Right at the heart of Victorian Labor’s gender woes

Talented women shut out of winning safe seats are deserting Bill Shorten’s Victorian Right faction for the Left.

Victorian Labor Right member Mary Delahunty. Picture: Chris Eastman

Talented women are shunning Bill Shorten’s Victorian Right faction for the Left because they are being shut out of winning safe seats, says Labor councillor Mary Delahunty.

Ms Delahunty, who lost pre-­selection for the seat of Mac­­namara to a man, called for an overhaul to the preselection process in the Opposition Leader’s faction as the level of female MPs stagnates at less than 25 per cent.

Departing Victorian Right senator Jacinta Collins is expected to be replaced by a man, Raff Ciccone, compounding anger within the Labor Left at the failure of the Right to elevate women into parliament.

Ms Delahunty said the Victorian Left — which has 65 per cent female MPs — was attracting women into its ranks because there were visible signs the faction did more to bring women into parliament and on to the frontbench.

“The Left is actually attracting more women into it,” Ms Delahunty told The Australian. ­“Because when you look around in the Right, there are a number of talented women but we probably don’t have the volume that the Left has attracted. And when we have them there, we haven’t made a conscious effort to make sure they rise.

“They have got a talent pool that is deeper than ours so we should feel a little let down by that.”

Only two of 10 lower house ­Victorian Right MPs are women: Clare O’Neil and Joanne Ryan. In the latest round of preselections, Josh Burns, a member of ­staff for departing Labor MP ­Michael Danby, was chosen over Ms Delahunty for the seat of ­Macnamara and Daniel Mulino ­was preferred over Natalie Suleyman for the safe seat of Fraser.

Labor Left figures also noted that just four out of 16 Right ­members of shadow cabinet are women, compared with eight out of 14 from the Left. In the national caucus, 37 per cent of Right MPs are women, compared with 59 per cent in the Left.

Ms Delahunty, from the Glen Eira council, a general manager at industry fund Hesta, and cousin of the former Victorian minister of the same name, said “darkness” around the preselection process in the Victorian Right was rewarding the same “unconscious bias again and again”.

Preselections in Victoria were cancelled this year, with the ­national executive ticking off the picks of the factions.

“You don’t wring your hands and say, ‘Oh well, there is nothing we can do. It is a volume matter,’ ” Ms Delahunty said.

“You (ascertain) the cause of it and see what you can do to ­attract women. And (that) means being more serious about preselections and making sure they are contested on merit.”

Mr Shorten yesterday lauded his party’s efforts on female representation, which is close to 50 per cent in the Labor caucus.

“The Labor Party — and we make no apology for it — we’ve decided that we want to be a party who’s about 50-50 men and women in parliament. We think we should reflect the Australian population,” Mr Shorten said.

“But it’s also the culture. It’s making sure that when you create workplaces that you have women role models. That’s why I am so lucky to have both Tanya Plibersek and Penny Wong in the leadership of the Labor Party.”

Ms Plibersek, Labor’s deputy leader who is from the Left, said ­that increasing the number of women in the party changed the culture. “I think the biggest barrier to women going into politics is the culture of the party that they’ve joined,” she said.