hi whistler.

>>hi Pericles, the CWA is gender apartheid?<<

The CWA is a legislature?

"Break out the pumpkin scones, Mildred. We're goin' to Can-berra"

Pericles:""Break out the pumpkin scones, Mildred. We're goin' to Can-berra""

I think the Joh and Flo show tried that. Flo made it...

Bloody gender apartheid.

hi Pericles, where do you draw the line? The CWA is one of the few quasi women's caucuses in Australia in a world where a majority of modern democracies convene a formal women's caucus to advise parliaments, a preparatory step to a legislature but not a compulsory step where informal caucusing and parliamentary skills are strong. There has been no outcry, not even a mention in mainstream or alternative media, that these women's caucuses constitute gender apartheid yet you insinuate women's legislatures, and by association women's caucuses and quasi caucuses do constitute gender apartheid. If three women or more caucus informally at a supermarket checkout is that gender apartheid? Of course almost everybody else in the world would consider gender apartheid is when men have legislatures and women don't, that the world has been governed by gender apartheid for centuries now in the final stages of collapse. Governance in England until the mid nineteenth century when the only rights the law extended to women other than women of the aristocracy were derived from their status, like horses, cattle and sheep, as the property of men, was most certainly gender apartheid. Which doesn't mean you have every right to your opinion however perverse it may appear. There's certainly a remnant rump of men so desperate to cling to male privilege in the face of a tsunami of equal rights as to resort to the most inflammatory of language regardless of how meaningless it may be in context, to prosecute their cause.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that I am against equality, whistler. I have spent most of my time on this thread supporting it, in the teeth of your insistence that genders should be treated separately.

>>There has been no outcry, not even a mention in mainstream or alternative media, that these women's caucuses constitute gender apartheid yet you insinuate women's legislatures, and by association women's caucuses and quasi caucuses do constitute gender apartheid.<<

No such inference should be drawn.

Caucuses and legislatures have entirely different functions and responsibilities. I strongly support the idea of a women's caucus, but oppose the idea of introducing gender apartheid into the legislature.

My position is straightforward, and quite simple: we have enjoyed equality in our parliamentary system for over a hundred years, and I see no reason why we should begin, now, to introduce separate legislatures.

Such action would be both retrograde and needlessly disruptive.

>>almost everybody else in the world would consider gender apartheid is when men have legislatures and women don't<<

And I would absolutely agree with that. Fortunately, here in Australia we are not in that situation.

Let me see if I can summarize the position as I see it.

Men and women are treated equally in the eyes of the law.

There are no laws that describe, or allow for, women being the property of men.

Men and women are equally entitled to vote, and to assume public office.

Our Constitution, from the moment of its inception, recognized this, and ensured that the rights already earned by women in SA, NT and WA were enshrined in the finished product.

Immediately after the Commonwealth was formed, the franchise was extended, explicitly, in one of the first pieces of full legislation passed by the new parliament.

There is nothing in the present system that is specifically burdensome on women.

There is no problem that needs to be solved.

Have I missed anything?

hi Pericles, i'm encouraged you mention states which enfranchised women at Federation but what happens when states disenfranchise women? The rule of law is built on what's possible not what might be. If it can happen it's of concern. Who's to say sufficient men won't support women by demonstrating exactly what the rule of law says about equal rights. The remedy is a women's legislature.

But there's more to it than that, whistler.

>>hi Pericles, i'm encouraged you mention states which enfranchised women at Federation<<

SA, NT and WA had already given women the vote, prior to Federation.

The Constitution was framed so that these rights were preserved. If the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 were to be rescinded for any reason, then the women of SA, NT and WA would still retain these rights.

So your argument that a referendum is only required to withdraw men's rights does not stand up. One would also be needed to take them from the women of SA, NT and WA.

Such pointless shenanigans would be beyond the scope of what one might consider even the remotest possibility, surely? Why would any politician even bother to suggest it. I cannot think of one single argument that could be offered in favour of such action.

>>The rule of law is built on what's possible not what might be. If it can happen it's of concern.<<

If you are basing your argument for separate legislatures on something that theoretically "can" happen, as opposed to something that theoretically "might" happen, I believe you are on pretty thin ice.