Julia Gillard says 'best team' is half women, half men

The Welsh-born former prime minister of Australia has urged Welsh politics to strive for gender equality to make sure it fields its "best team".

Julia Gillard was visiting the assembly in Cardiff Bay as part of a campaign to get more women into public life.

Currently 25 of the 60 AMs are women, but in 2006 there were 31.

Ms Gillard said she hoped to see a day when the gender balance in parliaments around the world improved to a point where it was no longer commented on.

Her visit to the Senedd on Thursday came as political parties began the process of choosing candidates for the 2016 assembly election.

Ms Gillard, who was four years old when her family emigrated from Barry in the 1960s, said she believed merit was equally distributed between the sexes.

"If you're looking at any institution - whether it's the Welsh assembly or any other - and you aren't basically seeing half men and half women, then that means you haven't got your best team.

"Because your best team would be the best people of merit, equally men and women.

"So I hope that in this assembly and in parliaments around the world we can see increasing numbers of women until it's just so routine that it's half and half, no-one even bothers to remark on it anymore."