Shorten’s boys’ club in gender bias storm

The first female president of the ACTU has labelled Bill Shorten’s Victorian Right faction a “boys’ club”.

Former Labor MP and first female ACTU president Jennie George.

The first female president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has labelled Bill Shorten’s Victorian Right faction a “boys’ club” that has junked its commitment to affirmative action for women in the Labor Party.

Jennie George, who was a federal Labor MP from 2001 to 2010, said it was “ironic” the Opposition Leader lauded the Labor Party’s female representation when his faction was “the worst offender in promoting women to the House of Representatives”.

“Since Bill Shorten took over as Leader of the Opposition not one new woman has been elected as a federal MP from the Victorian Right,” Ms George wrote in a letter to The Australian.

“To make matters worse, the Victorian Right has missed two more opportunities to promote a woman; to replace the retiring MP in Macnamara and in the newly created safe seat of Fraser.

“So much for that faction’s supposed adherence to Labor’s affirm­ative action policies.”

Ms George, a former lower house MP from the NSW Left, said the ALP national executive should express its concern that the Victorian Right was “flouting the rules” with 20 per cent of its lower house MPs being women.

She said the Left had driven the “historic struggle” for 50 per cent female representation and its efforts had “masked the perpetuation of the boys’ club in the Victorian Right”.

“By contrast, of the eight Left MPs from Victoria, five are women,” Ms George said.

“The leader should recognise that cultural change is urgently required in his own backyard if the party’s rules are to have meaning. As the saying goes: action speaks louder than words.”

Her comments come after Labor councillor Mary Delahunty, who missed preselection in the seat of Macnamara to a man, this week told The Australian the Left was attracting more talented women because Labor Right women were not being selected for safe seats.

In Daniel Andrews’ Victorian Labor government, sources said 35 per cent of Right MPs were women, compared with 65 per cent in the Left.

Federal Labor MP Joanne Ryan — one of two female lower house MPs in the Victorian Right, along with frontbencher Clare O’Neil — said the faction had no problem with promoting women.

“(National caucus) is on the cusp of 50 per cent under Bill’s leadership and that doesn’t happen by accident but because of Bill’s support for women,” Ms Ryan said. “As a woman who is in that caucus, as a woman who is a whip in that caucus and has been since 2013, Bill is very supportive of the women in his caucus and he supports more women being in the caucus.”

The female numbers in the Victorian Right could fall as departing Labor senator Jacinta Collins is expected to be replaced by a male, Raff Ciccone. But Labor Right figures noted the party had preselected women in the winnable seats of Deakin and Chisholm, the latter being held by independent MP and Liberal defector Julia Banks.

Under pressure this week about low female representation in his faction, Mr Shorten said he would talk only about the representation of the “whole Labor Party”.