24 Sep 2009

PNG's only female parliamentarian fights for more women MPs

9:39 am on 24 September 2009

Papua New Guinea's only woman MP, Dame Carol Kidu, is continuing her campaign to get more women into the country's Parliament.

Legislation to have three nominated women take seats in the current parliament will be tabled in the November sitting.

There's also a proposal to have 22 reserved seats for women ready for the next scheduled general election in 2012.

Dame Carol says she's hopeful her campaign will suceed.

"I'm not overly optimistic, but there's certainly a group on the government side who're very supportive. Opposition, they've indicated that now that I've made major progress on the reserved seats for 2012, they've indicated yes they will; but then they couched it in very evasive language, so I couldn't feel that's a full commitment."

Dame Carol Kidu says it's important to have more women representation in PNG.