Women in Our Parliaments: Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Niue, PNG, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu

Hon. Tina Pupuke-Browne, Cook Islands. pn450

Having read that there are no women in the PNG Parliament, and that they are thinking of reserving seats for women to remedy this situation, I thought I'd see how many women there were in other Pacific parliaments.  

Taking it alphabetically, the first to search was Australia. And that's where, as I should have known, I had my first problem. I'd always thought NZ was the first country in the world to give women the vote. I was wrong. It was Australia.Well, sort of. 

They said they were the first country to give some women  the vote and be able to stand for Parliament in 1902.  Whereas their small cousin across the Tasman only gave the vote to all women in 1893 , but not the right to stand as candiates until 1919. 

Therafter, though,  NZ led the way with the first woman MP in 1921 (Australia 1943), first cabinet minister 1944 (Australia 1945), first Prime Minister 1997 and two more later (Australia 2007, just the one). Aboriginee men and women were first given the vote in 2019!  Individual Australian states did better than the Federal level, but generally they also lagged NZ. Thank goodness! Pride is restored.


Here's the present situation for Australia, NZ and the "near" Pacific: