The Labor party will debate raising its affirmative action quota to 50% by 2020 at its annual national conference later this month. The proposal has been referred to as “Joan’s Law”, after Victoria’s first – and only – female Premier, Joan Kirner. The current policy requires women to be preselected for 40% of all seats…
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It was March 2011. Over 3,000 people had gathered on the lawns of Parliament house. Weeks earlier, Prime Minister Julia Gillard had announced the government planned to introduce a carbon tax, a move seen in the eyes of the demonstrators as a broken promise, an outright scandal. Thousands of vitriolic protesters – placards in hand…
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Dr Mehreen Faruqi will make history by becoming the first female Muslim to be elected to Parliament in Australia. Faruqi was pre-selected by the Greens party for the upper house seat for NSW; she will take over from Cate Faehrmann later in the year. ‘Mehreen’s Pakistani heritage not only breaks new ground for the Greens…
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Earlier this year cinemagoers were treated to a look at life in Maggie’s farm in The Iron Lady. Now it is time for an intimate portrait of The Steel Orchid. The Lady tells the story of the Burmese-English political activist, human rights advocate and political prisoner, Aung San Suu Kyi. Known to her supporters as Daw or The Lady,…
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