Gender & Politics 2020: The path towards real diversity
A NEW REPORT BY NICK CATER AND NICOLLE FLINT CHARTS THE PROGRESS OF FEMALE REPRESENTATION IN AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENTS SINCE 2013 AND PRESENTS A STRATEGY FOR FURTHER IMPROVEMENT IN LINE WITH LIBERAL PRINCIPLES.
In the first edition of Gender & Politics we argued that the imbalance between the number of Liberal men and women in Australian parliaments should be addressed in a manner true to our principles.
We rejected the undemocratic path of quotas employed by parties on the left, arguing that genuine diversity is better achieved through merit and reward for effort than ticking boxes.
Five years later, we are able to report progress. Of the 14 new Liberal members elected to the House of Representatives in May 2019, seven were men and seven were women. The result was achieved without a single quota. The 14 new members came from a diverse range of backgrounds and were elected on their merit. Encouragingly, the overall number of female candidates for the House of Representatives rose again, up six more than the first report in 2015.
In the Senate, a third of Liberal representatives are now women, and at the 2019 election, 41 per cent of Liberal Senate candidates were women, again without quotas.
A record number of women have been appointed to Cabinet including in the senior portfolios of Defence and Foreign Affairs.
Across state and territory divisions there have been mixed results. The proportion of Liberal women in parliament has increased in Tasmania, the ACT and New South Wales but not elsewhere.
Much work still remains to be done. Despite the broad acceptance of our recommendations by state and territory Divisions that the party should learn from the corporate sector by adopting reportable targets that serve as benchmarks, progress remains slow.
Discouragingly, there has been little change in the number of female members and leaders at the grassroots level. It is of particular concern that numbers remain static at the Young Liberal level. Previous work to increase female participation done by former federal Young Liberal President, now Senator Claire Chandler, will be a focus of federal Young Liberal President, Jocelyn Sutcliffe, who is only the fourth-ever woman elected to the position.
Similarly, the work setting targets and increasing reporting commenced under then-President Richard Alston by the federal Executive continues, but needs to be replicated by the Divisions.
Without a critical mass of female Liberal Party members and leaders at the grassroots party level, the Party will continue to struggle to nominate a sufficient number of women, especially in safe seats.
This paper explores this problem using the corporate concept of the ‘broken rung’. Corporations have realised that the biggest obstacle women face in career progression to leadership roles is the first step up from entry level to manager. They are correcting the lack of women in senior positions by ensuring there are enough women moving from entry level to junior management, so that they secure the requisite experience along the way and so that the company has a large pool of both men and women to choose from.
Until the grassroots imbalance is addressed, the Liberal Party is unlikely to make anything more than incremental steps towards parliamentary gender balance.
More female candidates and more female MPs broadens the diversity of our offering to voters.
The increase in diversity applies not just to gender, but to backgrounds, professions, age and outlook. The new male and female Liberal MPs elected in 2019 include defence force veterans, health professionals, farmers, and a university vice chancellor. Overall the Coalition has seven representatives with trade certificates compared to Labor’s two.
The diversity of these people is the reason why the Liberal Party, and the Nationals, who together form the Coalition Government, are better able to connect with the Australian people as election results since 2013 have shown. Elected representatives from diverse backgrounds reach and connect with the most voters possible and ensure Coalition policy settings are in tune with the Australian people.
The Liberal Party achieved historic and notable levels of female representation at the 2019 federal election. The challenge now is to cement these results federally, and replicate them at the state and territory level.
Change cannot be achieved by adopting the sterile formulae of identity politics that is stultifying the thinking of our opponents.
As the 2019 federal election demonstrated, when we stand by the principles and policies that are true to our Liberal values we can overcome any challenge.
With due respect for our party executives, progress will not come from head office although their leadership is vital.
The party’s future depends, as it always has, on our party members, the civic-minded women and men committed to freedom, enterprise and empowerment.
Nick Cater
Executive Director
Menzies Research Centre
28 October 2020
