‘Crazy corporate woman’: Julia Banks on newcomers entering politics

“Crazy corporate woman” and “naive” were just a couple of the insults thrown at Julia Banks when she entered Federal Parliament in 2016.

Speaking on Good Weekend Talks, the former senior lawyer said there was “no regard” given to her decades of experience in the corporate sector by the Liberal Party, which she joined in 2015 ahead of winning the seat of Chisholm for the party the following year, a seat that had been held by Labor for 18 years. “As a corporate lawyer, you’re a fast learner, you can adapt,” she said on the podcast. “There was no respect for that concept.”

David Crowe, chief political correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, said on the podcast that it was to the detriment of both the Liberal Party and Federal Parliament that outsiders were not more embraced. It reflected the “professionalisation of politics”, in which so many members come up through student politics, then secure an adviser’s role before moving on to an elected position.

“She wasn’t involved in student politics, she became active after working in business for so many years. And politics doesn’t reward people like that – it finds it very difficult to deal with people who are not tribal, who are not part of the movement from the age of 18 and do those years in student politics where it’s all about the network and proving your tribal loyalty to the group,” said Crowe. “Joining the Liberal Party later made it harder for the party to accept her, even though she had so many credentials in the real world and proven experience in business. That doesn’t count for much compared to the loyalty of a young 20-something.”

Banks reiterated her view that the Liberal Party “must” embrace quotas if it wants more diversity – and more women – in its ranks. “Quotas are the only thing that is going to effect change in the Liberal Party,” she said, “and that’s largely because [it has] an ageing membership [that] is full of unconscious bias.”

Banks quit the Liberal Party when Scott Morrison became Prime Minister. She served the rest of her term as an independent before unsuccessfully running against Greg Hunt for the seat of Flinders in the 2019 federal election. Her Good Weekend feature is an edited extract from her book Power Play: Breaking Through Bias, Barriers and Boys’ Clubs, which is out this week.

For the full feature story, see Good Weekend, or visit The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.