Have a Seat: Adelaide

Being a backbencher immediately behind the lectern is not dissimilar to being in the front row at the Oscars. You must always appear to be paying attention to the person speaking, rather than catching up with reading, correspondence or heckling, as most backbenchers do. This is because you are practically always on camera. And while the front row at the Academy Awards is usually filled with the best known and regarded people in the industry, the lectern-adjacent backbench position seems to be reserved for those most in need of public attention.

There are four ALP members in direct camera view during Parliamentary Question Time, and all are in very marginal seats. All the candidates defeated sitting Coalition members in 2004, despite the Mark Latham factor, and all hold their seats with less than 1.5%. Julie Owens defeated the disgraced Ross Cameron in the seat of Parramatta, but a redistribution has made the seat notionally Liberal, with Owens needing a swing of 1.1% to retain it. Steve Georganas won on preferences in the Adelaide seat of Hindmarsh by only 108 votes, while Richmond’s Justine Elliot beat Doug Anthony in the NSW North Coast seat by a margin of 1.5%.

Pride of place in the lectern-adjacent backbench is given to Kate Ellis, from the 1.3% marginal seat of Adelaide. Ellis is the youngest member of the House of Representatives, and according to a report by Andrew Leigh and Amy King, is the best looking ALP member in the caucus.

And while the current polls are indicating that none of the lecture-adjacent backbenchers on the ALP side have anything to worry about, it certainly doesn’t hurt to imply on the television news that three-quarters of Labor backbenchers are women. In truth, the figure is only 36.6%.

The marginal seat tactic isn’t used on the Coalition side, and for good reason. There are no marginal seats on the Coalition side that are currently held by women, save for two from retiring MPs Trish Draper and Jackie Kelly. Instead, the seats are three-quarters filled by women candidates. After the promotion of Christopher Pyne several months ago, the positions have been filled by Sussan Ley, from the ultra-safe seat of Farrer, Louise Markus, whose seat’s recent redistribution gave her an extra 10.4% buffer, Teresa Gamboro, from the safe-ish North Brisbane seat of Petrie, and the sole male in the pack, Kym Richardson, from the ultra-marginal seat of Kingston.

Ultimately, it seems that the Coalition value the appearance of gender balance more than they do promoting their marginal members. Women in the Coalition in the House of Representatives make up only 19.5% of the total, not a good statistic for the party that got in last time round because of the female vote. But Kevin Rudd has greater appeal to women than Mark Latham, and it is reflecting in the polls. Women making up three-quarters of the Coalition’s lectern-adjacent backbench is a wise statistic, but it doesn’t help that those three backbenchers outnumber the women in cabinet.