Only Dutton can lead Libs on gender diversity

Let’s hope strong Liberal women don’t go silent on the issue of quotas if they ever win a position on the frontbench.

Senator Linda Reynolds during Senate Business at Parliament House on June 23, 2021 in Canberra. She has cautiously backed quotas as a way to increase female representation in Liberal ranks. (Photo by Sam Mooy/Getty Images)

Neck pain can be debilitating. Fortunately I was relaxing in beautiful Fiji when I heard the startling news that former Morrison government minister Linda Reynolds suddenly was supportive of gender quotas, something she wholeheartedly rejected when she first won ministerial promotion.

My neck jarred suddenly as I read about her backflip; I was left in immense pain. Nothing a traditional Fijian massage couldn’t fix, so I was in the right place at the right time. I’ll check with my account­ant if it qualifies as a tax deduction.

I am very well acquainted with Reynolds’s stance on the need for the Liberals to do more to help promote women. She was a passionate behind-the-scenes advocate for advancing the careers of female backbenchers when she was one.

As a lowly backbencher Reynolds all but implied that quotas might be necessary for the party to properly recognise female talent. Until, that is, she got her break.

That was the first time Reynolds caused me neck pain, brought on by her proudly telling assembled journalists at the media conference called to announce her ministerial promotion that she was proof positive the Liberal Party didn’t need gender quotas.

Nothing to see here was her message, delivered ahead of the 2019 election while standing next to a beaming Scott Morrison – himself keen to bat away accusations the Liberal Party had any issues on the gender front.

No Fijian massage available back then to dull my neck pain.

For years I have written about the need for the Liberals to do more to promote good women, egged on by some women inside the party. It is more than a little frustrating when those same silent advocates not only stay silent when they finally obtain power and clout but even are willing to attack the cause they once supported – in their first media event as a promoted minister, no less.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised this week when reading the news of Reynolds’s latest shifting stance on the topic of gender and quotas. Now that she’s on the backbench again such positioning is self-interested.

Reynolds’s attempt to cover over her own inconsistencies on this topic included pointing to the low number of women in the ranks post election, alongside the number of men who lost their seats to women.

This is simply mathematics at work. As the rest of the nation – voters, other parties and independents – increasingly understands the value of gender diversity, the failure to do so will see Liberal men lose out. As indeed they should; it’s just desserts for a party stuck in a bygone era.

So what does it mean that Reynolds has joined the public ranks of Liberals pushing for gender quotas? If we put to one side that she’s very late to the party and probably arrived only in the name of self-interest, at least she’s on board I guess.

Let’s hope she sees it as an opportunity to make a difference in what’s left of her parliamentary career. And let’s hope she doesn’t go silent on the issue if she ever wins her way back on to the frontbench. She doesn’t look like returning to Peter Dutton’s frontbench.

New opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume – one of the few Liberal women on the rise, in fact one of the few women in Liberal ranks – weighed into the debate. Hume opposes formal gender quotas but supports targets. The Liberal Party has a target of 50 per cent women in parliament by 2025. Stop laughing and keep reading.

In dismissing quotas, Hume says: “Targets are probably a better option, but they must be targets that are actually achievable and fulfillable.” In other words, not like the joke of a target the Liberals currently have.

They have a target of 50-50 gender representation by the time of the next election. For context, they currently have 21 per cent female representation, a woeful stat propped up by senators. In the House of Representatives the number of Liberal women is down in single digits.

I hate to break it to the opposition finance spokeswoman, who is charged with making the Coalition’s mix of policies add up, but it has no chance of achieving its 2025 target. It’s a mathematical impossibility unless a flood of blokes lose their seats at the next election, artificially lifting the percentage of women in a hollowed-out Liberal party room. Or it could get there if it preselects only women at the next election, no more men, and if voters come flooding back the Coalition’s way. Good luck with that.

As so often is the case when Liberals talk about the lack of gender diversity in their ranks – whether it’s the blokes or the women doing the talking – it’s just callow, superficial rhetoric. They don’t take the issue seriously.

Liberal deputy leader Sussan Ley in Meningie, South Australia on July 3, 2022. Ley addressed branch members as the party rethinks how to get more women preselected and into parliament. Picture Matt Turner.

Here is a scary thought that also happens to be true: the Liberals’ best shot at doing something substantive to fix its gender problems is Dutton. As the leading conservative in the parliament who also happens to be the party leader now, he has the clout and the authority to impose gender quotas as well as throw his support behind female candidates around the country.

And Dutton’s deputy is Sussan Ley who, unlike Reynolds, has long been a supporter of gender quotas. She’s finally in a position to do something about it if she can convince the Opposition Leader to join the movement.

An important piece in the puzzle is finding the right female candidates, of course. Not just hacks who resemble the boys. Liberals need to attract the sort of talent that migrated to the teals. That presumably means some wider policy reforms.

Dutton is also the one-time hard man of the Coalition in government. Who in the parliamentary ranks has the credentials to credibly challenge his authority on gender quotas if he backs them in? Nobody, is the simple answer.

It would be Dutton’s Nixon in China moment, when the Republican president and strong anti-communist visited communist China as the first US president to do so. Only Richard Nixon could do so without being condemned by the right.

We know Dutton already has a perception problem with female voters. This may not be fair but it’s a fact. Stepping into the quota issue would be seen as calculated and self-interested by Dutton critics. But they would never applaud him no matter what he did.

Their refusal to applaud Dutton doing what is right isn’t a reason to refuse to do it.

Dutton is willing to defy his right flank where he thinks it is necessary to do so on other issues: perhaps the voice to parliament, perhaps on climate change. We will see what topics he picks.

Dutton should add gender diversity to whatever is on the list of surprise policy positions he is considering. Because it is the right thing to do. And it can only work in his favour politically.

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.