Liberal Party reform may be slow but it’s solid

Linda Reynolds and Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: AAP

Service to our nation has been a constant in my adult life. I am an equally proud Liberal woman and servicewoman. The philosophies and values of both the army and the Liberal Party have always resonated powerfully with me.

Both are traditionally male-dominated professions in which women remain under-represented — not because of deliberate bias or misogyny but because they ­reflect the eras of their creation, eras when workplaces were predominantly male and women worked at home, rearing a family. The Liberal Party was co-founded by strong and passionate women, traits that continue in the women I am proud to work with today.

There is no greater passion for me than the pursuit of equality of opportunity for women to serve our nation alongside our men — in whatever capacity they choose and have the aptitude for.

As I have regularly publicly and privately observed, the Liberal Party has a challenge in engaging with women on policy outcomes and seeking more women for preselection and election. The Liberal Party shares this challenge with other centre-right parties including Britain’s Conservative party and the Republicans in the US.

The reasons for this are complex, particularly as quotas are not an option. The Liberal Party is not a party of formal quotas; we have never been and I believe never will be. The reason for this is not well understood, however. As a party grounded in democratic principles, we believe in equality of opportunity. Conversely, quotas, which are designed to engineer equality of outcome, are a fundamentally socialist concept and an anathema to Liberal values.

To realise genuine equality of opportunity often means providing differing needs-based support — a hard concept to grasp but an essential one to provide true equality of opportunity as an alternative to an equality of outcome.

Quotas in and of themselves are a quick fix, but they do not change the structural and cultural barriers in an organisation. In the absence of other organisational transformations, when quotas are ­removed the changes do not stick. While I do not pass judgment on the Labor Party’s gender quotas, I believe if removed the present mix would not last.

It is for these reasons I believe the only way to realise lasting change in politics is through genuine organisational and behav­ioural transformation. It’s always the harder journey to embark on and sustain but the only way to ­realise enduring reform. I know this through experience with reforms within the army.

I have never defined myself or my success by my gender and I never saw myself as a victim or as someone requiring special treatment. In hindsight, I had the passion, resilience and capacity for hard work. But on their own, those qualities were not enough. What I also needed were others who saw my potential and understood what I could do and what I needed to do to succeed in both organisations. Fortunately, in politics and the army I had colleagues who, on their own initiative, mentored and sponsored me.

With their guidance and encouragement, I became the first woman in the Army Reserve to attain the rank of brigadier, the first and only woman to be the deputy federal ­director of the Liberal Party and now, as an assistant minister, I lead the West Australian Liberal Senate ticket for the next election.

Today I am comfortable and confident as a female leader, as someone who often challenges the status quo by thinking and ­approaching issues with a different voice and perspective. I understand the challenge today for organisations is how to value and harness this diversity — to provide a genuine equality of opportunity for all Australians, to provide others with the same opportunities to realise their potential, just as I had.

This is the reason I continue to work hard to effect genuine organisational change within the Liberal Party. It may not be the quick fix the media is seeking but we are now seeing genuine change.

One of the first things I did as a senator was to drive a review and reform agenda through our federal executive. The party has adopted targets and all state and territory divisions are taking ­action to encourage more women into the party, to mentor them into leadership positions and eventually into preselection and parliament: the longer path but the right one.

The party’s approach contrasts sharply with the “whatever it takes” approach of Bill Shorten and his team, who have shamelessly politically weaponised this issue. This approach does not surprise me but it does disappoint me. As they well know, it ­impedes progress of women in other political parties and publicly it does little to set the example for other women and encourage them to engage in the political process.

That the women of the Labor Party exploit these issues in the parliament and in the media says so much about the psyche of Labor. What saddens me is Labor women allow themselves to be used in this way. The obvious question is why do they do it. Is it because they cannot refuse to do so or is it because they have been so desensitised within the trade union movement and Labor that they neither see nor care about the consequences? Whatever the reason, it is a clear demonstration to me that the culture within the Labor Party has not yet evolved from the culture of another era.

I am proud to be a member of the Liberal Party. Like all organisations, we will not always get the process of genuine reform right. But there is no doubt we are seeking to transform our organisational processes and culture — in the right way for the right reasons.

I am in it for the long haul, as are so many others in the Liberal Party. The next generation and Australia deserve nothing less.

Linda Reynolds is a Liberal senator for Western Australia.