If embracing gender quotas will solve the woes facing the Liberal Party right now, then get moving. Draw up the quota policy today, please. If that’s what it takes to defeat the Albanese government – and bonus, toss out teal MPs in inner-city seats – there’s not a minute to waste.
Welcome to another round of the Liberals-must-have-quotas. So-called progressives – inside and outside the Liberal Party – are nothing if not opportunistic and shallow. The ABC has shifted gears from its usual breathless activism about gender quotas to orgiastic. The Labor government is excited to have the conservatives distracted by another interminable gender debate. And the so-called moderates inside the Liberal Party, including new leader Sussan Ley, are eager to think that a gender facelift will make the Liberals great again.
Alas, gender quotas are a shallow prescription for a much deeper problem. The Liberals are irrelevant today because they are mediocre. It’s that simple. Mediocre policies. Mediocre team. Mediocrity through and through. The mediocre don’t recognise they’re mediocre, of course. So, when Liberals say they are committed to a merit-based selection process, whether overlaid with a gender filter or not, what they are really promising is more people like them. A quality candidate might risk showing them up.
The problem with applying a gender quota is that, in one fell swoop, the party will draw from an even more shallow pool of mediocre people who just happen to be women.
The Labor Party celebrated 30 years of affirmative action last year, but notice a man is leading the federal Labor government. The last woman to lead Labor federally – Julia Gillard – is best known for calling her male Liberal opponent, Tony Abbott, a misogynist. The sisterhood loved it, but Labor hardheads haven’t raced to test another female leader on the electorate.
Don’t believe the tosh from female politicians who don’t succeed that voters have something against a female leader. The reason is closer to what Timothy Lynch wrote last November: “The progressive faith in gender before talent has given us women who just aren’t very good and/or aren’t very popular.” Think Hillary Clinton. Think Kamala Harris, whose combined double dose of identity politics – namely race and gender – translated into her securing fewer female votes than that old white bloke, Joe Biden, did.
Abbott won a landslide election victory in 2013. Scott Morrison won the 2019 election. Neither bloke was regarded by the political pundits as attractive to female voters. In the middle was Malcolm Turnbull, allegedly the dream candidate for female voters – who took the party backwards at the 2016 election.
Falling into the Left’s trap of seeing everything – especially the last election – through the prism of gender won’t help the Liberals win back government. It will distract them. It also insults female voters.
It’s true that certain demographics of female voters – young women and university-educated women – are, right now, more inclined to vote for so-called progressive parties or candidates. But it would be a mistake to think that female voters will naturally be left-leaning voters forever more. Female voters were once more inclined than men to vote for conservatives. The pendulum could swing back again.
A few blackouts, skyrocketing energy prices, higher taxes to fund spiralling debt might change the voting pattern of even the most ardent teal-voting women of a certain age. As the facts change, intelligent people – including women – may change their minds about who to vote for. A more volatile electorate can work in different directions.
We’re told that introducing a gender quota is little different from other factors that already sideline merit. Factional issues, for example; geographical ones, too. So, what’s the big deal having one more priority – gender – overlaying merit? Oh, but it is a big deal.
Every factor that comes ahead of merit guarantees more weak candidates and more lacklustre policies. The Liberals already have plenty of male politicians who are not very good and/or not very popular. Instead of institutionalising gender-balanced mediocrity, the Liberal Party ought to be trying to get rid of factors that shift merit into second, third or fourth place.
When politics was less fractured, John Howard’s Liberal government attracted a primary vote of 47.3 per cent in 1996. That dipped to 31.8 per cent at the May election. When a party can’t rely on tribal loyalty any more – that has gone out the window as politics has fissured – it’s going to take a stronger Liberal Party machine, along with policies and people far better than their Labor counterparts, to win government.
We ended up with an Elmer Fudd character, to quote Australia’s most famous former street sweeper, Shaun Turner, running the country because, in an age of hyper-professionalism, the Liberal Party is a horse-and-buggy outfit of amateurs and part-timers, bereft of resources. The ALP, by contrast, has now assembled a huge, modern professional organisation with vast financial and human resources.
The closest analogy is that of a lower-league side playing Manchester United in the FA Cup final. Once in a blue moon the amateurs might win, but under normal programming the behemoth should cruise to victory.
The disparity in resources has been a long time building and has many causes. One obvious factor is the symbiotic relationship between the ALP and the unions, and the naked quid pro quo each delivers the other. The ALP has taken innumerable policy decisions that have enriched the unions, from mandating the role of union-dominated industry superannuation funds to industrial relations laws that protect union roles and privilege.
For example, for years the ALP rode shotgun while the CFMEU amassed what we now know, thanks to a KordaMentha forensic examination, to be simply outlandish riches. The ALP fought the Australian Building and Construction Commission at every turn while the CFMEU gathered some $310m in assets.
In return, the unions deliver not only cash for campaign expenses, but workers to man polling booths, jobs for politicians out of work between elections and retirement sinecures on the boards of industry super funds. Being a union-backed ALP politician is a lifelong gravy train of sinecures and preferment opportunities.
For Liberal politicians, let alone Liberals seeking preselection or preselected candidates, there is no cushy income protection. Tim Wilson, who knocked off a female teal MP by running his own campaign, won back Goldstein because he attracted backers who staked him. Roanne Knox in the Sydney seat of Wentworth and Tom White in Curtin in Perth put their business careers on unpaid hold while they campaigned and now have no party-sponsored fallback. Both are quality candidates who would have immediately taken the Liberal Party, and its policies, up a notch in firepower.
How the Liberal Party can build a permanent funding source, permanent job infrastructures and permanent support networks is a big topic. Until the conservatives try to address those fundamental weaknesses, its contest with the ALP is AFC Richmond v Manchester United.
It’s understandable that the Liberals chose a female leader after the May election loss to try to rebrand the party. It was slim pickings, after all. But playing the gender card will likely backfire on Ley. Her early routine, veering from folksy I-feel-your-pain feminist to hectoring head girl, is insulting to women who are searching for something deeper than matching chromosomes. Ley should be zealous about finding sensible policies not on offer from the Left. Why would voters vote Labor-lite when they can get the full-cream version from Mr Fudd? If the Left can’t point to an emoting female leader who won a few elections in a row, why would the conservatives think one will work for them? An Australian version of Jacinda Ardern? No thanks. Let’s raise the bar. We might just get an Aussie Maggie Thatcher.
More Coverage
A billion-dollar brain fade
The AFL is fighting to dissolve a landmark class action, even as stories of long-term trauma and tragic deaths expose the game’s hidden toll — especially for women.
Fortescue hydrogen U-turn highlights risk to taxpayers
The failure of projects to materialise is a normal part of business risk. A key part of corporate decision-making is knowing when to cut your losses. This is a lesson government has yet to master.