Annette Sharp: Bill Shorten must look to a woman to win office and here are the candidates
ALP members might think they just need to sit tight to win office in six months but what they really need is a woman to succeed leader Bill Shorten. Here are the candidates...
Opinion
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If the men of the Federal Liberal Party can blow up their party in one short hideous week, imagine what the women of the Australian Labor Party could manage in six months?
That’s how long political commentators are saying new Prime Minister Scott Morrison will have in power before he and his party are rolled in the next federal election and replaced by the ALP.
Naturally ALP members, blokes for the most with traditional ideas about government and the suitability of candidates for leadership — men for the decisive roles and a couple of women whose careers have already peaked in highly visible yet powerless support roles — are of the view that for the next six months they must just sit tight and ruffle few feathers. That’s how to win government — not by being disruptive and certainly not by revisiting the Julia Gillard experiment.
But why not?
Australian voters clearly, if not belatedly, indicated in polling that they wanted Julie Bishop as the replacement leader of the Liberal Party. A woman.
Isn’t it time for the ALP to look within its own ranks and identify a woman who will have equal appeal.
Bill Shorten has risen to the top of the ALP with the help of some tremendous women.
His mother Ann, an academic who went back to university in her 30s to study law following a teaching career and was an inspiration to her son; his first wife Debbie Beale, daughter of an influential Melbourne investor and former Liberal MP Julien, who was suckled in a politically charged environment; second wife Chloe Byrce, the daughter of a woman Shorten clearly admires — former governor-general Quentin Bryce — the woman Shorten won to his political side by default after he fell in love with and married her (then married, as was he) daughter.
If there is one man who knows the resilience, the perspicaciousness, the resourcefulness of a woman, it’s Bill Shorten.
So come on Bill. You know, as we do, that you’re a singularly uninspiring politician and a dull orator and it’s time to nominate the woman who should become your successor.
Here is a short but exciting list of worthy candidates.
MICHELLE ROWLAND
(ALP Right)
Member for Greenway, NSW
Born in Blacktown and educated in Parramatta, Rowland, whose mother is Fijian, was a successful telecommunications lawyer with Sydney’s prestigious Gilbert and Tobin law firm who became a local government star and rose through the ranks to become deputy mayor of Blacktown. The 46-year-old mother of two sits on the Labor opposition frontbench as Shadow Minister for Communications.
JENNY McALLISTER
(ALP Left)
NSW Senator and former National President of the ALP
McAllister is considered a tough and formidable contender and is synonymous with Labor’s restless Left. The 45-year-old was born in Murwillumbah and majored in politics and government at Queensland University. In 2003 she co-founded the Labor Environment Activist network. The mother-of-two lives in Redfern with her husband, John Graham, former assistant general secretary of the NSW branch of the Labor Party. She is the Shadow Assistant Minister for Families and Communities.
CLARE O’NEIL
(ALP Right)
Member for Hotnam, Victoria
O’Neil became the youngest female mayor in Australian history in 2004 when she was elected mayor of the City of Greater Dandenong in Victoria. She has a business/finance background, was an intern on the New York Stock Exchange, later working for global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. A mother-of-one, O’Neil, 37, lives with her partner in Melbourne and the Shadow Minister for Financial Services. Has been marked for greater things.
TERRI BUTLER
(ALP Left)
Member for Griffith, Queensland
Born in Cairns, Butler is an industrial lawyer who became a principal at law firm Maurice Blackburn. A longtime ALP member she is married to union official Troy Spence, with whom she has two children. In 2014, she replaced Kevin Rudd in the seat of Griffith. The 40-year-old has actively campaigned for womens’ rights to abort and in 2015 co-sponsored a bill to introduce same-sex marriage in Australia. Is the Shadow Minister for Young Australians & Youth Affairs, Employment Services, Workforce Participation and Future of Work, and Equality.
PENNY WONG
(ALP Left)
Australian Senator, South Australia
Born in Malaysia, Wong, a barrister by profession, is the first Asian-born member of an Australian cabinet. She is also the first openly gay federal parliamentarian. The 49-year-old mother of two, is currently the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Hugely popular, there seems to be some feeling the former CFMEU union advisor, may have left it too late to take a tilt at the top job. Maybe she will prove otherwise. We hope so.
TANYA PLIBERSEK
(ALP Left)
Deputy Leader of the Opposition, NSW
Born to Slovenian migrants, Plibersek was dux of Jannali Girls’ High before joining the Labor Party at age 15. She studied journalism and later public policy and politics before taking a job with the Domestic Violence Unit of the NSW government. At age 28, she was elected to the Division of Sydney and joined the Shadow Cabinet six years later in 2004. The 48-year-old mother-of-three is Shadow Minister for Women, Education and Training.