Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker Burke, you will recall that you joined me and others of our female colleagues recently at the Pacific Women's Parliamentary Partnerships Forum in Suva, along with other female members of parliament from the Pacific area. Unfortunately, our sisters from Bougainville could not join us because they were undergoing an election. Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am sure that you will join with me in celebrating the news today that Bougainville has handed down a landmark decision for women's equality by electing, for the first time, a woman in an open constituency seat. It is truly good news for the women of Bougainville. As we know, they have three reserved seats for women and three for ex-combatants, but this time the women fielded 35 candidates in total, and 12 of them took on the men in the open seats.

It is a very interesting dilemma. I was talking to the women when I joined the Australian contingent for observing the Bougainville elections recently, and they said the problem when you reserve seats for women is that the men think the women should only have those seats and, in some cases, that only women should be allowed to vote for women in those seats, and the men can have all the others. So they are very torn about whether to keep the reserved seats or to continue with their fight to take on the men.

As I said, 12 women ran for the open seats, and one of them has been elected. The four new politicians are Hellen Siumana, Marcelline Kokiai, Isabel Peta and, in the open seat, Josephine Getsi. Josephine won the open seat of Peit, a seat that was contested by both women and men in Bougainville. This election doubled the number of women who ran in open seats compared to the last one, in 2010.

I particularly commend the Bougainville Women's Federation, which supported the women running in the election, and which were, in turn, supported by the International Women's Development Agency, which provided leadership training in the election lead-up to encourage and support women candidates. This initiative was funded by the Netherlands government's Funding Leadership and Opportunities for Women, the FLOW program, as well as the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives.

But, Madam Deputy Speaker Burke, as you are aware, Australia has always been supportive of our sisters in Bougainville. Women's underrepresentation is still an issue and it does inhibit gender equality within any society. Newly elected candidate Josephine Getsi participated in the FLOW-funded workshops, including the leadership training for intending candidates, and two mock parliament trainings. Josephine says that she has now gone from 'a nobody to a somebody'. Congratulations, Ladies, we look forward to welcoming you to Brisbane and Queensland.

See this speech in context