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Australian Politics: What Can I Do? (outside the existing system)

51% of Australia’s population are women; that’s a population that can elect any Government they like.

Women do not make up 51% of Australia's political representatives; challenge accepted!

Two of your first preference votes are all that is needed to effect change; one in 2016 and one in 2019.

One candidate in your electorate is all that is needed to be given a chance with your first preference vote.

One new membership in your area is all that is needed for you to be able to spend time with the women in your electorate and your country to talk about what policies you would give your first preference vote to.

Women of Australia, the Australian Government is yours if you decide to take it.

It would take less than five years to change the face of Australian Politics if female voters decided that they were going to take power, not ask for power.

Here's how we could do it:

ONE new membership in your area: the CWA


I propose that every woman who wants to take political power in her country over the next five years invests in her future and joins the CWA. Membership of the CWA will bring you into contact with the powerhouse of female political experience in Australia - women who lead the community, the country, and even the world in grassroots involvement.
Ruth Shanks from Dubbo leads the Associated Country Women of the World.
Rural women breaking the Grass Ceiling and becoming leaders in their communities.
As an organisation, the CWA has the following advantages:

NON-POLITICAL
Membership of the CWA will allow women who have supported every party in the male-dominated political past to meet and share ideas for the future.

FEMALE LEADERSHIP
Membership of the CWA will allow women to learn leadership from other women who are active at grassroots, national and international levels.

FEMALE COMMUNITY
Membership of the CWA will allow women to develop their own sense of community and support.

NATIONAL LEADERSHIP
Membership of the CWA will allow women across Australia to identify and support the female leaders that could be political candidates in 2016 and 2019.

INFORMED VOTERS
Membership of the CWA will allow women across Australia to communicate directly with female leaders, female candidates and female voters.

The CWA is the perfect organisation to allow non-partisan political discussion outside the existing, male-dominated political system. Political tolerance is important because if the women of Australia are going to take power, we will need to accommodate the full spectrum of politics, but on our terms. Leadership skills are essential for women everyday life; but especially to be informed voters and candidates. A sense of community and support allows grassroots political realities to be discussed on our terms and across traditional political lines. National reach is essential if women as a voting block are interested in long-lasting change towards equality and new ideas, whether as voters or candidates.

CWA Western Australia
CWA Northern Territory
CWA Queensland
CWA New South Wales
CWA Victoria
CWA South Australia
CWA Australia
The Associated Country Women of the World

The VOICE FOR INDI campaign used a model that prompted me to think of the CWA Model
From Little Margins, Big Margins Grow
Like many people around Australia, a group of Indi locals watched the past three years of politics – one of the ugliest and most negative in the country’s history – in despair. Feeling alienated from what they saw in Canberra, and from their own MP’s part in it, they began meeting quietly at the Wangaratta Library. So constrained was political discourse in the area – and so strong was Sophie Mirabella’s grip on the seat – that these meetings began with a distinctly clandestine edge, for fear of retribution in participants’ professional or personal lives. This motley group of various political colours became Voice for Indi, and their goal was to begin a conversation that had not been taking place in Indi for a very long time – a conversation about needs, values and political leadership.

ONE candidate in your electorate: Women's Equality Party Australia


Each electorate in Australia has many female leaders that could be successful candidates outside the axis of the existing political system and the BIG TWO.

Whether they are Independent candidates, or Greens candidates, they will not be beholden to the lobbying and outdated policies of the BIG TWO. They are the women you are looking to support with your first preference vote in the five years of taking power in Australia.

An alternative is a new party that had policies that relate directly to the voting block of female voters - the Women's Equality Party. The party has a platform and policies that are specific to women, and allow candidates to add local issues alongside the main policies.

If the Women's Equality Party were to launch in Australia, a first preference vote in 2016 and 2019 would show the BIG TWO that women are politically powerful and women must be in Parliament to work on the policies that affect them. No decision should be made about 51% of the population without 51% proportional representation of that population in Parliament.
A national political party advocating for women? It's time by Jane Gilmore at Women's Agenda

Think about social media and how connected women’s groups are, and how easy it would be to reach out to your base. Think about the Country Women’s Association and how terribly the regional areas are treated by Canberra.

Think about the (so far) 52 women killed this year, the pay gap getting worse, the gender disparity in our national leadership and how no one in our current parliament appears even slightly interested in genuine action on those things.

TWO first preference votes: Withdraw your Vote from the LNP and ALP in 2016 and 2019


Your first preference vote can be used effectively to support a new type of politics. Each first preference vote secures money for the party you vote for and each first preference vote is recorded and the totals broadcast to the nation.

Imagine the power of 51% of Australian voters taking that first preference vote away from the BIG TWO? Taking the money away from them and giving it to a new political party with policies specifically for that 51%? Imagine the surprise when the first preference numbers arrive on the TV screen and 51% of the vote is not going to the BIG TWO. I guarantee the BIG TWO will start consulting widely with women on policy.

If that 51% first preference vote was registered to a party called Women's Equality Party, you can be sure the BIG TWO will start ensuring they have equal representation of women in their party and candidates.

It really is that easy to register the power of a female voter. In 2016 and 2019 you can give your first preference vote to anyone outside the BIG TWO, and give your preferred BIG TWO the second preference and you will be taking political power back for yourself.

Don't ask for power, take power


As 51% of the population, women do not have to ask to be equally represented in Parliament; women can take 50% of the seats in Parliament and be equally represented. The time is now, with the BIG TWO lost in the desert with their politics and their leadership.

So let's get that 51% of Australia together, let's commit to five years of political involvement, and let's make the world easier for our children as they face their huge battle with the climate change legacy we will be leaving them.

OTHER THOUGHTS ON AUSTRALIAN POLITICS
Withdraw your Vote from the LNP and ALP in 2016 and 2019
I would like my daughters, nieces, goddaughters, granddaughters and all future women to take political power and shape it in their image, not ask for political participation and have to change it to fit them.

I think the voting women of Australia have a five year window to take political power and shape it in their image so the women growing up now have one less battle to fight in the future.

It's Time
Australia has three major political parties, each backed by their own training and voting block: the Australian Greens have the Environmental and Activist movements, Labor has the Unions and the Liberal Party has the business sector.

The largest population in Australia without a voice is women; our very urgent needs for parity, safety and leaders are being ignored and wound back, our leadership is locked out of power and as voters we are unable to direct our vote to a party that champions us.

Australian women do, however, have an established and proven mentorship and training ground for female candidates to gain political experience and female voters to gain access to candidates to influence policy; the Country Women's Association.
Not our circus, not our monkeys
So, women of Australia, take thee to the CWA, become involved with all manner of practical local politics, all manner of women as mentors and all manner of consulting to Government, and participate in politics on your terms.

Find your own policies, build your own campaign teams, field your own candidates and vote for the candidates who have the best vision for new politics you can find. You are the only people who can build the future, because the existing systems are dying, and trying to take us all down with them.

And for all of our sakes, be militantly inclusive; as 51% of the Australian population, the women of Australia include Indigenous Australians, refugees/immigrants, the LGBTIQ community and anyone who has additional access and medical requirements. Our new politics must include everyone excluded from the current systems so our votes and candidates count the first time, and into the future.

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