Right: Dame Enid Lyons, Australia's first female MP. A Liberal member, Dame Enid once complained that the her male colleagues ''only wanted her to pour the tea''.
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Arguments in favour of the Liberal Party using quotas to get more women into Parliament
\ 1. Having a gender balance within a political party makes it more representative and positively impacts on policy and quality of representation
Supporters of more women in parliament and thus of quotas argue that parliamentarians will better represent their electorates if there is a gender balance in parliament. According to this argument, a parliament needs to reflect or mirror the population that elected it in order to help ensure that the wide-ranging needs of different sectors in the population are addressed.
This point was made by Dr Avery Poole, Assistant Director, Melbourne School of Government, University of Melbourne, in an opinion piece published in Pursuit on June 9, 2018. Dr Poole stated, 'If parliament is to be truly representative and if the burning issues affecting people's everyday lives are to be properly heard then we need a diverse parliament, and that includes more women, just as it includes having people from different backgrounds whether that be ethnicity, regionality, social-economic status, sexuality or profession.'
Dr Rae Cooper, Associate Dean, Undergraduate Business, and Associate Professor, Work and Organisational Studies, at the University of Sydney Business School, has similarly stated, 'We elect politicians to act on our behalf and in the community interest. Women parliamentarians bring different experiences with them to the leather seats of the houses of parliament. These experiences inform their behaviours and actions.
International evidence suggests that the presence of women politicians at a critical mass can impact on the issues parliaments prioritise and pursue. Where more women are involved in setting parliamentary agendas there is more effort to address gender-based violence, issues of workplace inequality and to create policies focussed on the care of young children.'
James Connelly, Professor of Politics at the University of Hull, has argued for the need for a diverse range of life experience among parliamentary representatives. Professor Connelly has stated, 'Despite their best efforts, if the composition of parliament is entirely different from the composition of the country, representatives will be unable to achieve the necessary breadth of understanding and viewpoint.'
Georgina Downer, a member of the Victorian Liberal Party's administrative committee, though not a supporter of quotas, also argues that there should be many more Liberal women parliamentarians.
Ms Downer has stated, ' The research on gender equality in decision-making establishes that there will be better results for the community as a whole if women are represented and involved in politics equally. More women in politics means a more representative democracy and sends the message that Australian society is inclusive of women.'
A similar point has been made by Melanie Fernandez, a spokesperson for WEL (Women's Electoral Lobby), who has stated, ' The lack of women in government seats is particularly shocking and nowhere near good enough from a party that says it is committed to ending gender-inequality that leads to domestic violence.'
It is further stated that a small representation of women in parliament means that much of the available ability pool within the Australian community is not being drawn on. Former prime minister, Julia Gillard, has stated, 'If you believe, as I do, that merit is equally distributed between the sexes, then if you can look at any organisation - the Parliament, the Cabinet - and not see around half-half men and women, then that must mean that there were women of merit who should've come through, but didn't come through.'
Australia's former deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Julie Bishop, though not a supporter of quotas, has similarly remarked on the wasted ability that occurs when women's capabilities are not utilised. Ms Bishop has stated, ' No...country can reach its full potential unless it embraces the skills, talents, energy, intellect and ideas of the 50-percent of the population that is female.'
2. Women are under-represented in the Liberal Party
Many supporters of women being represented in parliament argue that as women form approximately 50 per cent of the population it is reasonable to expect that they would form approximately 50 per cent of the elected members of parliament. Critics outside and within the Liberal party argue that the party is dramatically failing to achieve anything like this level of women's representation and that the situation has not shifted in a generation.
In absolute terms, the trend toward decreasing numbers of Liberal women in federal parliament has been in evidence since the late 1990s. There were three more Liberal women in parliament during 1996 compared to May 2018. In fact, 1996 saw the highest number of Liberal women holding seats in parliament. As a proportion of seats held by the party, female parliamentarians have barely increased in number. In 2016, Liberal female parliamentarians formed 24 per cent of those elected. By 2018 that percentage had dropped to 21. This is the same as the figure for 1996.
Looking only at the House of Representatives, the ratio of 17 per cent of Coalition seats occupied by women is lower than under all four terms of the Howard government, which ranged between 19 per cent and 22 per cent, and is at its lowest since Mr Keating won in 1993. Having approximately a fifth of liberal seats held by women is thrown into sharp distinction by the situation in the two other major parties. 50 per cent of Democrat representatives are women. In the 2016 election 44 per cent of elected Labor representatives were women while by 2018 that number had risen to 48 per cent.
It has been noted that the numerical inequality of women operates at a number of levels within the Liberal Party. It has been claimed that men are much more likely to win pre-selection for safe Liberal seats than women are. Since 2015, thirteen Liberal MPs have retired from safe seats, and male candidates have been chosen to replace all but two of them. By comparison, women are overwhelmingly more likely to be selected to contest marginal seats for the Liberal Party. In the 2016 federal election, the Liberal Party put forward more female candidates than ever before, but only three of the 38 were pre-selected to contest safe seats.
It is also claimed that women are under-represented in Coalition cabinets. This claim was made most forcefully when Tony Abbott was elected in 2016 and appointed only one woman, Julie Bishop, to his cabinet. The contrast was particularly stark because one of the former Labor governments had had a woman, Julia Gillard, as prime minister.
The number of women in cabinet only began to trend upwards late in John Howard's 2001-2004 term as prime minister. Since then, female representation in cabinet was lowest after Tony Abbott became prime minister in 2013. Mr Turnbull made some changes when he became prime minister. In September 2015 he promoted Michaelia Cash, Kelly O'Dwyer and Marise Payne into cabinet, and in February 2016 added Fiona Nash, taking the total number of women to six. That is more women than in any previous Liberal-National government and equals the number in Kevin Rudd's Labor cabinet.
However, neither party has achieved numbers which satisfy those looking to see women acquire more influence in parliament. Scott Morrison also has six women in his cabinet while Bill Shorten's shadow inner ministry has seven women. Under Prime Minister Julia Gillard there was a record eight women in the ministry and five in cabinet. This included a woman, Nicola Roxon, as Attorney General and another woman, Penny Wong, as Finance Minister. Wong was also Deputy Leader and then Leader of the Government in the Senate. Thus, for critics of women's representation within Liberal ministries and cabinets, it is a question of both absolute numbers and the significance of the positions held. 3. 'Merit' is used to discriminate against the pre-selection and advancement of women within the Liberal party
Opponents of the Liberal Party's supposedly merit-based system dispute that the continued small number of women pre-selected and advanced within the Liberal Party reflect the ability of the women who might have been recruited or promoted.
Long-standing Liberal senator, Judith Troeth has argued that a lack of merit is not what is preventing larger numbers of Liberal women candidates from securing a place within the parliament. Rather, she suggests, a system based on a falsely-applied concept of merit serves to deny women access. Ms Troeth has stated, 'It eventually fails the test of reason after sitting in a parliamentary party room for nearly 20 years without seeing a progressive increase in the cohort of women members. As if those handful of women members who are there were the only ''women of merit'' who put themselves forward for pre-selection.'
It has been claimed that supposedly merit-based selection processes are intrinsically biased because the concept of 'merit' is subjective and frequently reflects the group identity of those men making the judgement.
This point has also been made by former Liberal senator Judith Troeth who has been proposing her party adopt a quota system since 2005. Ms Troeth has stated, 'Believing your organisation hires and promotes on merit is not enough. Why? It turns out judging merit is not an exact science. Such decisions are frequently swayed by bias, because many decision makers have set ideas of what leaders look like and, quite often, those stereotypes are male.'
An editorial published in Elle on April 5, 2018, argued in favour of positive discrimination for women and minority groups in parliament and elsewhere. It too argued that the concept of merit was a social construct which frequently reflected the prejudices of those assessing the applicants for a position. The editorial observed, ' Countless studies have proven we do not live in a meritocracy - merit is socially constructed and gendered. By introducing blind auditions for major symphony orchestras, the United States increased women's chances of advancing through preliminary rounds by 50 per cent...Women didn't magically become better musicians overnight, but the opportunity for bias was eliminated and suddenly, the workplace was more diverse.'
Former Liberal party opposition leader, John Hewson, has argued that while any quota system would need to ensure the quality of those appointed, the Liberal Party's current supposed merit system is a fiction. Mr Hewson stated, 'Most of the men who get into parliament these days haven't ever run anything.'
It has further been noted that in supposedly merit-based interviews for pre-selection women candidates have been asked gender-biased questions about their childcare and other family arrangements. Prior to being elected as a representative of the Victorian Liberal Party, Margaret Fitzherbert declared, 'It is not a merit-based process if only the female candidates for pre-selection are asked who will look after their children if they go into parliament.
It is not a merit-based process if only the female candidates for pre-selection are asked if they are planning to have a family and how that might work with being an MP.
It is not a merit-based process if only the female candidates are told by delegates that maybe they should wait and try for a seat when their children are older.'
4. The Liberal Party will lose support among women and younger voters
Those who support a quota system within the Liberal Party argue that the party's electoral appeal will decline if its number of female candidates and representatives continues to stagnate or decline.
The 2015 'Gender and Politics' discussion paper produced by the Menzies Research Centre states, 'Correlation is not causation, but the trend over the last 20 years is clear. Labor has more women in parliament than the Coalition and it has a larger share of the female vote. By contrast, the number of Liberal women elected has largely flatlined. [If] the Liberal Party does not do something to address this, the gap between Labor and Liberal female MPs elected [is] likely to grow wider.'
The Liberal Party has been slow to react to the growing gender disparity. As a result the party's ''retail'' brand is suffering.'
The discussion paper concedes that quotas have given the Labor Party a 'competitive edge' after more women voted for Labor than men at the 2010 and 2016 elections following decades of the reverse voting pattern. It states, 'Labor Party spokespeople who appear on television or radio are more likely to be women than their counterparts. In any retail-facing business this matters.'
Commenting on the likely electoral consequences of a reduction to a probable five or six female Liberal representatives in the lower house after the next election, Sydney Morning Herald commentator, Jacqueline Maley, has stated, 'It is no longer good enough for a major party, a party that says it understands, and seeks to represent, the greatest share of the voting public, to treat half the population as a boutique minority group.'
Liberal women already elected to parliament argue that there are practical rather than ethical reasons for increasing the number of women. They claim that without additional women candidates and representatives the party will become increasingly less attractive to voters, especially female and young voters.
Liberal senator Jane Hume has stated, 'One of the tough things we have to do is convince our members and our colleagues that there is a business case for increasing the number of women in parliament.' Liberal senator Linda Reynolds has compared the situation among Liberals in Australia with that of the Conservative Party in Great Britain which has recently worked to increase its number of female representatives. She has stated, 'Their business case is once their [female] vote falls below 40 per cent, the Conservative Party will not win. They won't win in coalition or in their own right. So they've realised to win, they need more women.'
5. Quotas are the most effective means of increasing women's participation within parliament
Supporters of quotas for women in parliament both inside the Liberal Party and outside it acknowledge that quotas are the fastest and most effective means of increasing the political representation of women.
On July 13, 2016, the Centre for Ethical Leadership, University of Melbourne, published an analysis titled 'Closing the gender gap in politics'. The report claims, 'Voluntary quotas are some of the most effective mechanisms to increase female representation in parliaments. Countries such as Norway, Iceland and Sweden have some of the highest levels of female representation in their legislative bodies because of voluntary party quotas.'
The report refers to an analysis of data from 250 parliaments and legislative bodies in 190 countries about the implementation of reporting requirements, targets and quotas for women.
In the first longitudinal analysis of its kind it compares the effectiveness of reporting requirements, targets and quotas for significantly increasing female representation in parliaments, starting from 1996 to 2015. The findings were that countries reserving seats for women in parliament and countries with stronger enforcement mechanisms for their quotas had a significantly larger female representation than countries using reporting requirements or targets.
On December 15, 2010, the British edition of The Guardian published a comment by Glenys Kinnock, vice-president of the associate parliamentary group on Sudan and South Sudan and formerly a member of the European Parliament. Kinnock stated, 'Quotas clearly have a positive effect...and will achieve a specified level of representation...
All experience shows that change will not happen by osmosis - there will need to be, in the developing world and elsewhere, mechanisms designed to guarantee that women will be selected in constituencies where they have a strong change of being elected. Experience has shown that legislated quotas ensure that political parties will seek, find and train women - an effort they might not otherwise have made.
If we agree that there are potentially as many competent female candidates as there are competent male candidates, then we can only assume that their exclusion is because of discrimination. Quotas are capable of dealing with that discrimination and of ensuring that when there is women's leadership, there will be significantly more support for health education and other quality of life issues.'
Those supporting quotas also note that not only are they effective, they bring about results quickly. An international overview of electoral quotas for women, produced for the Australian parliament by Dr Joy McCann in 2013, states, 'Electoral quotas have gained international support and have proven to be effective in ''fast-tracking'' women's political representation to produce equality of results, not just equality of opportunity.'