Women were everywhere and nowhere in the 2022 federal election.  The message from the election was that the things that really matter to women and their communities matter at the ballot box, too. Even if they were not part of the conversations the major parties were having.

Associate Professor Camilla Nelson from the University of Notre Dame in Western Australia examines the ALP’s election promises and cautions what we should be watching and advocating for. She cautions that an effective gender agenda needs to take account of the diversity of women’s interests. Women are not a single voting block or socially homogeneous group so policy analysts must recognise that diversity is not a politically marginal issue but simply a description of mainstream Australian society.