Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

  Tonight I rise to speak about an important issue for our nation, and that is the issue of trying to get more women participating in STEM disciplines. I have said in the House numerous times that women remain significantly underrepresented in our universities; comprising just 20 per cent of enrolments in engineering and other related technologies, and only 14 per cent of enrolments in information technology. This disparity starts in our schools, early on, where boys are far more likely than girls to elect subjects such as physics, maths, earth sciences and chemistry than the so-called 'softer' sciences such as biology or the humanities. Over the very long term, this then filters into an underrepresentation of women in STEM in the workforce. In 2008, the participation of women in STEM jobs was 45.1 per cent, representing an overall increase of just 2.8 per cent since 1992. Many senior positions in STEM research disciplines, particularly in our universities and academia more broadly, remain largely unrepresentative of women.

Clearly, the sustained success of Australia's academic and innovative capacity is being hamstrung by an ongoing lack of equality in STEM disciplines. By failing to help girls and women elect into and succeed at science, technology, engineering and mathematics we are condemning ourselves to repeat the mistakes of the past and not fulfilling our full potential as an innovative and thriving economy where new and exciting ideas are nurtured and fanned into the discoveries of tomorrow. The Australian Industry Group acknowledges as much in its report Lifting our science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills, saying:

A key way to meet the emerging challenge of developing an economy for the 21st century is to grow our national skills base …

What better way to do this than by encouraging and supporting more women into the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics? It is important to recognise the significant barriers that exist, including negative stereotyping and unconscious bias such as 'boys are better than girls at maths.' This affects not only the choice of girls to study STEM but also the results they can achieve. Addressing this unconscious bias has been shown to have an impact not only on women's and girls' choice to study STEM but also their results.

It is important to recognise that we have had some wonderfully successful women who have had wonderful careers in the STEM disciplines. Take Ruby Payne-Scott, a radio astronomer and pioneer responsible for some of the earliest discoveries in radio astronomy research. Or Dorothy Hill, a geologist and researcher most famous for becoming the first female professor at an Australian university. Not only must these women's contributions be celebrated; they must also be held up to young women and girls as role models. We must instil confidence in our girls that they can have a career in STEM. We need our scientific institutions to encourage and support women, offering them opportunities to advance their career, conduct effective mentoring for women in their workplace and make workplaces attractive places for women. We need to support these women in pursuing a career in STEM, maybe looking at their work arrangements or the way grant funding works to ensure that their work is more family friendly.

I am very pleased that Labor has announced a plan for STEM, and particularly I am pleased that Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, has focused on ways we can boost women's participation in STEM by committing firstly with 20,000 STEM award degrees for five years, which will encourage and support more women in this discipline. That is very important. It is also very important that we on this side of the House are looking at how we can encourage our teachers to inspire primary school and secondary students in the STEM disciplines. I am very proud that my aunt won the Minister's Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching—she does a fabulous job, as she has done throughout her whole career. She is someone I have always looked up to, thinking that she had a passion for teaching but particularly a passion for teaching science. People like my aunt, Jane Wright, do a great job and they are people we can hold up as role models for our girls. I commend Labor's plan but also urge this parliament to really address the issue of women in STEM.