Show Notes
What would Parliament look like if it was remade by and for women? Australia's first female parliamentarian was told Parliament was "no place for a woman". Her name was Edith Cowan. She got elected and helped change the laws governing women’s lives. But within the chambers of Parliament itself, little has changed. Whether it's long stretches away from family, or the shouting matches of Question Time, Parliament still operates by rules designed around men’s lives. In this episode, we take on a political system that needs to change. What if two people could share one MP’s job? What if Parliament made room for caring responsibilities, shared power and a different way of doing politics? In this episode, you'll learn: Why getting more women elected is only part of the battle for better laws What trailblazing women who broke into politics and law can teach us about changing the rules How job-sharing MPs could open Parliament to more people and challenge the idea that power belongs to one person
Guest: Professor Kim Rubenstein, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Business Government and Law, University of Canberra; Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney; Honorary Professor, ANU. Hosts: Becky Batagol, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University Kate Seear, Professor, Deakin Law School, Deakin University
Take action today: The book is free! The provisions are drafted. Take them to your parliament. Adapt them for another jurisdiction. Or start your own feminist legislation project. Download the full book for free (open access): https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003372462/feminist-legislation-project-becky-batagol-heli-askola-jamie-walvisch-kate-seear
The Feminist Legislation Project: Rewriting Laws for Gender-Based Justice Edited By Becky Batagol, Kate Seear, Heli Askola, Jamie Walvisch Published by Routledge Copyright 2025
Mentioned in this Episode: Edith Cowan, Australia’s first female parliamentarian, the National Museum of Australia, (including some great classroom resources) Catherine Helen Spence by The History Trust of South Australia Joan Rosanove QC (1896-1974) in the Australian Dictionary of Biography Kim Rubenstein and Deborah Cass’ article, Representation/s of Women: Towards a Feminist Analysis of the Australian Constitutional System (1995) Kim Rubenstein, Returning to ‘Representation/s of Women’: Feminist analysis and job-sharing as core constitutional concerns (2021) Job-sharing politicians: How two women want to change the system in the Australian Women’s Weekly (2025) Two people want to share the job of MP for Higgins. Is it constitutional? By Anne Twomey, April 22 2024, The Conversation (Kim is preparing a response to this analysis in some forthcoming articles with an alternative view to Professor Twomey and the link will be provided when it is available). Marian Sawer uses the example of the passing of legislation about RU486 by a cross party group of female parliamentarians to discuss the representation of women in Westminster parliaments, What makes the substantive representation of women possible in a Westminster parliament? The story of RU486 in Australia (2012) The Gender Legislative Index created by Ramona Vijeyarasa is a tool to rank and score legislation against global standards for women’s rights. Australian Human Rights Commission Set the Standard: Report on the Independent Review into Workplaces (2021) Trailblazing Women in the Law Project by Kim Rubenstein explores the stories of Australian women who broke barriers in the legal profession. The National Library of Australia has some great classroom resources based on the project. Kim’s project Australian Women Lawyers as Active Citizens documents how women with law degrees have used the skills and experiences from their individual broader life experience, together with their law degree and various forms of practice, to have an impact on others in society as a form of active citizenship in
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When a relationship ends, coercive control doesn't end with it. Sometimes the perpetrator finds a new weapon. Often it's the legal system itself. They flood their ex-partner with paperwork, they book up every available lawyer in a rural town so there's no one left to represent the other side. They drag everything back to court. It's called systems abuse, and Australian courts don't currently recognise it as a form of family violence. So how do we name something that hides behind legitimate legal processes? A recent law graduate rewrote the law to recognise systems abuse as family violence in its own right, with penalties attached. In this episode, you'll learn: What "systems abuse" is, and how perpetrators weaponise legal process to keep controlling ex-partners after separation How someone can draft some of the most striking feminist legislation in this series, despite not identifying as a "feminist" What changes when we teach law students to draft legislation, not just study it Guests: Clarrissa Carson, Law Graduate at AjG Family Law Host: Becky Batagol, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University
One in ten Australians work in construction. But it has the worst gender equity in the country. Only 13% of construction workers are women. Just 2.5% of tradespeople are women. Two-thirds of construction firms have zero women on their boards. The toxic culture that follows produces some of the worst rates of mental ill-health and suicide in any sector. On most building sites, there isn't a single bathroom for a woman to use. So how do you change an industry that hasn't moved in thirty years? In this episode, you'll learn: Why hiring on "merit" in construction means hiring mates, and what happens when the mates are all blokes How the industry loses $8.3 billion every year by keeping women out What construction culture actually looks like for women (and why "you must be the stripper" is the opening line of this episode) Guests: Professor Paula Gerber, Faculty of Law, Monash University Rebecca Dickson, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law, Monash University Dr Valerie Francis, Founder, Constructing Equity Hosts: Becky Batagol, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University Kate Seear, Professor, Deakin Law School, Deakin University Mentioned in this Episode: Read Rebecca Dickson and Paula Gerber’s proposal for ambitious quotas for female participation in the construction industry that all contractors seeking to work on government projects must meet, along with a strict compliance regime to ensure that the goal is achieved Read Valerie Francis’ commentary responding to Bec and Paula’s proposal Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) Gender Equality Scorecard 2024-25 (27 November 2025) which shows that just over half of companies in the construction industry have no women on boards (see page 34). mentioned by Bec. Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), Tackling the ‘pipeline problem’ in construction requires more than employer action (30 May 2024) discusses the kind of cultural change needed to achieve gender equality in the construction industry The National Association of Women in Construction which Paula helped to establish Building Pride, support and advocacy for LGBT+ identifying members of the construction and property industry mentioned by Paula Here’s a UK perspective on the ‘leaky pipeline’ for women architects, Women in architecture: the damaging workplace culture pushing talented professionals out by Lynne Mesher in The Conversation (2 October 2026) This piece that explains how Australia’s “macho” construction workplace cultures lead to poor mental health for the tradies who work in it: Risky business: how our ‘macho’ construction culture is killing tradies by Donna Moore in The Conversation (24 October 2019) The Electrical Trades Union report Nowhere to Go (2021), mentioned by Bec, which details unsanitary, unsafe, inaccessible and unsuitable toilet facilities for many construction workers and how this issue disproportionately impacts women One of the existing pieces of legislation Bec and Paula drew from for their Bill is the Local Jobs First Act 2003 (Vic) which requires the presence of locally-based apprentices and trainees and local supplies and labor in construction projects in the Australian State of Victoria. The other legislation that inspired Bec and Paula was the Gender Equality Act 2020 (Vic) which requires the Victorian public sector, local councils and universities to take action towards achieving workplace gender equality and consider and promote gender equality in their policies, programs and services. Norwegian rules for gender balance on boards mentioned by Paula took effect in 2025, which set a maximum number of board members of the same gender The Victorian government’s Building Equality Policy was discussed by Paula as an example of a program that uses procurement procedures to aim to create training and employment opportunities for women through government procurement on building, infrastructure, civil engineering and any other capital works projects Bec mentioned that the Property Council of
Australia's Constitution has no right to equality. It has no bill of rights. And our last attempt at constitutional change (the 2023 Voice referendum) failed. So we set our sights on 2048. We've re-written the Constitution for a Women's Constitutional Convention 20+ years from now.
Despite decades of law reform, there are still countless laws that discriminate against women, non-binary, trans, and gender diverse people. So we decided to rewrite the law. We got together with 45 of Australia's leading legal minds: academics, lawyers, judges and activists. We set them to work for 7 years. The result? 16 redrafted Australian laws, fully rewritten with the help of a parliamentary draftsperson, and ready to be introduced to any parliament that wants them. We've created something that can make people's lives better, in Australia and around the world. And the best part? All these laws are rolled up into one easy-to-use guide - and it's completely free to download. (See below) In this opening episode, you'll meet the team behind this project: Becky, Kate, Jamie and Heli. You'll learn: The 16 areas of Australian law we have rewritten, across criminal, civil and constitutional law. How to use the book if you're an MP, policymaker, law reformer, academic or activist anywhere in the world. How a feminist legislation project differs from a feminist judgments project, and why that distinction matters. Our hope is that lawmakers, academics and activists in Australia and around the world stop critiquing the law and start writing it better. Take action today: The book is free! The provisions are drafted. Take them to your parliament. Adapt them for another jurisdiction. Or start your own feminist legislation project. Download the full book for free (open access): https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003372462/feminist-legislation-project-becky-batagol-heli-askola-jamie-walvisch-kate-seear Guests: Associate Professor Becky Batagol, Faculty of Law, Monash University Professor Kate Seear, Deakin Law School, Deakin University Associate Professor Heli Askola, Faculty of Law, Monash University Dr Jamie Walvisch, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Western Australia