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Female councillors who don’t plan to stand for re-election next year are more than twice as likely as men to drop out due to bullying and hostility, a study has found.
The warning about a lack of civility towards women, particularly abuse from the public, puts the Victorian state government’s goal of gender parity on councils at risk when voters go to the polls in October next year.
Surf Coast Shire’s Heather Wellington described being on local council as an “unsafe workplace” and is seriously tossing up whether to run again at the next election.
Surf Coast Shire’s Heather Wellington wants to see greater ‘workplace’ protections for local councillors.Credit: Jason South
During her time as a councillor, Wellington has had bruising run-ins with fellow councillors and a community member which resulted in an expensive defamation suit.
A La Trobe University study published last month has found that bullying and hostility are far greater factors for why female councillors drop out from local government compared to men.
Wellington said she received no support from the council when she was being defamed on Facebook by a resident, something she believes stems from councillors not being granted the same workplace protections as staff under occupational health and safety laws.
“It was very traumatic. I was faced with a really unsafe workplace and nobody [else at or on council] was willing to intervene,” she said.
“I have extremely high resilience, and I think anybody of lower resilience simply could not cope with it.”
Victoria leads the country on gender parity in local government, with 43.8 per cent of women councillors after the 2020 election, compared to 27 per cent in 2000. The Andrews government is aiming for 50 per cent after the election next October.
The La Trobe University study of 200 councillors from across all 79 Victorian councils, titled From online trolls to ‘Slut Shaming’: understanding the role of incivility and gender abuse in local government, examined councillors who said they did not want run again and the reasons for it.
Sixteen per cent of councillors declared after their first year in office they would not run again – equally split between genders.
But the study found a considerably higher number of women (56 per cent) than men (27 per cent) not intending to run in future elections reported experiences of hostility and bullying as one of their top three reasons for not contesting.
“There’s not enough measures to mitigate it,” said Professor Andrea Carson, one of the authors of the study.
“The abuse is largely coming from the public, followed by fellow councillors. There are some redress measures with local councillors, but even that seems to be fairly weak and there’s really no recourse when it’s coming from the general public.”
She said a number of female councillors interviewed for the study had reported concerning behaviour to the police who were “quite dismissive of it”.
“In one example, one of the women interviewed had experienced someone cutting out magazine letters, and wrote a crude note and put it in her letterbox. And that showed that it’s not just online, it’s also offline and also the person who did that knows where the councillor lives.”
Carson said her study showed that online both men and women councillors experienced incivility, but “women particularly have a gender element to it”.
“The abuse speaks to their gender that men don’t get, or when they do it’s very rare compared to women,” she said.
“Not only that, for women, it’s so intolerable that they listed it in their top three reasons for why they wouldn’t contest again, especially younger women and women of colour.”
Earlier this year the Victorian government launched a mentor program to train 125 women to be candidates in time for the next election, but some – including Shepparton councillor Seema Abdullah – fear it won’t be enough to reach the 50 per cent mark.
Abdullah, who was Shepparton’s first multicultural councillor, is part of an initiative to “tap” 1000 women on the shoulders to stand for elections.
“I’m a strong advocate for women to put their hand up for council and I wouldn’t say that if I was not convinced that it is a place where women should and can have a place,” she said.
But even so Abdullah says she’s faced nastiness on the campaign trail and in the council chamber with suggestions she was “an outsider” even after she had lived and contributed to the community for over a decade. She’s undecided if she’ll run again.
“But if we have more women, more women from diverse backgrounds in this space, then it can also help change the culture,” she said.
Wellington believes her negative experiences from within council were less about her gender, and more a reflection that she was outside of the politically dominant block on council and questioned the status quo.
She said she was “hugely sceptical” of any further tightening of councillor conduct to improve culture – such as that proposed by peak body LG Pro earlier this year calling for suspensions of up to three years for bad behaviour they said was leading to a high turnover of staff and CEOs.
Shepparton councillor Seema Abdullah, is working hard to get 1000 women to run in council elections next year.Credit: Joe Armao
“I feel that is driven by self-interest by administrators,” said Wellington.
Former Horsham councillor Di Bell, who resigned last year also over feeling “unsafe” on council, agreed.
“What I hate is that it’s always the councillors’ fault,” she said. “The staff absolutely hate councillors having any control.”
Regardless, Wellington she says she would still cautiously encourage women to step up to the plate.
“I would say it’s probably the hardest role you’ll ever take on, but there’s the potential for great satisfaction,” she said.
“I am able to make a difference for my community, I do feel that.”
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