Miss(ed) Representation? Gender, Policy Content, and Legislative Success in Australian Private Members' Bills

This paper examines the substantive representation of women in Australian legislative institutions by analysing private members' bills introduced at the state and federal levels from 1997 to 2022. While Australia has made considerable progress in gender equality, persistent sexism and misogyny challenge the substantive impact of increasing numbers of women in parliament. By focusing on private members' bills, which operate outside party discipline, the study investigates how female legislators use this tool to address gendered issues. Using binomial logistic regression, the findings show that female legislators are more likely to propose bills on “feminised” topics, particularly at the state level, revealing the complex dynamics of women's political representation. This paper contributes to the broader literature on gender and politics, drawing off feminist institutionalist literature and representation theories to identify gendered patterns in policymaking. We emphasise the need to move beyond descriptive representation to understand the political environment and enabling factors that shape the substantive policy impact of female legislators.