Senator BOLKUS(12.41 p.m.) —We do not disagree with the aspiration of this proposal by the Australian Democrats. It is one that we are implementing both within the party and also quite rigidly in our participation in the tickets that will be put forward for this convention. In our involvement with the Republican Movement and with other parties, we are ensuring that there will be gender equality in the winnable positions to the extent that we can define such and, in that way, we will deliver on this.

I think Senator Murray himself would acknowledge that this issue of representation should be broader than just women. We need to find ways of including and reflecting the diversity of our society in any representative body that is elected, and that is another principle that we will be looking at both in terms of indigenous Australians and also the multicultural diversity of our society.

This particular Democrat amendment does not in a practical way achieve that. I know the motivation and the aspiration may be there, but we all know that, under the particular proposal, if a team of 12 chose to put six females on the bottom half of their ticket, they would still satisfy the requirements of the Democrat amendment. We share with you the aspiration. We cannot see that your amendment will deliver the outcome you want.

We do think, in terms of representation, there should be a reflection of greater diversity. As I said yesterday, our amendment No. 82 is one that we believe is probably about as far as a parliament can go in terms of laying down a framework in this particular context, and that is the amendment that does talk about the need for the convention to be fully representative of the diverse experiences, backgrounds, views, beliefs and aspirations of the Australian people. We do reflect on the fact that the constitutional conventions of a hundred years ago were composed entirely of male delegates and we do say that we would wish that all groupings in this particular context would provide for fair but, more importantly, equal representation of women. I hope that you will be supporting our preamble to the bill later on. I also ask you to note that, though you may want something more, your amendment does not really deliver that.