The Liberal Party is entering another round of what amounts to political kabuki over calls for gendered quotas within its ranks in the wake of the federal election. The party will have its lowest representation of females in the House of Representatives since 1993.
Liberal backbencher and former minister Senator Linda Reynolds today kicked off the debate. “In light of the outcome of the last election, I’m now also open to the concept of temporary quotas,” she said this morning.
The quotas debate is fast becoming a Liberal Party reflex. Whether the party is affronted by a ministerial group photo dominated by male faces or finds itself plagued by damning revelations of bullying, the quotas question appears to be its default response.
Here is a short recap:
- In 2013, then prime minister Tony Abbott’s single-woman cabinet put quotas centre stage. Nothing changed.
- In 2015, female Liberal politicians were emboldened by Labor upping the ante on its own gender quotas. Nothing changed.
- In 2017, there were calls to implement quotas following a Senate inquiry pushing for private organisations to improve gender balance. Then former PM Abbott shut down calls for the Liberals to do the same, saying while women needed a “fair go”, quotas seemed “anti-men”.
- In 2018, when former MP Julia Banks quit the Liberal Party to serve as an independent on the crossbench, quotas were again on the agenda. In response to these calls, and after assistant minister Jane Prentice was dumped for a young male candidate in the safe Brisbane seat of Ryan, then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull denied the party was sexist and warned a quota system can’t work “in a grassroots political system”.
- In 2019, allegations of rape and revelations of sexual harassment and misconduct towards women in Parliament House prompted senior female Liberal politicians to come forward in favour of quotas. In response, then prime minister Scott Morrison famously said on International Women’s Day, “We want to see women rise, but we don’t want to see women rise only on the basis of others doing worse.”
Will this time be any different?
Deputy Liberal Leader Sussan Ley is on a listening tour of branches. She told The Australian she would advocate “for initiatives that would increase the number of Liberal women in Parliament”, stopping short of backing quotes. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has not addressed this issue this morning. In June after he was appointed leader, Dutton said he was “proud” that the women on his frontbench were promoted based on talent and ruled out that quotas would be used.
But changes are afoot. In line with sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins’ recommendations, Parliament is expected to introduce diversity targets and release public reporting on its characteristics, including staffers.
The Coalition is holding gender parity back: the Liberals have gone backwards in gender representation. There are more men named Andrew than female Liberals in the Senate. The party has just seven women in the House of Representatives, down from 13. During a press conference in May, Ley told the public not to worry about the lack of diversity, as Liberal men can also speak for women.
Despite Australia’s 47th Parliament coming in with a historically high representation of women, 33% still falls short of equal representation. Women make up 43% both of ministers and cabinet in the Labor Party, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the party is working towards 50-50 representation.
In short, Australia would be far closer to a gender-equal Parliament if the Liberals and Nationals weren’t holding it back. Is its election failings the prompt for quotas or just another round of kabuki?
Surely even a cursory inspection of the women who not only contested one-time Liberal blue-riband seats, but took them in a canter against the (presumably) best male candidates that the Liberal Party could offer should be cause enough to look at just who and how the Liberal Party is selecting candidates. Some of the successful women were blue-blood Liberal royalty (Spender, anyone?) who had just had an absolute gutful of the “Liberal” Party’s lurch to the right. These were the very women that the Liberal Party should have been selecting (as they have convincingly shown). The fact that they were so overwhelmingly successful in attracting ex-Liberal votes should be screaming out to the “leadership” that they simply no longer represent Liberal values, but rather some mythical Australian branch of US Republicans. If the new “Teal” Liberals get their act together before the next election, they will be the death-knell for the current Liberal Party……….
…….(and not a moment too soon).
Nobody ever accused the Libs of having an excess of intelligence in their ranks. It’s just reptilian survival instinct for the males, put simply.
” temporary quotas,” Oh please Linda, as a Taxpayer in Western Australia, is that the best you can do?
“More Liberal Women”?
More like, Linda “Lying cow” Reynolds herself?
Along with Michaelia “Chalice of blood” Cash, Hume, Ruston, Hanson(? originally), Mirabella, Stoker, Price (‘The Coal Humper’s Daughter’), Ley (wottan “environmental champion” taking over from Price, taking over from Fraudberg, she was?), Deves, Marise “Doolittle” Payne, Julia “(I could) live on 40 bucks a day knowing that the government is supporting me with Newstart looking for employment” Banks, Bishops (Major and Minor) etc etc.
….. Yeah that should do it…..
“Political ideology” has no gender – it’s the politics at the root of the problem.
I’m all for gender equality in politics – but not under the flag of “that should fix so much”. Women can be just as wrong as men.
Whose fault is it that there are “so few Liberal women” in parliament this time – ‘the electorates” for not voting for the Liberal women candidates? How many of those teal women defeated Liberal women?
… again, now the non-existent “n-o-n-c-e” is “valid”?
…. How many Hollie Hughes is “too many”?
1
…. You can never have too many Fierravanti-Wells?
There’s an odd thread that seems to run through this sale that “only the male Liberal deadwood would be pruned” under a quota.
But what if the likes of almost passable politicians like Fraudberg never made it to the ballot paper because a Sophie Mirrabella, Hume or Jacinta Price was given the nod on ‘quota’? … Matt Kean never made the ballot because of a Pru Goward.
Josh Frydenberg is not “almost passable”. He is as bad as Scott Morrison, only more presentable to the electorate. That makes him more dangerous. THAT is why getting him voted out at the election was such a fantastic outcome. He’d be the opposition leader now if he hadn’t been voted out!
So the Liberal women are waking up? Would that make them woke?
No. They’re still IPA/Liars.
Quickest way for them to up their percentage of women in Parliament would be for a few more blokes to lose their seats at the next election. Peter is working on it.
The Liberal Party are well aware of their women problem. That’s why every bit of press they do involves “women” standing behind whoever is speaking. They just don’t care about the women problem.
No, more than that – they like the status quo. Their solutions are all HOLLOW. They address the ‘issue’ with visible “looks like we care” empty symbolism.
They can’t change who they are – a bunch of privileged, overly-religious, entitled men who are settled so DEEPLY into the patriarchy they can’t even transport their minds to what genuine RESPECT for women feels like.