STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle—Deputy Speaker) (13:31): This year marks the 30th anniversary of EMILY's List Australia, an extraordinary organisation that was founded on a simple but powerful belief: equality does not happen by accident. Today we celebrate three decades of raising money, mentoring and supporting progressive Labor women to get elected. When EMILY's LIST was first established in 1996, just 160 of the 800 elected representatives in Australia across all our parliaments were women.

That was never going to be good enough for us. But, since its inception, EMILY's List has supported 651 Labor women, with 315 going on to serve in Australian parliaments. Behind those numbers are extraordinary women like Australia's first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, our first Aboriginal woman elected to the house, Linda Burney and the longest-serving woman in the Australian parliament, Tanya Plibersek.

Today I particularly want to acknowledge the EMILY's List Australia founder Leonie Morgan. She joins us in the chamber today. It's important to always remember those women that came before us, and for decades she and women alongside her have driven EMILY's list.

Today she and Anne Kennedy of Queensland continue to mentor and support women going forward. Thirty years on, we can proud of where we've come from, not just in representation but in women's influence in government. Women now make up a majority of the Labor caucus and the cabinet, and we put a gendered lens over every piece of legislation in this parliament.