New Victorian premier Daniel Andrews announced his plan to appoint more women into Victorian courts in a speech opening the state ALP conference.
New Victorian premier Daniel Andrews announced his plan to appoint more women into Victorian courts in a speech opening the state ALP conference in Melbourne at the weekend.
The announcement comes just weeks after the 2015 Boardroom Diversity Index released a report saying that left leaning governments are better than conservative governments for women, indicating that governments should lead the way on balanced board appointments.
Premier Andrews said that despite the government’s goal for its appointments that was introduced six years ago, the number of women on government boards in Victoria has actually decreased.
“Female representation on major government boards in Victoria has fallen from 40 per cent to a little over 35 per cent in four years,” he said.
He said it’s important for public institutions to represent the public, and for Victorian courts to have a balance of skills, views and knowledge.
“No less than 50 per cent of all future appointments to all paid government boards, and all Victorian courts, will be women,” said Andrews. “Of all the appointments my government makes between now and November 2018, at least one half of them will be women, and I’ll be held accountable for it.”
Andrews said that committing to make half of all appointments female will lead the way for corporates.
“We talk about the lack of women on corporate boards – well this is the first step to fixing it,” he said. “It means reaching deeper into a growing pool of talent – training more people, from different backgrounds, to become economic leaders of our state.”
