According to a new poll ahead of the upcoming federal election, voters are wanting more action on women’s issues. The poll, conducted by YouGov Galaxy for independent lobby group WomenVote surveyed 1065 male and female voters and coming out on top was the opinion that women’s issues are not being adequately addressed by politicians.
Those who participated in the poll believed that childcare should be tax deductible, that women should make up half of the Australian parliament, that the government should be more willing to do more to reduce the gender pay gap and that largely, Australian politicians are sexist. While the issue of childcare affects both men and women, access to childcare has an enormous impact on women’s ability to return to work.
The poll found that 71% of voters should be doing more to address the pay gap and 75% think the government needs to be doing more to address the gender superannuation gap. 64% believed that childcare should be tax-deductible and 56% believed there should be an equal number of women and men in parliament.
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Leading up to this month’s election, the Liberal Party’s “women problem” has been a contentious issue with views on how they should tackle it. Possibly the most staggering results to come out of the survey show that 55% of participants believed that our current parliamentary members are sexist. 70% of Greens voters held that view compared to 64% of Labor voters and 46% of coalition supporters.
The poll was commissioned by WomenVote, a lobby group founded by legal professionals Vanessa Whittaker, Maria O’Brien and Sera Mirzabegian, who claim there has been “barely any meaningful debate” about issues affecting Australian women. WomenVote will release a “scorecard” before the election on May 18, rating each party on its commitment to gender issues.
“We have concluded that unless the female electorate holds politicians to account, the issues about which women are most concerned will not be addressed in this election,” Whittaker said.
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