Australia has a long history of women being blamed for men’s mistakes. It’s known as the “glass cliff”, whereby women and people of colour are appointed to positions only after an organisation starts performing badly and are then blamed for its past performance.
It seems if there’s unavoidable disaster, the blokes step back and a woman takes the fall.
Newly appointed National Disability Insurance Scheme Minister Linda Reynolds is likely to face that glass cliff having inherited Stuart Robert’s problematic draft legislation, which is sending the disability community into an uproar.
Reynolds’ suitability to hold any portfolio, let alone one dealing with people’s welfare and well-being, should be questioned after her poor handling of former staffer Brittany Higgins’ allegations of rape. Reynolds called Higgins a “lying cow” — she later apologised. Higgins announced yesterday she is writing a memoir.
‘Pure power grab’
The NDIS has been a problematic portfolio for some time. Designed under Labor but implemented under the Coalition, the scheme is designed to give people with disabilities more choice and control over funding to live their lives.
Days after the March cabinet reshuffle, a proposal for changes to the scheme — which look as if they will do the opposite of what it is designed to do — was leaked. The proposal is horrendous. State and territory disability ministers were not given copies of it and have raised concerns it represents a “pure power grab”.
Key clauses underpinning the scheme have been removed in the proposal. The federal minister will be able to make “rules” without majority agreement from states and territories, and disability ministers will no longer have veto power.
Year after year under the Coalition there have been billions of dollars of underspend on the scheme — $4.6 billion in 2018-19 and $1.6 billion in 2019-20. A new form of assessing people with disabilities’ needs is set to be introduced that advocates say will cut peoples’ funding and lead to more underspend.
Participants will be surveilled in real time and — similar to robodebt — the NDIS will be able to collect debts if it believes funding has been spent on ordinary living expenses instead of disability-specific expenses.
The proposal has been met with outrage from state and territory ministers and the disability community, who are demanding answers but are met with silence as Reynolds remains on leave.
A history of scapegoating women
In 1990 Victoria’s first female premier Joan Kirner inherited debt problems from John Cain, and came to her premiership while support for Labor was falling. The career of Western Australia’s first female premier, Carmen Lawrence, faltered over the 1992 Penny Easton affair. The first NSW leader of the opposition Kerry Chikarovski lost her role due to a coup by her party in 2002 after a long campaign of sexism and harassment.
Former NSW premier Kristina Keneally came to power with corrupt ministers Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi in her ministry. Julia Gillard came to power when the Rudd government hit a crisis point in the polls. Current Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk took over Labor amid an electoral disaster.
It’s textbook, according to research that analysed CEO transitions in Fortune 500 companies across 15 years and found white women and people of colour are more likely than white men to be promoted to CEO of weakly performing firms. White men are then likely to replace these appointees — dubbed the “saviour effect”.
Many female political leaders did wonderful things in their roles. But how likely is it they would have been able to take up their high-profile positions had their organisations not been in crisis — and who will Morrison appoint to swoop in and “save” Reynolds’ ailing portfolio?
Do you feel sorry for Linda Reynolds? Write to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say section.
Would this be why Scummo was so vituperative towards Holgate – she was appointed CEO of a company that was meant to fail, and was turning it around, so other excuses had to be found to throw her under the bus!
Tis.
And he considered the ‘scandal’ politically advantageous at the time.
The usual.
YEP!!!
You left out the examples of Peter Beattie and Anna Bligh, and Mike Baird and Gladys Berejiklian, and David Morgan and Gail Kelly, and Peter Costello and Kelly O’Dwyer. If we consider those cases, it is difficult not to notice that self aggrandisement and contempt for ordinary people is gender blind.
Carmen Lawrence in WA, Joan Kirner in Victoria, there are a host of examples and some of them pulled off surprising wins, making it hard to toss them out for some male saviour.
Don’t forget Annastacia Palaszczuk. AFAIR just after she achieved an astounding win over the huge first-term majority held by the LNP under Campbell Newman in Queensland in 2015, some of Palaszczuk’s male Labor colleagues became very huffy about her off-script frolic of going into government when she had been made party leader just to mind the shop while Labor was in opposition. They thought she should ASAP do the decent thing and make way for one of boys.
Anna Bligh handed a disaster to Palchuck. Enough of the weekly men bashing. Roberts is a dill for sure but Reynolds could resist these cuts seeing she’s the minister. She now has the opportunity to do good. Everyone would get behind her. It’s a win in the media all day long
It’s convenient that Scotty’s buddy Stuart will get to dodge yet another portfolio disaster. Gotta love watching him fail up.
No. If Linda Reynolds had any decency she’d resign. Anyone still a minister in this corrupt farrago of a cabinet should hang their head in shame. The Morrison Government attacks anyone less fortunate – from refugees to Pacific Islanders to the disabled. To be a minister in such circumstances is to sign on to these policies. Reynolds might not have invented the debuting of the NDIS, but it doesn’t mean she needs to stay and implement them.
If Linda Reynolds had any decency she would not be a member of this corrupted government. but she doesn`t and she is.