Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (8 March) . . Page.. 707 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Safety Committee. There will be a number of women on the panel representing a range of organisations, but whether there will be the appointments Ms Tucker has sought remains to be seen.

It is worth remembering, however, that it is most likely the female population of the prison will be less than 10 per cent, based largely on the fact that women commit crimes at a much lower rate than men do. So I would expect and hope that the women's component of the prison population will be small. I will consider the issues Ms Tucker has raised, but there is a very large number of critical issues to be examined with respect to the prison. Other people would argue, quite persuasively, for other issues to be given at least as high a priority as the issue of women in the prison. We will therefore have to balance all of those competing considerations.

Mr Speaker, I was quite pleased to hear the comments made by the Opposition about their desire to address the obvious lack of women within their ranks. I am pleased that the Liberal Party has always had women among its members in this Assembly. As a party, it has been ground breaking in putting women into positions of authority and leadership within Australia generally.

Mr Quinlan: And then sacking some of them.

MR HUMPHRIES: I will come to that, Mr Quinlan. It was the Liberal Party which was the first to elect a woman to the House of Representatives. The Liberal Party was first to put a woman into Federal Cabinet. We are very proud of our record in this area. We are also very keen to make sure that women are advanced in the Liberal Party, not because of devices such as quotas or special formulas which potentially allow mediocre women to beat better candidates who are men but because we encourage people to come forward on their merits and to achieve what they can achieve on the basis of their talent and ability. That is why today the ACT has a female Chief Minister provided by the Liberal Party. It is not because she is a female, but because she is an excellent leader and a person who has continued in the ACT a tradition of providing strong, effective and popular female leaders in this Territory.

Mr Berry: And an anti-woman leader.

MR HUMPHRIES: An anti-woman party, did you say, Mr Berry? That is funny. As I look across the chamber here, it would be a bit easier to call the anti-woman party in this place the party without any women in it, I would have thought. We have always had a woman in our party in this place.

Mr Smyth: Mr Quinlan blamed the electors.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Quinlan blames the electors for not choosing any women for the parliamentary Labor Party. Given Mr Stanhope's comments, I would like to know how the Labor Party is going to structure its tickets next time round in the ACT to provide for winnable positions for women.

Ms Carnell: In Belconnen, is Wayne going to step down?

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .