

Of the ‘Teal’ independents, a massive 19 of the 22 candidates are female. 

Meanwhile, there is a serious trend of women being preselected for unwinnable seats.

We’ve worked to pull out details on as many candidates as possible, although note that things get a little more difficult when it comes to candidates running for One Nation and UAP.  In fact, we were in some cases a little alarmed by the lack of detail available, as well as the public comments some of these candidates have made.

Importantly, our election guide is also tracking the policy promises of the major parties when it comes to key areas our audience has identified as critical to their vote: climate change, women’s safety, women’s economic empowerment, childcare, aged care and equal pay.

You can use Women Elect to search for female candidates running in your seat.

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