PvO: Libs’ resistance ‘wrong’

The Liberal Party only needs to look across the chambers of parliament to Labor to see the error of its ways.

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke

I was at a Christmas drinks party talking to a group of Young Liberals — I have your sympathy already — and they were taking issue with even the concept that the Liberal Party might embrace a quota to bolster the number of women in its ranks.

Yes, they were all men, and I suspect every one of them has political ambitions of his own. This is one of the most difficult barriers to change: older generations are naturally more conservative and hence more resistant, especially within a conservative party. And if a party already has a gender bias, as the Liberals self-evidentially do — even my Young Liberal friends conceded that — then younger generations will have more male than female members.

Young Liberal men, despite having more progressive tendencies than older party members, have ambition. That ambition might be thwarted by quotas providing women with an even ­playing field. They can see that quotas (or targets) will reduce their to-date natural advantages over women based on cultural prejudices.

Not merit-based advantages, for none of the group I spoke to would dare claim men were more meritorious than women. Let’s be clear about this: if you believe men and women are equal, it’s not possible logically to claim that a quota providing equal or near equal representation of the sexes quashes merit. Even if your argument is that not enough women are active in Liberal Party politics — hence a quota gives the few women who are involved an unfair advantage — then the quota should be seen through the prism of encouraging more women to engage, to get involved, to seek parliamentary office. It also should be viewed as a way of ­encouraging powerbrokers and factional leaders to seek talented women for representative roles.

Don’t forget, women disproportionately used to vote Liberal over Labor. The male environment of the union movement was a turn-off for many women in decades past. But today the turn-off has flipped. The Liberal Party culture is now unfriendly to women and Labor has a quota, which has bolstered not only ­female parliamentary representation but also the number of women who join the Labor Party in the first place.

Liberals really are running out of excuses for not embracing some form of quota for women in parliament. They say they are philosophically opposed to quotas, as they represent an institutional ­device to force cultural change.

First, there is a quota for the number of Nationals in the cabinet as part of the Coalition agreement. We have a constitutional quota for the number of senators hailing from each state. There are informal quotas for leaders when selecting their frontbench, seeking to broaden state and factional representation. There is even an informal quota to boost the number of women Liberals put on the frontbench so they don’t appear as a sexist unrepresentative party.

How ironic is that? We are told quotas don’t serve merit well but a Coalition with just 12 women out of 74 in its lower house team needs to put a disproportionate number of those few women on the frontbench, or in view of the cameras directed at the dispatch box, to bat away accusations of lower female representation.

Second, the idea that quotas are culturally anathema to the Liberal Party flies in the face of a cabinet push during the Howard years to install one for the number of men in primary school teaching roles. Oh, but what about merit? Or the institutional inappropriateness of quotas? Apparently they can be considered for Nat­ionals and men who teach in primary school but not for women in the national parliament.

Third, and this is my favourite, the argument that Liberals can’t back gender quotas because they don’t like solving cultural problems with institutional rules stands in stark contrast to the ­recent partyroom decision to change the rules on spills against a prime minister who leads the party to an election victory. Scott Morrison told us that change was introduced to solve the cultural malaise of ­removing prime ministers. But again, quotas to address the cultural problem of low female representation simply cannot be discussed.

Indeed, the idea that modern Liberals hold any values close enough to their hearts that they wouldn’t consider rethinking if circumstances require it is laughable. Parties of all shapes and sizes wobble on policy all the time. The days of values-driven politics are over. Pragmatism dictates so many other policy scripts, so why are Liberals suddenly dying on a (misguided) principle opposing quotas? The answer is a mixture of stubbornness, ambition and, of course, sexism.

Stubbornness ­because admitting error is always the hardest thing to do. Decades ago when Labor introduced quotas, they were attacked without mercy by a Liberal Party that commanded the female vote. As that has slipped away and it has become obvious that quotas have done their job for Labor, those who fought back then simply won’t concede they were wrong. Casting an eye across the seats up for grabs at the next election it’s likely the number of women in Coalition ranks in the House of Representatives will dip into single digits.

The ambition of the next generation means that their usually progressive thought processes are clouded, and without leadership from older generations such selfish tendencies take over.

The sexism label really makes Liberals bristle. But if it can’t be applied to the present parliamentary line-up, when can it? In the wake of allegations of bullying? In light of the low numbers of women? Given the poor outcomes in a policy sense for female Australians? Even Minister for Women Kelly O’Dwyer says her party is seen as “homo­phobic, anti-women, climate-change deniers”.

I understand the disdain many Liberals have for quotas. I oppose micro-quotas to address other representation shortfalls. But on gender I have lost patience with claims the Liberal Party can fix its problem via other means. This line has been trotted out by male powerbrokers for too long with zero effect. In the meantime one-half of the major party divide is disproportionately losing the attention of one-half of the population.

Some Liberal women who get used by the men (often unwittingly) still cling to tired arguments such as “I would hate for people to think I got to where I did only because of a quota”. Who thinks Penny Wong or Tanya Plibersek got to where they are only ­because of Labor’s quota system? Actually, I do, because if Labor didn’t have a quota, like so many similarly high-calibre women who lean Liberal, they wouldn’t have put up their hands for selection or wouldn’t have been selected. So, yes, they probably got there only because of a quota. That, if anything, is yet another argument for quotas.

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