David Crisafulli to keep gender quotas on Queensland government boards

Women will have to make up at least half of all Queensland government board appointments after David Crisafulli unexpectedly vowed to honour Labor’s gender quotas.

Premier David Crisafulli, standing, swears in former Labor premier and now opposition leader Steven Miles. Picture: NewsWire / Glenn Campbell

Women will have to make up at least half of all Queensland government board appointments after David Crisafulli unexpectedly vowed to honour Labor’s gender quotas.

When making a new appointment to a government body, ministers will have to write to new Liberal National Party Premier David Crisafulli to “detail the process used to achieve gender ­balance, or provide reasons why gender balance cannot be achieved”, under rules set out in the cabinet handbook.

The Queensland LNP has historically been vehemently against the use of quotas to boost female representation, with the women’s arm of the party in 2021 passing a resolution to block ­quotas, instead endorsing candidates being “selected on merit”.

Queensland’s new Women’s Minister, Fiona Simpson, told The Australian in 2021 that she believed the LNP needed to do more to find women candidates to run for parliament, but was “personally not a fan of quotas”.

Women’s Minister Fiona Simpson at Parliament House. Picture: Matthew Poon

Asked if the new LNP government would retain the 50-50 gender quota for government boards and keep current reporting ­requirements in the cabinet handbook, a spokeswoman for Mr Crisafulli said: “There are no plans to change existing ­arrangements”.

The LNP is expected to overhaul the make-up of government boards in coming weeks after being critical of the former Labor government for using appointments to hand out “jobs for mates”. Former premier Annastacia Palaszczuk introduced gender equity targets in 2015 to “set the example” for the private sector to do more to promote women into senior roles.

At the time, only 31 per cent of Queensland government board positions were held by women, and that has since grown to 55 per cent under Labor’s quotas.

Ms Palaszczuk also introduced strict provisions into the cabinet handbook to ensure her cabinet remained committed to “sus­taining” the 50 per cent target, ­requiring the Office for Women to “proactively identify oppor­tunities for the appointment of women”.

A Queensland public service directive, issued last October, ­replaced previous requirement for appointments to be ”based on merit”, instead stating that selection panels needed to identify the person “who is best suited to the position‘’.

Panels must also “consider ­equity and diversity and cultural considerations‘’, as part of a ­“holistic assessment’’ to choose the “eligible person best suited to the position’’.

Debate about gender quotas reignited inside the LNP after the last federal election, when the ­Coalition haemorrhaged support over the handling of sexual violence and harassment in politics.

An internal review into the Coalition’s 2022 federal election defeat found perceptions that former prime minister Scott Morrison was “not attuned to the concerns of women” was a major driver in its loss.

Before the 2022 election, Mr Morrison said he had been “open” to quotas for some time and believed other Liberals “have been coming to this view over time”, but Mr Crisafulli rejected implementing mandates for female candidates ahead of Queensland’s October state election.

Instead, Mr Crisafulli pushed ahead with a soft target of endorsing women in 50 per cent of the LNP’s 14 target seats, without ­interfering in grassroot preselections. Of the LNP’s 93 candidates at the 2020 state election, 26 were women compared with Labor’s 40. At the 2024 election, the LNP had 37 women compared with Labor’s 47.