Our new Foreign Minister has embraced ‘cultural diversity’ as a key tenet to guide Australian foreign policy. That sounds fine but is Bob Carr actually aware of the severe under-representation of ethnic groups, Indigenous people, and women in our legislatures, corporate boards, the judiciary, the police top and other key decision-making bodies in Australia?
As far as legislatures and government is concerned the domination of the system by two major parties is directly attributable to the electoral system based on the single-member district. As a result, except in some typically migrant electorates, Anglo-Celtic MPs and candidates are the rule, especially in safe seats. The remedy here, as for many other ills of the political system, is the introduction of proportional representation – party list system. Was this an integral part of Carr’s party reform agenda?
Klaas Woldring
