To say that Lucy Bradlow and Bronwen Bock are making waves in the Australian political landscape is quite the understatement. These two powerhouses want to change the way things are done in Australia – challenging the status quo to allow Parliament to better represent the Australia we live in, and allow more women to take up space in the corridors of power.
ICYMI: Bradlow and Bock are Victoria’s independent job-sharing candidates looking to secure a Victorian senate position. Bronwen is a finance professional and gender equality consultant who worked in investment banking, mergers and acquisitions and venture capital. “Like many parents with young families, I am not currently in a position to work full-time, 70 hours a week and 22 weeks a year in Canberra,” she says. “Despite this I have always been drawn to service, for example joining my kinder and school councils in recent years, to having an impact in my community and to making people’s lives better.”
Lucy – a lawyer and former advisor at the Workplace Gender Equality Agency – has different reasons for job-sharing to Bronwen. “Having worked in Federal Parliament, I know that it’s not a working environment that brings out the best in me. Politics can be aggressive, individualistic and unfriendly,” she says. “But I also know that being a politician can be a way to drive real and lasting change for people. Working with Bronwen, I want to show that we can serve Victorians while working together in a supportive and collegiate way.”
The pair had launched their original campaign, and sparked big conversations, back in April this year – when they were originally running as the candidate for Higgins. Yet the Australian Electoral Commission had different ideas, recently announcing that as part of the proposed redistribution for Victoria, it was abolishing the seat of Higgins in the upcoming general election. “It was really disappointing – we had put in so much effort, and we had seen such amazing support,” reflects Lucy, as she speaks to Missing Perspectives. “So many people had been energised by the idea, and the rug was taken out from under us. There’s also an important constituency that was women, which wasn’t taken into account by the Australian Electoral Commission.”
Despite the above, backers of the pair encouraged them to not give up. “There’s a lot of people around us who said you shouldn’t give up. Because of the broader conversation [the campaign] is sparking about the way we work, and something that we’re into the way we work and the structures that have been created around the way we work – and build new structures that actually suit modern Australians” Lucy says. Determined to continue their campaign and work to restructure the way politics is done, they pivoted and set their sights on the senate, and launched their new party, Better Together.
Bronwen notes that they have held a number of kitchen table conversations, and town-hall style events. “We have lengthy question-times,” she says, “and people asking questions on job-sharing. They do have questions on job-sharing – whether it’s legal, has it been done. We answer them in a very straight forward way.” To address these concerns, the pair published a Frequently Asked Questions page on their campaign website.
Aside from sparking a conversation around job-sharing in Parliament, Bradlow and Bock have developed a policy platform based on action on climate change, sustainable action to ease the cost of living, integrity in government, and advocating for gender equality and women’s safety. The pair say that they are standing for policies that “put victims first, proper funding to combat domestic abuse and violence against women, and adequate funding for first responders.”
The catch with launching a new party? They require 1,500 members to register. So if you’re interested, here’s a link.