Warren Mundine says Liberal Party should support women without using quotas

Liberals stalwart Warren Mundine says gender quotas would be the start of a ‘slippery slope’, and the many great women in the party don’t need them.

Indigenous leader Warren Mundine says “a crap campaign” cost the Liberal Party the federal election, not ­female representation, and that quotas were the start of “ a slippery slope”.

Instead, Mr Mundine said, he believed the party should support the “great women” it had, such as potentially identifying specific seats where a ­female candidate might perform better than a man.

The comments come amid heated debate among Liberal Party members on a push for temporary gender quotas to boost female representation in the parliament, with the discussion boiling over in a ­private WhatsApp group after a meeting of the NSW Liberal Women’s Council on Wednesday night at which the issue was raised.

Almost 100 texts from the chat group set up to discuss gender quotas against “merit” – seen by The Saturday Telegraph – revealed just how deep the divisions are among members over the proposal.

Speaking to The Saturday Telegraph, Mr Mundine said if the party started looking at gender quotas, then there could be an argument for other quotas such as “people of colour” or different multicultural backgrounds.

Liberal Party stalwart and Indigenous leader Warren Mundine says quotas are not the answer to the Libs’ problems. Picture: Adam Yip

Bradfield candidate Gisele Kapterian failed to win the seat against a Teal candidate not because she was a woman, but because the party had run “a crap campaign”, he said.

Mr Mundine ran against Ms ­Kapterian in a preselection for the seat, before later controversially declaring she had triumphed over him because of her gender. He later walked back the comments.

“We don’t need quotas ­because we have great women,” he said.

“The reason why they didn’t get in is because we ran a crap campaign.

“Gisele beat me. She didn’t need a quota. She should be sitting in the parliament.

“Once you go down this quota thing, where will you end up? Why not people of colour? Where are our brown boys and black people?

“If you look at parliament – national and state – where is the colour? More than 50 per cent of Australians were born overseas or have a parent born overseas.

“We have tonnes of good women. We just need to support them.”

Mr Mundine said Liberal candidate for Bradfield Gisele Kapterian didn’t need a quota to beat him in their preselection battle. Picture: Justin Lloyd

An agenda for the Women’s Council meeting obtained by The Saturday Telegraph declared the debate on gender quotas would begin with a discussion on the “merits for and against” before it would move on examining the “practical application of quotas should we seek to implement them”.

NSW Liberal Women’s Council president Berenice Walker – who wrote the agenda forward – urged members to “come with an open mind”.

Soon after the meeting was over, members on the “quotas v merit” WhatsApp group erupted, with former Liberal Party vice-president Teena McQueen taking aim at a gender quota petition set up on a public website, declaring it “disgraceful”.

Originally published as Warren Mundine says Liberal Party should support women without using quotas