The Liberal Party of Australia has once again proven its commitment to being a male-dominated group of political fossils. Nobody’s shocked. Nobody’s even remotely surprised. Enjoy being in opposition for the next 20 years, kents.
Details of what we’re calling the “lol, wtf happened at the federal election?” report have trickled out and it looks like not a single lesson has been learned when it comes to womens representation in parliament.
The issue is pretty dire for the libs, with just nine of their 48 MPs being female and 11 of the 27 senators. Yikes.
According to The Age, Senator Jane Hume and former director Brian Loughnane told the party’s head honchos on Monday that they wouldn’t be backing gender quotas as a way to get more women involved in the party.
Instead, the party wants to adopt a “Liberal approach” and prefers “targets, not quotas”.
So, what the bloody heck could that mean?
The topic of quotas as a strategy to address unequal representation has been long debated in Australian politics and is usually split across party lines.
In 1994, the Australian Labor Party adopted a 35 per cent pre-selection quota for women running for parliament in winnable seats.
This was achieved in 2012 when 35.6 per cent of candidates in winnable seats were women as per the Parliament of Australia.
Also in 2012, the ALP amended its constitution to enshrine a minimum of 40 per cent representation of either gender at a federal level.
On the other side of politics, the libs have historically been allergic to the idea of quotas.
Prominent libs such as shadow treasurer Angus Taylor have argued as recently as October that quotas go against their idea of awarding roles based on “merit”.
The issue is, “merit” can be very subjective, especially in politics. It’s often used as an excuse to stick to the status quo.
So, when libs say they’d prefer “targets”, they’re saying they’d prefer a watered-down set of goals that they won’t be held accountable to.
In Monday’s meeting, Hume reportedly advocated for a “talent pipeline” that would encourage more women into the party at a grassroots level as per The Age.
A talent pipeline would not, however, guarantee or constitutionally enshrine that more women would be pre-selected to run in safe Liberal seats.
Regardless of what specific strategies are recommended in the final report, it will be in the party’s bests interests to recruit not only more women, but also more culturally and linguistically diverse folks and elevate them within the party ASAP.
Otherwise, it risks becoming even more unrepresentative of the composition and expectations of Aussie voters.
