The Liberal party cannot fall back on the argument it preselects candidates on merit, given “some of the blokes” it counts among its parliamentary ranks, Tanya Plibersek has said.
Responding to frontbencher Sussan Ley’s push for the Liberal party to work towards a “sensible number” to improve its female representation and break ranks from the majority who remained opposed to quotas, Plibersek said it was beyond time this happened.
The Liberal senator Jane Hume and the foreign minister, Marise Payne, responded by suggesting the party should do more for women but – again – stopped short of endorsing quotas.
Ley told the Australian on Friday she believed “a sensible number and date” to increase the number of Liberal women needed to be implemented “as soon as possible”, to ensure the tide would be turned.
Jason Falinksi became one of the first Liberal party male MPs to also publicly call for more diversity. So far, just 21 female candidates have been preselected by the Liberal party to run in the next election.
After Sarah Henderson and Linda Reynolds began the week attempting to defend the Liberals’ record on female representation – both within the party and as a government – as having done more than Labor, Plibersek led Labor’s counter-charge.
She said she found it “laughable” that members of the government, where just 12 of its 74 lower house seats were held by women, were making those claims. The lack of change was “disappointing”, she said, adding that there was no proof the “merit” argument stood up, in light of some of the men who found themselves holding a seat.
“A parliament that is more representative of the Australian community makes better decisions for the whole Australian community,” Plibersek said on Friday.
“It is good that some Liberals are waking up to that fact. It would be terrific if the prime minister woke up to that fact.
“…I think you only have to look at some of the Liberal blokes who have been elected to parliament to see that the merit principle plainly doesn’t apply to Liberal party preselection. There are some pretty unimpressive characters there and if they are there on merit, I will eat my hat.”
On Friday Hume told the Australian that quotas are “not the answer” because they are a “Labor solution” and her party should look for an unspecified “Liberal alternative”.
“We need the parliamentary and organisational leadership, state and federal, to come together and start working on this,” she reportedly said. “It cannot wait. It does not have to be a binary between quotas and nothing.”
At a press conference in Sydney, Payne said that “all options should be on the table” to boost female representation but declined to state a personal position on quotas.
Asked about low numbers of women in the party, Payne responded “I don’t think it’s a science” and suggested the party could “work collaboratively” to boost women.
Labor began instituting quotas in 1994, when it adopted the affirmative action policy, which targeted 35% of winnable electorates being preselected with female candidates by 2002, a process that began in the 1970s, when the party’s lack of female representation was highlighted. A formal quota of 40:40:20 was adopted in 2012, to ensure that 40% of the positions were held by women. Labor has since worked towards a quota of 50%.
But with that shift came allegations of “quota girls”, a term still bandied about by critics within the Coalition of a quota system. During the past week, Labor has been accused of using gender as a weapon for political gain, a claim Plibersek has rejected.
“I think it is incredible that anytime we speak about a parliament that looks more like the Australian community, we are accused of weaponising the gender issue or playing the gender card, and all these disparaging comments are made,” she said.
“I think greater gender equality is obviously good for the women, but it is also good for men.
“You’ve got people in the Liberal party who are trying to shut down the debate, because they feel it is a debate that reflects badly on the women in the party itself.
“This is not something that the Labor party has achieved overnight … it has taken decades to do this, it has taken a determined effort and it has taken a discussion within our own party.”
Plibersek said that if those who defended the Liberals’ record were correct, they needed to explain how so few women ended up in the party room, and on its frontbench.
“It cannot be that the Liberal party is lacking in female talent,” she said.
“I have seen many talented, articulate Liberal women; somehow they don’t get preselected.
“It obviously, is a cultural thing within the party. And it is disappointing you have women in the Liberal party who aren’t prepared to call it out. But what is more disappointing, frankly, is you have a prime minister who turns a blind eye to it.”
On current polls, the Liberal party could potentially be left with just six women in the lower house after the election.
