Peta Credlin: Women on the right do not want a leg up, we just want a fair go

We say we need to do better with women. And we do need more strong women in the Liberal Party’s ranks. Yet, when we have them, we don’t always support them, writes Peta Credlin.

It does my head in to have a debate demanding that the Liberal Party introduce quotas to get women into parliament given we’ve had Liberal leaders who don’t even know, or won’t say, what a woman is.

What else can explain former Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto’s predicament?

And it’s now cost him another $2.3 million after earlier paying out $300k in damages, the cost of his own legal bills AND his position as leader. And all because he failed to treat his colleague, Moira Deeming, fairly.

Her crime, according to Pesutto, was to front a rally to defend the sex-based rights of women and girls to sport, toilets and changerooms; something surely, we all should be able to support? Yet when the event was gatecrashed by neo-Nazi idiots, suddenly Deeming was to blame, and ended up being defamed by Pesutto and expelled.

As a lawyer, Pesutto’s legal skills and judgment clearly deserted him, and he’s paid a heavy price. After Friday’s Federal Court decision, Pesutto’s backers want the Liberal Party or close affiliates to bail him out, but rank-and-file members will not cop money that should be spent on election campaigns being handed over to a man who refused to apologise or settle.

Moira Deeming and (inset) John Pesutto. Pictures: NewsWire/Andrew Henshaw/David Crosling

And the passage of time has only strengthened Deeming’s hand, given that two years on from the rally, we’ve had a recent decision in the UK Supreme Court, effectively taking Deeming’s side, that ruled emphatically that single sex spaces belong solely to biological women and girls.

For too long, the Liberal Party has been scared of its own shadow; sending, on this issue, very contradictory messages.

We say we need to do better with women. And we do need more strong women in our ranks. Yet, when we have them, we don’t always support them.

It should not be controversial to defend the rights of women. For women who want to be advanced on our merit, not our gender, the debate about quotas actually reinforces the old sexist stereotype that women need special treatment to succeed. A century after the first women were elected to parliament, it perpetuates the myth of female inadequacy. Even though our two of our big parties have now chosen a woman as leader.

Women on the right do not want a leg up, we just want a fair go.

THUMBS UP

Sussan Ley – we will see how she goes, but at least the new Liberal leader was elected by her peers, unlike Labor’s Julia Gillard who was selected, and installed, by the factions.

THUMBS DOWN

Anthony Albanese – the PM can find time to fly to Rome for the new Pope’s inauguration and visit Catholic churches (with the media in tow) throughout the campaign, but apparently isn’t religious enough to pick up a bible to swear his oath of office?

Watch Peta on Credlin on Sky News, weeknights at 6pm

Originally published as Peta Credlin: Women on the right do not want a leg up, we just want a fair go