Battle for more women in Vic parliament

Victoria's 2018 state election will become a chance for both major parties to increase the number of women in their ranks.

With Victoria's November 2018 election on the horizon, the major parties are battling not just to win, but to get more women on their benches.

Both parties say they are picking more women for more seats - Labor has an official quota target, while in 2016 Liberal leader Matthew Guy declared he wanted to see a 10 per cent increase at this year's poll.

"I'm really confident we'll see our affirmative action targets met at the next election," Minister for Women Natalie Hutchins told reporters on International Women's Day.

"We're currently sitting at about the 45 per cent mark of women on the Labor side and I'm very confident we'll get to the 50 per cent mark after the next election."

When asked if Victoria will likely have a woman premier soon, Ms Hutchins said she did look to Queensland, with its female premier and treasurer, "with a lot of admiration".

"I think it is doing wonders for women in that state and I think we're doing pretty well down here without representation around the cabinet table," she said.

In the Liberals, 11 women have been preselected, including in marginal seats the party has a chance of claiming.

"We've got targets, we can assess how we've gone after the next election," Mr Guy told reporters.

"A lot of our candidates are women in marginal seats, in some of the most winnable seats they are women, in some where we are tracking quite well, they are women, and I'm really proud that we've preselected more in marginal seats than we've ever done."

The Liberals currently have 12 women across both the lower and upper houses out of 44 elected members, compared to 26 out of the 59 MPs in the government's ranks.


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Source: AAP



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