Rita Panahi: Political candidates should be selected by what’s in their heads, not in their pants

The Liberal Party doesn’t need gender quotas, it needs to preselect capable, principled candidates who come with a clear vision. I’d rather judge an individual on their talent and character than on gender, colour, religion or sexual preference, writes Rita Panahi.

Does the Liberal Party have a women problem?

It’s not the treatment of women or policies affecting women that is at the heart of the malaise but the calibre and character of certain MPs who are all too eager to join Labor and the Greens in trashing their own party for not being a posh replica of Labor and the Greens.

One can’t help but be amused by Liberal wreckers who preach loyalty and unity but do nothing other than cause division, in turn betraying their constituents.

BANKS QUITS GOVERNMENT TO SIT ON CROSSBENCH

O’DWYER SAYS LIBS VIEWED AS HOMOPHOBIC, ANTI-WOMEN

MORE RITA PANAHI

On Tuesday, the ongoing post-Turnbull tantrum saw Victorian MP Julia Banks quit the Liberals to sit on the crossbench, reducing the government to 74 of 150 Lower House seats. Banks chose to do this at precisely the time, to the minute, that Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg were announcing that the April Budget would deliver a surplus, the first in a decade, with the country likely to go to the polls in May.

As an act of supreme bastardry, it was impressive in exacting maximum damage and there were certainly plenty of staunch Labor voters applauding Banks’ move on social media. Not cheering were the Liberal volunteers who worked tirelessly to have Banks elected in the seat of Chisholm, only to watch her achieve little in her parliamentary career beyond undermining the party and painting it as one teeming with sexists, bullies and troglodytes.

Banks’ statement explaining her decision was an exercise in self-serving hypocrisy. She comically described Turnbull and Julie Bishop as visionaries and herself as an oppressed “sensible centrist” in a party overrun by Right-wing reactionaries. One would’ve thought that if Turnbull was such a visionary who enjoyed “significant support across Australia”, then he wouldn’t have notched up 38 consecutive Newspoll losses nor white-anted two former leaders.

Industrial Relations Minister Kelly O’Dwyer, has seldom, if ever, laid a glove on Labor or the Greens but, like her protégé, is adept at causing enormous damage to her own side. Picture: AAP

The statement went on to decry the “reactionary and regressive Right wing”, “the merit myth” and advocate for gender quotas. It looked like something penned by the Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young.

Banks also released a statement in August in which she made highly damaging claims and railed against the “cultural and gender bias, bullying and intimidation” of women in the party. Yet she’s failed to name the bullies or instances of sexism either internally through the party machinery or publicly through the media.

We are expected to believe that an intelligent, accomplished woman like Banks was utterly blind to the rampant misogyny within the Liberal Party until Turnbull was deposed. Then, voila, like magic, her eyes were opened and she began her crusade for the sisterhood. Sorry, not buying it.

If the sexism and bullying is genuine, then file a complaint with the party so the matter can be investigated and the guilty party punished. If she doesn’t trust the party to investigate, then name names and expose the wrongdoers.

One must ask if the Liberal Party is inherently sexist, then why didn’t senior female MPs like Bishop and O’Dwyer do something to address the culture until Moderate Malcolm was knifed? Picture: Kym Smith

Banks’ mentor, Industrial Relations Minister Kelly O’Dwyer, has seldom, if ever, laid a glove on Labor or the Greens but, like her protégé, is adept at causing enormous damage to her own side. Gifted a blue riband seat, O’Dwyer has consistently underperformed and has been among a small number of MPs who have ensured the government has no clean air to tackle Labor and claw back voters who have abandoned it. O’Dwyer told colleagues on Monday that the Liberals were widely regarded as “anti-women”, an image she has enthusiastically helped promote after Turnbull left the building.

Again, one must ask if the Liberal Party is inherently sexist, then why didn’t senior female MPs like Bishop and O’Dwyer do something to address the culture until their man, Moderate Malcolm, was knifed? It’s curious that those working hardest to undermine the Morrison Government voted for Morrison in the ballot against Peter Dutton. It’s not Dutton’s disaffected supporters destabilising the government but the winners’ circle.

Also curious is how the annihilation of small “l” liberals is being painted by small “l” liberals as a wholesale rejection of the conservatism that the party of Menzies and Howard was built on.

You will struggle to find Liberals more moderate than the Victorians who have just been decimated at the polls. The fact is that the last time the Coalition had a landslide victory, it was in 2013 on a platform of tough border protection, aka stopping the boats, and cutting the carbon tax.

The Liberal Party doesn’t need gender quotas, it needs to preselect candidates who are capable, principled, and come with a clear vision. A little loyalty wouldn’t go astray either.

If we are to have quotas for women, then why not other under-represented groups in parliament? Should we have religious and ethnic quotas? What about quotas for LGBTIQA?

Call me crazy but I’d rather judge an individual on their talent and character, not on their gender, colour, religion or sexual preference.

Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist
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