Inner West Council scraps plan to appoint ‘more women than men’

A woke inner-city Sydney council’s plan faced criticism for discriminating against men and sidelining transgender people.

A plan to mandate that female councillors must outnumber their male counterparts on oversight committees as part of a diversity push has been scrapped by a Sydney council after members of the public called it discriminatory against men.

The Gender Equal Representation Policy unveiled by the Inner West Council in April this year aimed to address gender imbalance on council committees and boards.

“Where there is an odd number of vacancies available and diversity cannot be achieved, Council where possible will promote diversity by appointing more women than men,” the proposed policy said.

But that came under fire from members of the public in submissions to the council who said the “provision discriminates against men and contrary to the objective of equal representation and also does not consider non-binary or transgender.”

Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne has faced fresh calls to step aside. Picture: Monique Harmer

The new policy adopted at last Tuesday’s council removed the anti-male discrimination and replaced it with a stipulation council committees must have a 50/50 gender split only if transgender, gender diverse or non-binary candidates are unavailable to be recruited.

Stage one of the implementation plan states councillors should be encouraged to “willingly share” their gender identity.

Councillor Julie Passa says gender is a non issue for the inner west. Picture: Christian Gilles

Liberal Councillor Julie Passas said the obsession with gender was unnecessary because females already dominated the council. She said it highlighted how out of touch the local representatives were with the real problems being faced by the inner west community.

“They are non issues, I speak to people every day and none of those issues are ever raised with me,” she said.

“We have eight women on council and there are only seven men, six councillors have ethnic backgrounds. Would these people be elected if we are such a biased and racist electorate?”

“Stormwater, footpaths, maintenance of our buildings, we have buildings that are falling to pieces and the business people who are hurting because of Covid — this is what we should be focused on.”

The Inner West Council has become one of the wokest local government areas in Australia. Picture: Christian Gilles

A council spokeswoman said the new representation rules aimed to improve the performance of the council.

“The Gender Equal Representation Policy was developed in response to a resolution of Council and relates specifically to councillor representations on councillor committees and external committees,” she said.

“Council committees, boards and panels that do have gender equal representation better reflect the diverse community and are better placed to meet the needs and expectations of the whole community,” she said.

The latest policy is the latest in a string of moves which have solidified the Inner West Council as one of the wokest local government areas in the nation.

Last month the council hit the headlines because of a plan to make staff complete unconscious bias training where they would learn that European settlers dismantled gender diversity within Indigenous culture.

In May this year, Greens councillor Colin Hesse attracted pushback after asking council to remove just the name Victoria from a Marrickville street because to him the British Empire was “catastrophic to indigenous Australians”.

And in 2011 Marrickville Council, which merged with other councils to form the larger Inner West Council, came under fire after it voted to boycott businesses with links to Israel.