9/6/02
Women's Interests Minister Sheila McHale said it was time to redefine what women wanted for themselves in the 21st century and set new priorities.
Ms McHale today announced she would introduce a Women's Report Card to measure whether clearly defined goals to improve the status of women were being achieved.
"Women's lives have been transformed through the advancement of their status in the 20th century, but there is still much to achieve," she said.
For instance in public leadership and decision-making positions, women:
- comprise 24 per cent of members of the Western Australian Parliament;
- comprise 28.5 per cent of Cabinet;
- account for 24 per cent of Local Government councillors;
- hold 26 of senior Australian Public Service positions and 19 per cent of senior WA State Public Service positions;
- hold 34 per cent of the academic positions in WA universities, but only 12 per cent of those are above senior lecturer position;
- account for 10 per cent of the directors of large Australian and New Zealand companies, and 3 per cent of those companies have women executive directors; and
- comprise 30 per cent of the members of WA Government boards and committees, a significant increase since September 1999.
"Despite considerable improvements in the representation of women in management and leadership positions, more than 70 per cent of primary decision makers are still men," Ms McHale said.
"The Gallop Government has placed a priority on improving the representation of women in senior management levels of the public sector and in the composition of all Government boards and committees.
"We want to have 50 per cent representation of women on Government boards and committees.
"While the Government is leading by example we hope the private sector also takes on these goals."
Ms McHale said the community also needed to identify other goals it wanted to achieve.
This was being done through the recently held Women's Convention and a series of forums planned across the State.
"These forums will be used to clearly define what today's women want to achieve and establish transparent goals," the Minister said.
"Then we will regularly assess achievement against these goals in an annual report card."
Ms McHale said developing and monitoring the report card would be the role of the newly revamped Women's Advisory Council.
The new members are:
- Ms Arina Aiona, chair, working in the area of domestic violence and women's refuges;
- Ms Jenny Au Yeong - working in the field of ethnic disability;
- Miss Jessie Giles - high school student;
- Dr Fionnuala Frost - academic qualifications in agriculture and currently working in rural and community development;
- Ms Pat Kopusar - working in fields related to women and Aboriginal people;
- Ms Claire Ozich - lawyer;
- Dr Alison Preston, academic and co-director of the Women's Economic Policy Analysis Unit; and
- Ms Noela Taylor - acting executive director, Office for Women's Policy.
Ms McHale said the skills and experience of the selected members reflected the new role for the council.
"The council will also play a role in identifying priorities for community engagement forums to be held across WA later this year and next year," she said.
"It is important that women become involved in the consultation process because information from them will be used to develop goals, how they will be measured and the desired outcomes."
Minister's office: 9213 6900
