Inverell Shire’s two female councillors, Di Baker and Jackie Watts, will be attending the Australian Local Government Women’s Association (NSW Branch) Annual Conference at the Dubbo Regional Theatre and Convention Centre in late March.
Speaking to the Times about the conference yesterday, Cr Baker said she would like to see more women on council, especially next year when the number of councillors is set to be reduced from 12 to nine.
“I think we need a balance of councillors.
“At the moment there are two women and 10 men, not to say that doesn’t give a good debate, it certainly does, but a more representative balance of our population is obviously better,” Cr Baker said.
She said the women’s conference, which should be attended by about 200 people, is quite uniqe and different to the Shires’ Conference where the pro-forma agenda is very quickly taken care of and little debate happens.
“At the Australian Local Government Women’s Conference however, there is a lot of debate on current issues,” Cr Baker said. “There are a lot of female politicians who attend, so you have ready access direct to politicians and it’s a very well supported group of people who discuss the big picture, as well as the more personal issues of a woman being on council and in government.
“It’s a very well rounded conference.”
Cr Watts indicated she was looking forward to the conference for the same reasons.
“It’s an opportunity for me to network with other women who are councillors and also some of the staff who are around, I’ve a connection with someone out at the Blacktown council and we seem to manage to catch up each time,” Cr Watts said. “It helps me to learn more about local government and the part that women play in local government. Increasing your knowledge is always helpful.
“I think that it’s important that we have more women on council, I think it’s helpful to have a balance, and I don’t see that in the sense of men against women, I just think that we each bring a different outlook on life and things and I just think it’s good to have that mix,” Cr Watts said.
Cr Baker said some councils might have one or two more women than men, but they are mainly in the metropolitan areas.
“In the rural areas it’s more difficult I think to have women take the role of councillors because of family obligations and different lifestyles that rural people have to metropolitan people, with less free time,” Cr Baker said.
“And of course women devote their time to their families first and that’s just natural and normal.
“They prefer (like myself) to wait until they’re older and their children have left home before they give their time elsewhere,” she said.
Cr Watts said both her and Cr Baker would be happy to talk to any women interested any standing for council.
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