Prime Minister / Minister For Women Tony Abbott has called for the Liberal Party to close its gaping gender gap at a LNP function in Adelaide yesterday.
*bites fist to not be snarky about a genuinely progressive prospect, despite levels of irony peaking*
“If even the Australian Army can become less blokey, then so must we,” Tony Abbott said yesterday, while calling for the number of women in Parliament to increase and edge toward gender parity, for the sake of good Government.
The call to action was spurred by a Menzies Research Centre report that highlighted the lack of women in Parliament. “The Liberal Party has an issue with female representation — but so does Australian politics in general,” the report states, “Less than a third of federal and state parliamentarians are women.”
“If we don’t get the percentage of women up, we will be letting ourselves down,” the Prime Minister said, adding that the issue was also part and parcel of securing an election, via a “target” for female representation.
“To be serious about winning elections, we must be more serious about engaging, pre-selecting and sending to parliament the representatives of 50 per cent of the electorate. It would be entirely reasonable for our party to have, not a quota, but a target to increase the number of women in the parliament and in our government at every opportunity.”
First point of action, surely: a female Minister for Women.
via SMH.
Image by Mark Metcalfe via Getty.
