Gender and politics

A Menzies Research Centre

Discussion Paper

Nick Cater and Nicolle Flint

 No educated man today denies a place or a
career to a woman just because she is a woman.1

– Robert Gordon Menzies

 This report was prepared by Nick Cater and Nicolle Flint for the
Menzies Research Centre as a contribution to the renewed discussion
of the gender imbalance in the Liberal Party. It draws on discussion
at the MRC Gender and Politics forum in Melbourne on 26 June 2015.
It will be presented to the federal Women’s Committee Conference
in Adelaide on 15-16 August 2015, convened to celebrate the 70th
Anniversary of the establishment of the Committee.

Nick Cater
Is Executive Director of the Menzies Research Centre and writes for The Australian.
He is author of The Lucky Culture (Harper Collins 2013). He edited The Howard Factor
(MUP 2006) and A Better Class of Sunset: The collected works of Christopher Pearson
(Connor Court 2014).

Nicolle Flint
Writes for The Advertiser. She has worked as a policy adviser to state and federal
Liberal leaders and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. She is
the current Chairman of the Rural and Regional Council, Liberal Party of Australia
(SA Division).

Cover picture: Eleni Petinos campaigning for the seat of Miranda at the 2015 NSW state election.
Picture: John Veage
 PRIME MINISTER

I congratulate the Menzies Research Centre on its paper regarding the gender imbalance
in our party – and the work that we have to do to increase female participation in the
organisation and in parliament.

Just over seventy years ago, Sir Robert Menzies invited the Australian Women’s
National League to be part of the creation of the Liberal Party.

Because of Menzies and the work of the League, women were entrenched in the power
structures of the new Liberal Party.

Our Party was ahead of its time then.

Our challenge is to meet the challenges of these times now.

As this Menzies Research Centre paper demonstrates, we need more female

involvement, participation and leadership in the Liberal Party.

This paper is a call for the Liberal Party to increase the involvement of women in its
organisation and parliamentary ranks.

We must do this so that our parliamentary party better reflects the depth and breadth of
the Australian people.

The Liberal Party must do better at training, mentoring, sponsoring and identifying
women candidates. As well, we must identify and remove the barriers that deter women
from participating in the activities of our Party.

We have many talented and inspirational women in the Parliamentary Party, including
my Deputy, the Hon Julie Bishop MP. However, as this paper demonstrates, we need
far more women in our parliamentary ranks.

I thank the Menzies Research Centre for its contribution to a conversation that we need
to have inside the Liberal Party.

The Hon Tony Abbott MP

Prime Minister of Australia
Contents
Introduction 1

A Liberal approach to women in politics 4

Lessons from the corporate sector 6

The electoral imperative for change 9

‘Retail’ politics 12

From the grassroots up 15

Targeted intervention 17

Findings and recommendations 23

Appendix 25

Acknowlegements 27

References 28
Introduction
The Liberal Party has issues with women. But so does Australian politics. Less than a third of federal and
state parliamentarians are women. They form a minority in every state, territory and federal chamber and in
both major parties.2
The lack of women on both sides of parliament is the legacy of an historical gender imbalance in politics
in Australia. Although Australian women were among the first in the world to be enfranchised, their political
participation as elected representatives has failed to live up to that early achievement.3
Over the past two decades women have become better educated and have made inroads into leadership roles
in corporate and civil society. When it comes to political representation, however, progress has been slow.

Figure 1: Composition of all Australian parliaments by gender, as at 21 May 2015

Parliament Lower House Upper House Total for both chambers

M F Total %F M F Total %F M F Total %F

Commonwealth 110 40 150 26.7 45 31 76 40.8 155 71 226 31.4

NSW 65 28 93 30.1 32 10 42 23.8 97 38 135 28.1

VIC 56 32 88 36.4 23 17 40 42.5 79 49 128 38.3

QLD 64 25 89 28.1 64 25 89 28.1

WA 45 14 59 23.7 22 14 36 38.9 67 28 95 29.5

SA 34 13 47 27.7 17 5 22 22.7 51 18 69 26.1

TAS 16 9 25 36.0 9 6 15 40.0 25 15 40 37.5

ACT 10 7 17 41.2 10 7 17 41.2

NT 14 11 25 44 14 11 25 44

TOTAL 414 179 593 30.2 148 83 231 35.9 562 262 824 31.8
Source: Commonwealth Parliamentary Library, state and territory parliamentary websites

The gender imbalance in political representation is not peculiar to Australia. Australia sits in the middle
of the OECD rankings in terms of women in parliament ahead of the United Kingdom, Canada and the
United States (Figure 2).4

Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper 1

Figure 2: OECD, Share of women parliamentarians, international comparison

% 2015 2012 2002

50

45
40

35

30

25

20

15

10

0
SWE
FIM
ISL
ESP
NOR
BEL
DNK
MEX
NLD
SVN
DEU
NZL
PRT
ITA
AUT
CHE
LUX
OECD
AUS
FRA
CAN
POL
GRC
GBR
ISR
EST
USA
CZE
SVK
KOR
IRL
CHL
TUR
HUN
JPN

COL
LVA
Note: Bars in light blue represent countries with lower or single house parliaments with legislated candidate quotas
as of 21 January, 2013.
Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), PARLINE (database), and IDEA Global Database of Quotas for Women.

Does the gender imbalance matter? Women, after all, enjoy the equality of opportunity, and, as the beneficiaries
of the liberal democratic tradition, an enviable quality of life. As the political philosopher Kenneth Minogue wrote,
in contrast with women of any other civilisation, ‘Western women already enjoy extensive freedom to construct
their own identity and to play any role they might like in the activities of the modern world.’5
Yet, in the corporate and political spheres women remain underrepresented in senior decision-making roles. This
report argues that the imbalance must be corrected and that the Liberal Party should be at the forefront of change.
Respect for women is woven through the Liberal Party’s history and embedded in its founding principles. The
Liberal commitment to opportunity is not gender specific. As Menzies said in 1942, ‘that each of us should have
his chance is and must be the great objective of political and social policy.’6
Prime Minister Tony Abbott, in the tradition of Menzies, has pledged to lead a government that allows every
Australian to make choices. ‘Our country will best flourish when all of our citizens, individually and collectively,
have the best chance to be their best selves.’7 The Liberal Party’s commitment to freedom and choice compels
it to lead by example in the participation of women.
The gender imbalance limits the diversity of life-experience that can be drawn upon to shape our nation. A growing
body of evidence from the private sector, backed by studies in social psychology, suggests that gender-diverse
companies are better managed, more customer-friendly and perform more strongly than homogenous organisations.
Men and women bring different skills and experience to the table; between them they are likely to achieve greater
things more often. We see no reason to assume that the rules are different in the business of politics.
For political parties, like any other retail-facing business, appearance and presentation matter. Retaining and
improving the Liberal Party’s retail appeal requires presenting a range of male and female candidates.

2 Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper

 The Liberal Party was the party favoured by female voters for more than half a century. Since 2001, however, the Liberals’
support among women relative to men has waned, particularly among younger voters. The strengthening of Labor’s
female vote has coincided with a noticeable increase in the number of Labor women preselected in winnable seats.
Currently, 44 per cent of Labor state, territory and federal representatives are women compared with 22 per cent of all
Liberal MPs (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Percentage of women in all Australian parliaments by major party, 1994–2015

50
45
40
35
Per cent female

30
25
20 ALP

15
Coalition
10
5
0
Jan-94
Jan-95
Jan-96
Jan-97
Jan-98
Jan-99
Jan-00
Jan-01
Jan-02
Jan-03
Jan-04
Jan-05
Jan-06
Jan-07
Jan-08
Jan-09
Jan-10
Jan-11
Jan-12
Jan-13
Jan-14
Jan-15
Source: Historical data for composition of Australian parliaments by party and gender, maintained by Parliamentary Library since 1994

Since 1994 the Labor Party has over doubled its number of female parliamentarians in Australian jurisdictions while the
Liberal Party’s female representation has risen by a mere ten per cent. The paper argues that mainstream political parties,
like modern businesses, must address the issue of gender imbalance. The Liberal Party must develop a framework for
change that is true to its traditions and principles.

Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper 3

A Liberal approach to women in politics
In recent years the arguments for the greater participation of women in politics have largely been ceded to
feminists and socialists. Consequently the debate has become clouded with notions of victimhood, oppression
and discrimination from which Liberals justifiably recoil. Sexism, like racism, has been devalued by overuse.
The word ‘feminist’ has become a badge of political identity.
Senator Linda Reynolds expressed a frustration with the left-leaning approach to women in politics at the Menzies
Research Centre Gender and Politics Forum in June 2015:

I am neither a gender warrior nor an advocate of quotas, and I do not identify as a

feminist, or at least what feminism appears to have morphed into today. The sisterhood’s
battle-cry remains a narrow and angry left-wing narrative, one of victim-hood, and one
that demands women receive special treatment, simply because we are women, their
solution is quotas to achieve equality of outcome.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told the National Press Club in October 2014:

It’s not a term I find particularly useful these days…I self-describe in many other
ways. It’s not because I have a pathological dislike of the term, I just don’t use it.
It’s not part of my lexicon.
I don’t think anybody should take offense. I’m a female politician, I’m a female
foreign minister. Yeah well? Get over it.8

Prime minister Julia Gillard’s notorious misogyny speech in October 2012 that invited us to consider her as a
‘victim’ exposed the flimsiness of the feminist critique. Here was the woman who had risen to the highest office
in our nation claiming she had suffered from ‘sexist’ behaviour. The prime minister’s evidence was shallow;
when Tony Abbott glanced at his watch it was proffered as prima facie evidence of sexism.
Such superficial arguments have hurt the cause of women. The enforcement of political correctness and the advent
of spokespersons, chairpersons and doorpersons have clouded discussion. Moral posturing, tortured language
and groupthink have alienated men and women alike.
The Liberal case for gender balance in politics, or indeed any other walk of life, has a stronger foundation. It is built
on the principles of individual choice, opportunity, and the recognition of merit and democratic representation.
Yet the consistent and entrenched pattern of gender imbalance at every level of the Liberal Party, every state and
territory and within every parliament (Figure 4) strongly suggests that, by choice or design, women in general are
not taking up the opportunity to reach their full potential.

4 Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper

Figure 4: Liberal Party representation in all Australian parliaments by gender, as at 21 May 2015

Parliament Lower House Upper House Total for both chambers

M F Total %F M F Total %F M F Total %F

Commonwealth 58 16 74 21.6 21 6 27 22.2 79 22 101 21.8

NSW 29 8 37 21.6 11 2 13 15.4 40 10 50 20

VIC 24 6 30 20 9 5 14 35.7 33 11 44 25

QLD 34 8 42 19 34 8 42 19

WA 26 5 31 16.1 12 5 17 29.4 38 10 48 20.8

SA 18 3 21 14.3 6 2 8 25 24 5 29 17.2

TAS 11 4 15 26.7 2 2 100 11 6 17 35.3

ACT 5 3 8 37.5 5 3 8 37.5

NT 10 4 14 28.6 10 4 14 28.6

TOTAL 215 57 272 20.95 59 22 81 27.2 274 79 353 22.4

Source: Commonwealth Parliamentary Library, state and territory parliamentary websites

Liberals might recoil at the term “glass ceiling” since there are no gender-based institutional barriers to participation in
the party. But the figures speak for themselves; Liberal women are underrepresented in all parliaments. The approach
followed for the past 20 years has not increased female participation. The party must explore strategies that may.

Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper 5

Lessons from the corporate sector
The experience of the business sector in the past decade demonstrates there is sound reason to increase the
participation of women, particularly in leadership roles. Capitalising on women as workers and consumers adds
to the bottom line. Corporations today are inclined to frame gender diversity less as a matter of ethical compliance
and more as a competitive advantage.

Corporations today frame gender diversity less as a matter of ethical compliance and
more as a competitive advantage.

Deloitte’s 2011 report, The Gender Dividend: Making the business case for investing in women, concludes:
“investing in women must be taken out of the realm of ideology and into the executive suite, or better yet, the
balance sheet.”9 There is strong empirical evidence that gender diversity increases organisational, financial and
market performance.10 11
• A European study found that 67 per cent of companies that implemented diversity programs noted a positive
improvement in their brand image.12
• A Catalyst study of Fortune 500 companies across a four-to-five year period found that there was a 16 per
cent gap in return on sales between companies with the most women on boards and those with the least.13
• A study of ASX500 companies found a positive correlation between female board representation and
return-on-equity.14
• Companies with women in key executive and board positions were better governed and have a lower risk
of insolvency.15 16
McKinsey & Company studied the performance of the 89 European listed companies with the highest level of
gender diversity and concluded:

There can be no doubt that, on average, these companies outperform their sector
in terms of return on equity (11.4 per cent / 10.3 per cent), operating results
(EBIT 11 per cent / 5.8 per cent) and stock price growth (64 per cent / 47 per cent)
over the period 2005 – 2007.17

The experience of the Australian Defence Force is similar in many ways to business. Air Chief Marshal Mark
Binskin AC told the Menzies Research Centre’s Gender and Politics Forum:

The reason we’re doing this is for capability. We need to be the best Defence Force
we can be and we’re not going to do that unless we address the gender imbalance
that we have.

So for me personally, I’m keen for the Australian Defence Force to become more diverse
because diversity enhances capability. It’s been my experience diverse teams challenge
each other, they see the widest range of risks, are able to come up with creative solutions
to those issues that arise.

6 Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper

The notion that a diverse working group is likely to be a more effective working group finds support in social
science. Scott E. Page, a professor of complex systems at Michigan University claims a diverse group of competent
performers almost always outperforms a homogenous group of stars.18
If we assume these principles apply equally to the business of politics – and we see no good reason why they
would not – it would be foolish to dismiss diversity as a matter of pure symbolism.
The first lesson from business is that a diverse party is more likely to achieve government - and is more likely
to achieve in government - than a homogenous party.
The second lesson is that diversification is slow to happen by itself. Achieving the level of diversification now
considered a basic requirement in the corporate sector requires targeted intervention.

Targets
The corporate sector no longer regards gender diversity programs as ethical window-dressing but as a strategy
for better performance.
The consensus is that measurable, achievable targets, backed by empiricism and accountability are firmly
implanted in mainstream commercial operations. In the course of researching this report we struggled to find
a single voice in business prepared to outline an effective strategy that did not include targets. Organisations as
diverse as the ANZ Bank and the Australian Defence Force have adopted targets as part of their approach to
improving female representation.
ANZ’s diversity policy, for example, reflects the latest corporate best practice and its stated purpose sits comfortably
with Liberal values of choice and opportunity.

We believe in the inherent strength of a vibrant, diverse and inclusive workforce

where the backgrounds, perspectives and life experiences of our people help us to
forge strong connections with all our customers, innovate and make better decisions
for our business.19

ANZ identifies four means of achieving its goals. First, it educates its line managers and employers about its
diversity policy and helps them balance organisational demands with employee priorities. Second, it actively
addresses the unconscious biases in its policies, processes and practices through programs such as its
Leadership Pathway and Talent programs. Third, it encourages flexible working practices that recognise the
changing demands on its employees at different stages in their lives. Fourth it makes its managers accountable
by setting targets and measuring performance. The bank takes stock of the demographic diversity of its
workforce in an annual employee survey.
Policies designed to achieve “cultural change” in organisations sometimes appear to be little more than abstract
notions buttressed by feel-good statements. Measurement, reporting and accountability, on the other hand, are
practical steps that are consistently cited by business leaders as the most effective way to achieve change.
The ADF too has made its biggest strides in diversity since committing to targets. Binskin told the Menzies
Research Centre Forum:

The Number one lesson and you’ll hear it time and time again… is setting targets,
but not unachievable targets. They’ve got to be targets that you look at where you
are now, make it in bite size chunks … you want to have a target that’s out 20 or 30
years – that’s great, but do it at about 5 year increments or you’re not going to have
achievable targets for people to look at.

Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper 7

The Male Champions of Change group (MCC), comprised of businesses including CBA, Telstra, Woolworths,
Goldman Sachs, Rio Tinto and Qantas, has also adopted a target-based approach. Their 2014 Progress Report
states they have “set granular targets” and are attempting to “break entrenched patterns by engaging managers in
the objective of women’s representation on their teams and more broadly.”20 Specifically the MCC has introduced:
• Target setting. 75 per cent of MCC organisations have targets to improve the representation of women in
leadership embedded in senior executive KPIs.
• The Panel Pledge. MCCs remain committed to their ‘Panel Pledge’ to increase women’s representation in
public forums, panels and taskforces they participate in. When asked to be involved in, or sponsor, a panel or
conference each MCC asks about organiser efforts to ensure women leaders are represented. ANZ and Telstra
have cascaded the Panel Pledge to executives.21
The MCC Report provides detailed figures on whether defined targets are being met.22 Although targets are
non-binding, in this way they hold key decision makers to account. Targets increase the visibility of the problem
and enable progress to be measured. They allow companies to compare their performance with their peers.
-Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick describes how targets work for the MCC.

Every one of them has set a target at some point in the career continuum. It doesn’t
matter what that target is – it can be 10 per cent, it can be 30 per cent; it doesn’t really
matter. It’s the act of agreeing and making public the target that creates the change.

The reason for that is when you actually set the target, you crystallise your intent and
you signal to the organisation, internally and externally, that this issue is a priority for
you. Not only that, you’re much more likely to throw out strategies that are not delivering
against that target. So you won’t continue to pursue strategies that are not delivering
and that is why I think targets are important.

The evidence that targets work in business is convincing. Since 2011 every publicly listed company has been
required to set a target for the number of women on the Board at a senior executive level. Says Broderick:

Four years on, we have seen a doubling of the number of women on boards. We’ve
gone from 8 per cent to 20 per cent, more than doubling. In the previous decade,
we’d gone up 0.2 per cent.

The question for the Liberal Party is whether it is willing to follow the lead of the corporate sector to achieve
change within its ranks.

8 Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper

The electoral imperative for change
For most of its history the Liberal Party was the party preferred by female voters.
Even before the establishment of the Liberal Party in 1944, it was infused with a relatively enlightened attitude
to women that reflected the outlook of founder Sir Robert Menzies. In a radio talk entitled ‘Women for Canberra’
in 1943, Menzies delivered clear statement of intent:

Of course women are at least the equals of men. Of course there is no reason why a
qualified woman should not sit in Parliament or on the Bench or in a professorial Chair,
or preach from the pulpit, or if you like, command an Army in the field. No educated man
today denies a place or a career to a woman just because she is a woman.23

The assembling of non-Labor forces under the banner of the Australian Liberal Party in 1945 brought together
parties that previously had been divided by state and gender. The grass-roots strength of bodies like the Queensland
Women’s Electoral League, the Victoria-based Australian Women’s National League and Tasmania’s Australian
Women’s National League gave Menzies’ new party a clear advantage with women voters.
For decades this helped cement the Liberal Party’s electoral strength. As the empirical data demonstrates, women
were naturally conservative voters who, all other things being equal, were more inclined to vote Liberal than Labor.
Empirical evidence of the gender split at polls in the Liberal Party’s first two decades is not easy to come by.
Opinion polling from the mid 1960s, however, suggests that the Liberal Party under Menzies had a decisive lead
among women voters over Labor (Figure 5). It is often said that Menzies would not have won the 1961 election
were it not for the support of the Democratic Labor Party. It is probably also true that he would not have won a
seventh term without the support of women.24

Figure 5: Gender Gap in Voting in Australia, 1967-2013

10 9
8
8 6 6
6 5
4
4 2 2
Index

2
0 0 0 0
0
-2
-4 -7
-6
-8
1967 1969 1979 1987 1990 1993 1996 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010 2013

The figures are the percentage of men voting Labor minus the percentage of women voting Labor.
Sources: 1967-79 ANPAS; 1987-2013 AES

Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper 9

The longevity of female support for the Liberal Party and rejection of the Labor Party was a trend that persisted
from 1967 until the election in 2001. For many years the Labor Party’s masculine image was reinforced by links to
industrial unions which the public associated with confrontation and strikes. Labor Party focus group material from
the early 1970s suggests this was a particularly influential factor.
Morgan Gallup polling on the eve of the 1966 election found that 37 per cent of men expressed a preference for
Arthur Calwell’s Labor Party compared to only 32 per cent of women. Harold Holt’s Coalition, on the other hand,
had greater support among women (52 per cent) than men (47 per cent.)
Gough Whitlam’s supposed appeal to women voters, like so much else about the received history of that period,
turns out to be more myth than fact. Support for Whitlam from women was softer than support from men at
elections in 1972, 1974 and 1975. A Labor committee of inquiry after the 1977 federal election defeat found women’s
rights was a boutique concern of a small minority: ‘We are seen by some women as being too closely aligned with
radical feminist views, or as opposed to the traditional view of the importance and role of the family.’25
The feminine bias towards the Coalition continued under Malcolm Fraser’s leadership. It was not until Bob Hawke’s
ascendency in the early 1980s that Labor’s masculine image began to soften. In two elections the Coalition’s male/
female ratio voting ratio levelled off at 50/50.
Keating proved less appealing to women than his predecessor and from 1993 the Coalition advantage with women
voters returned. Under John Howard’s leadership the gender split in the Coalition favoured women at the 1996
election which also remains the high water mark for the number of female Liberal MPs and Senators.
The 2001 election was a turning point for women voters in federal politics. For the first time in the history of the
Australian Electoral Survey – and probably for the first time since the creation of the Liberal Party – female voters
favoured Labor over Liberal.
The shift was decisive. In the 1998 GST election 52 per cent of AES respondents who said they voted Liberal were
women. In 2001 that proportion fell to 49 per cent. Labor crossed a threshold too; female support for the party was
larger than male support – 50.5 per cent to 49.5 per cent. Female support for Australian Democrats, then led by
Natasha Stott Despoja, increased from 57.2 per cent of the party’s total support in 1998 to 62.9 per cent in 2001.
The 2001 election was exceptional in many ways. It is possible that the Howard government’s tough policies on
border control were less well received by women than by men. Yet the trend at subsequent elections suggests
factors beyond the immediate political agenda of the time. Fewer women than men have voted Liberal in four of
the five elections since 2001. Labor, on the other hand, has enjoyed greater support from women than from men
in all five.
The male-leaning imbalance in the Liberal Party’s vote since 2001, however, must be put in perspective.
The Liberal Party’s gender-gap is not as pronounced as the male bias in Labor’s support in a previous era. Even in
2010, when Julia Gillard gave Labor a significant advantage among some women, the Liberal Party’s gender gap
was only a third as large as Labor’s at the 1969 federal election.
Furthermore, the changing gender vote pattern is not unique to Australia. In Britain, women favoured the
Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher. Since Tony Blair’s victory in 1997, however, Labor drew about as
many or more votes from women as men.26 The same pattern can be seen in France, Germany and the United
States. This does not mean, however, that the Liberal Party should meekly accept what is a globally-common fate.
The switch in male-female voting patterns since 2001 may in part reflect an increase in the proportion of women
who attend university (Figure 6). Evidence suggests a correlation between experience of higher education and the
adoption of progressive views.27

10 Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper

Figure 6: Proportions Attending University, Men and Women, 1967-2013
40
35
30 Male
25 Female
Index

0
20
15
10
5
0
1967 1969 1979 1987 1990 1993 1996 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010 2013

For 1967-79, estimates are those who had completed university, for 1987-2013 completed a degree or postgraduate degree.
Sources: 1967-79 ANPAS; 1987-2013 AES

Perhaps the most pertinent point about the gender voting gap for the Liberal Party is that Julia Gillard, despite her
broader unpopularity, won the 2010 election on the strength of the women’s vote. The fact Labor did not present strong
female-focussed policies makes Gillard’s achievement all the more remarkable. If women (and particularly tertiary-educated
women) had based their decision on policy they would have voted for the Liberal Party whose paid parental leave scheme
was far more favourable to women than the policy presented by the Labor Party.
While Rudd was markedly less popular with female voters, there was strong support for Labor at the 2013 election from
younger women (Figure 7). Gen-X women – those born between 1963 and 1982 – overwhelmingly preferred Labor and the
Greens (47 per cent) to the Coalition (30 per cent). The contest for Gen-Y women (born between 1983 and 1992) turned
into a rout. More than half (51 per cent) favoured Labor and the Greens while barely a quarter (27.4 per cent) backed the
Coalition. Particularly striking in the female Gen-Y constituency was the paltry support for the Nationals (0.4 per cent) com-
pared to the solid support for the Greens (14 per cent).
While younger voters generally tend to lean to the Left, at the 2013 election Gen X and Gen Y women voted Labor and
the Greens in significantly greater numbers than their male contemporaries. In the long term interests of the party, this
particular imbalance must be addressed.

Figure 7: Gen X and Gen Y voting at the 2013 election

6%
3% 10%
2%

War Generation 6%
Baby boomers 4% Labor
1910 - 1942 1943 - 1962 4% 39%
Nats
4% Greens
51%

Other
32% None
Liberal
39%

18%
18%
30% 27%
Gen X 3%
Gen Y
4%
1963 - 1982 1983 - 2002
10%

14%
2%

0.4%

37% 37%

How women cast their votes at the 2013 election. Source: Australian Electoral Survey

Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper 11

‘Retail’ Politics
The shift in the female vote to Labor has coincided with increased numbers of female Labor candidates. Politics
is essentially a retail-facing business and since the advent of television in the 1950s each successive election has
demanded more of politicians as media performers. Retail appeal requires a diverse team of men and women who
appear familiar and trustworthy to the electorate. A leadership team dominated by any particular section of the
population will struggle to gain the broad appeal.
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 also has a larger share of the female vote. The number of female Labor MPs has doubled while
the Liberal Party’s has increased by just 10 per cent. Historically, since 1943, 27 Liberal women have been elected
to the Senate compared to 36 Labor women. In the House of Representatives 35 Liberal women have been elected
in contrast to 59 Labor women.28
The Liberal Party has been slow to react to the growing gender disparity. As a result the party’s ‘retail’ brand is
suffering. Labor’s quota system, however flawed, has given the ALP a competitive edge. In both recent and historic
terms, female Labor candidates have enjoyed more success in securing federal lower or upper house positions
than their Liberal counterparts.29 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.
The affirmative action policy adopted by the ALP in 1994 has undoubtedly contributed to the party’s relatively
(and we stress relatively) strong female representation. As McCann and Wilson record, “[i]n 1994 the ALP adopted
a mandatory 35 per cent preselection quota for women in winnable seats at all elections by 2002.”30 Following this,
a “40:40:20 quota system was introduced from 1 January 2012” whereby 40 per cent of seats held by Labor were
filled by women, 40 by men and 20 per cent by either gender.31 Labor has now committed to ensuring 50 per cent of
its parliamentarians are women by 2025.32
The consequences of Labor’s 1994 policy were not apparent for several elections. The Liberals pre-selected more
women for the House of Representatives than Labor in the 1990 election (14.1 per cent to 12.8 per cent) and the
1996 election (25.6 per cent to 20.3 per cent) but Labor has fielded more female candidates in every subsequent
election (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Liberal and Labor female candidates 1983-2013

40 38.7
Labor
34.5
32.7
30 30.7 31.3
25.6 30
23.7 23.1 Liberal
23
23.1
20 17.6 17.7 20.3
20.7
16 17.9
14.1
15
12.2 12.8
10 11.4
8.2 8.7

0
1983 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010 2013

Candidates for House of Representatives

Source: Parliamentary Library

12 Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper

 There has been progress. The proportion of women on the senate ticket in 2013, around 40 per cent, was roughly
the same for both Labor and Liberal.
The other striking fact in terms of parliamentary representation, however, is the steady increase of the number of
Labor women elected to all parliaments over the past 20 years (Figure 9). By contrast, the number of Liberal women
elected has flat-lined. Unless the Liberal Party does not do something to address this, the gap between Labor and
Liberal female MPs elected is likely to grow wider.
In July 2015 the ALP National Conference adopted a proposal for 50 per cent female representation, although this
may or may not increase the quality of the candidates, as Peter Reith recently observed:

Labor is promising that 50 per cent of all Labor MPs should be women and that
outcome should be achieved by quotas. After repeated failed attempts, Gillard was
pre-selected thanks to the quota system. According to the Labor party Gillard’s
ascension as prime minister was a victory for the ALP’s quota system. Maybe over
time, Labor might realise quotas can get an MP to the prime ministership but not
necessarily produce a prime minister who is up to the task.33

Regardless, what experience suggests is under the revised quota the number of female Labor members is
certain to increase.

Figure 9: Percentage of women in all Australian parliaments by major party, 1994–2015

50
45
40
35
Per cent female

30
25 ALP

20 Coalition
15
10
5
0
Jan-94
Jan-95
Jan-96
Jan-97
Jan-98
Jan-99
Jan-00
Jan-01
Jan-02
Jan-03
Jan-04
Jan-05
Jan-06
Jan-07
Jan-08
Jan-09
Jan-10
Jan-11
Jan-12
Jan-13
Jan-14
Jan-15

Source: Historical data for composition of Australian parliaments by party and gender, maintained by Parliamentary Library since 1994

Labor is not just leading with the number of MPs. At the federal level there remains a striking difference between
the number of female Liberal Parliamentary Secretaries, Ministers and Cabinet Ministers compared with their
Labor counterparts. Liberal women hold 19 per cent of these roles, while Labor women hold 40 per cent of
appointed positions.

Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper 13

The following table reports the percentages of women overall in Australia in 2014 and shows women are under
represented on every front bench. When women do rise to the ministerial ranks they are overwhelmingly
appointed to welfare-orientated portfolios (social services, health). It was not until 2013, for example, that a
woman held the post of Minister for Foreign Affairs. It has been widely noted that Gladys Berejiklian was the
first woman to be sworn in as NSW Treasurer. It is less recognised that in 2011 she was the first woman to
be appointed as the state’s transport minister.

Figure 10: Ministries and shadow ministries in Australian parliaments by gender, as at 30 April 2014

Parliament Government Opposition

M F Total %F M F Total %F

Commonwealth 25 5 30 16.7 18 11 29 37.9

States and territories*

ACT 3 2 5 40.0 5 2 7 28.6

SA 9 4 13 30.8 7 1 8 12.5

NSW 17 5 22 22.7 15 6 21 28.6

TAS 7 2 9 22.2 3 4 7 57.1

NT 7 2 9 22.2 4 4 8 50.0

VIC 18 5 23 21.7 15 9 24 37.5

WA 14 3 17 17.6 14 5 19 26.3

QLD 17 2 19 10.5 3 5 8 62.5

All states and territories 92 25 117 21.4 66 36 102 35.3

All Australian parliaments 117 30 147 20.4 84 47 131 35.9

Source: State and Territory parliament, government and political party websites
*All ministers in state and territory ministries are members of Cabinet

14 Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper

From the grassroots up
Our research demonstrates the problem of women’s representation in the Liberal Party in every division starts
at the grassroots level. Worryingly, the issues begin within the Young Liberal Movement. (Figure 11). Female
membership of the Young Liberal movement sits at 29 per cent women to 71 per cent men. The senior party
records female membership of 42 per cent women and 58 per cent men. Across divisions, grassroots participation
in President-level leadership from the branches up sits on average at 19 per cent women to 81 per cent men.

Figure 11: Gender imbalance within the Liberal Party

90
80
70
60
50
Percentage Men
40
Percentage Women
30
20
10
0

Young Liberal Senior Party Party Presidents

Movement

It is worth noting as an aside that these statistics were not easy to come by. That gender statistics are not – to the
best of our knowledge – routinely collected suggests the party is not recognising the seriousness of the problem.
Given that the gender imbalance in the party’s organisational leadership closely matches that in parliamentary party
rooms, it would seem that the lack of female participation starts at the entry level to the party. This further suggests
that pre-selection outcomes are a fair representation of the availability of talent within the party.
Detailed recommendations about the party’s organisation are outside the scope of this paper. It is clear, however,
that they must be addressed if the party is to attract and nurture the most talented representatives. Leadership roles
at branch or party representative level provide leadership training that equips potential candidates with the skills
and confidence necessary to be successful parliamentary representatives. Organisational experience better prepares
individuals for parliamentary leadership roles whether as Ministers, Shadow Ministers, Whips, leaders of the House
or even state or federal Parliamentary Leader.
Even at the branch level, Presidents must manage their members, appoint people to roles, and delegate
responsibilities. Holding leadership positions naturally draws capable women to the attention of entrenched
decision makers and integrates them in existing party networks. It builds their confidence in a gradual manner,
rather than launching them, under-prepared into the at times brutal pre-selection and election processes.
Ensuring more women assume leadership roles throughout the Liberal Party organisation also helps to encourage
the participation and progression of other young women. To quote Senator Linda Reynolds, ‘you can’t be what you
can’t see’; young women need roles models. They need to see their mothers, Aunts and Grandmothers assuming
leadership positions, not just the traditional support roles of Secretary or Treasurer (or head of the Catering
Committee). When this becomes the norm, so too will women’s ascension to leadership roles throughout the Party.

Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper 15

Role models are similarly important at the parliamentary level. Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer and
Member for Higgins, Kelly O’Dwyer MP, told the Menzies Research Centre Gender and Politics Forum:

I think role models are very, very important. When I was thinking about putting my hand
up for Parliament – and there’s no guarantee that when you put up your hand, you will be
pre-selected – I really thought about the other women that were there, and the fact that I
did want a family.
The truth is that in the Liberal party, on our side of politics, there had only been two
other women who had gone into Parliament as Liberal women, who had children while in
Parliament and only one of them had been a Minister and held Executive Office. It really
made me think very deeply about that before pursuing this career path. The two women
who had done that were Jackie Kelly and Sophie Mirabella. They were the only two
women from the Liberal party who had children while in Parliament.
Having examples of women in politics who have been able to do certain things means
that there are other women who come behind and have the confidence to pursue that
career path and know that they have the ability to reach different heights and know
there won’t be barriers.

Building grassroots involvement in the party also matters for the future of the Liberal movement as a whole.
Long-term membership fosters life-long affiliation with and dedication to the Party. Unlike the Labor Party, Liberals
do not bind their members to rigid collective beliefs. They do not require members to sign a pledge. Liberal Party
loyalty is encouraged by notions of voluntary service, community, tradition and individuals working together to
make a better society. Encouraging greater Party membership by men and women is important for the Liberal brand
and for the longevity of its structures. Furthermore, a large and active membership helps to spread Liberal beliefs
throughout the community.
Most importantly building the number of women in leadership roles in the Liberal Party will increase the chances
of these women seeking pre-selection and progressing to the role of lower or upper house MPs. This is vital
so that the Liberal Party catches up to the female parliamentary representation achieved by its traditional rival
the Labor Party.

16 Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper

Targeted intervention
It is clear that the party must do more to increase the number of women in parliament. The assumption that the
gender balance would follow a natural trajectory towards greater participation by women proved false. The number
of Liberal women in the House of Representatives has plateaued since 2004, and the lack of clear progress is
reflected in almost every chamber in almost every jurisdiction.
It is not a problem that can be fixed overnight. The Prime Minister’s ability to appoint more women to his front
bench team was limited by the composition of the party room which, in turn, reflects pre-selection decisions made
over a period of 20 years.
The Labor Party’s top-down quota-based system is understandably unpalatable to many Liberal men and women.
Its achievements are symbolic at best. Instead we advocate the targeted intervention approach that has been
successfully pursued in the the private sector.

Solutions must be aligned with our principles

Solutions to the problem of the underrepresentation of women in the Liberal Party must be carefully aligned
with Liberal principles. Discrimination is discrimination, even if labelled positive. Labor-style quotas undermine
the principles of competitive enterprise and reward for effort. Menzies’ 1943 observations remain true:

Of course women are at least the equals of men. Of course there is no reason why a
qualified woman should not sit in Parliament or on the Bench or in a professorial Chair,
or preach from the pulpit, or if you like, command an Army in the field. No educated man
today denies a place or a career to a woman just because she is a woman.
But there is a converse position which I state with all respect but with proper firmness.
No woman can demand a place or a career just because she is a woman. It is outmoded
and absurd to treat a woman’s sex as a political disqualification; it seems to me equally
absurd to claim it as a qualification itself.

Women do not deserve positons merely because of their gender, which is what a quota system suggests, and
indeed, achieves. Furthermore, quota systems harm rather than help capable women. Affirmative action policies
convey a lingering inference that women are there not because they were the best person for the job, but because
they are ‘quota queens’. Menzies put it this way:

For myself, I decline to vote for any woman just because she is a woman; but I will vote
for her with no prejudice and great cheerfulness if I am satisfied that she is, in the homely
phrase, “the better man of the two”. For, like most electors, I am not half so interested
in the sex or social position or worldly wealth of my representatives and rulers as I am
in the quality of their minds, the soundness of their characters, the humanity of their
experience, the sanity of their policy, and the strength of their wills.34

Liberal women, particularly the younger generation, have been raised to believe quality of mind, soundness of
character, principles and determination, will ensure their success. What the Liberal Party must ensure is that any
remaining barriers to women’s participation are acknowledged and addressed. So how might the Liberal Party
address the problem of women’s underrepresentation while remaining true to its strongly held principles and beliefs?

Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper 17

Facing up to the problem
If the experience of researching this report is any guide, a significant number of Liberals either deny, or prefer not
to admit, that gender imbalance matters. Others seem to think that to discuss the issue openly would play into the
hands of their political opponents.
The first step in addressing the representation of women in the Liberal Party, therefore, is to acknowledge that
the Party does in fact have a problem. As Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin AC told the Menzies Research Centre
Gender and Politics Forum in Melbourne ‘it’s like Alcoholics Anonymous, you’ve got to sit there and talk about it
first before you can even accept that there is an issue and then be able to move forward.’
In part, the hesitancy to embark on this difficult debate is because there are no simple solutions. Successful
change that does not harm the standing of women, as quotas do, must be gradual and occur from the grassroots
up. It does, however, require leadership. As Binskin told the forum:

Strong leadership commitment requires you to identify the issues and then drive
organisational change. It’s not just strong leadership at the highest level; it’s down
through the organisation. You’ll find as you go further down, you have to convince
people more and more why this is important.

Reporting the problem

Targeted intervention cannot occur until the extent of the problem is recognised. As a first step each division should
conduct an audit of female participation from the grassroots level up. It should follow the path recommended by the
Federal Women’s Committee under President Robyn Nolan in 2013.

There is a need across all States and the ACT to establish a uniform database to collect
statistical information about Federal, State and Territory pre-selections of candidates.
Such information should include:
• Gender
• Age
• Ethnic background
• Profession – including experience as an employee in a Parliamentary office
• Number of times the candidate has stood
• Margin of the seat35

Our analysis suggests the problem is more widespread and serious than just candidate pre-selection, however.
The underrepresentation of women in the Liberal Party begins in the Young Liberal movement, continues through
to the senior membership of the party and is evidenced in every level of party leadership. The Party must begin
to benchmark the participation of women, not just in terms of grassroots participation but also in terms of pre-
selection and electoral success at the state and federal levels. Without this base-level data, targeted intervention
will prove impossible.

18 Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper

Defining targets
Targets are contentious. Many Liberals see them as synonymous with quotas. Yet targets and quotas are
conceptual opposites.
Quotas are pronouncements delivered from the top down. Targets, on the other hand, are motivational tools that
encourage change from the bottom up. Quotas instruct; targets are instructional. They recognise that human beings
cannot be categorised or graded like cogs on a Soviet production line.
Financial and other targets are important tools for business; targets for gender diversity are a natural extension
of that principle for businesses that want to improve their performance. The evidence is that they are working.
Business leaders make a clear distinction between targets and quotas. Former banking chief executive Gail Kelly,
who led successful organisational transformations at St George and Westpac, makes a clear distinction between
the two strategies:

Targets are important, because they drive focus, they drive accountability. I’ve come
from South Africa where the affirmative action regime was legislated quotas and I saw
the negative elements of that, but I must tell you I think targets in our environment are
actually critical.36

A growing number of male and female Liberal Party leaders and parliamentarians are recognising that setting
realistic, achievable targets is an effective way to increase women’s participation.37 Parliamentary Secretary to the
Treasurer, Kelly O’Dwyer MP told the MRC’s Gender and Politics Forum:

There has been a lot of thought on how we can get more women involved in political
careers and targets play a key role in that. That’s not to say quotas, where we want the
equality of outcome. We want the equality of opportunity for women to be able to have
a career in politics and I think that’s particularly important in the Liberal party. Targets
do make that very much front of mind for the people that are making the very important
decision of who to pre-select.

The Tasmanian Liberal government’s Women On Boards Strategy, announced in July, sets an ambitious target
of 50 per cent representation by 2020. Premier Will Hodgman told the forum:

It is absolutely critical for us to have a target to aspire to. It is also about increasing
participation and implementing strategies to get more women into leadership positions
in Government. We will also do that in our party as well when we approach future
pre-selections.

Senator Linda Reynolds also declared herself a supporter of targets:

I do believe in targets as goals to aspire to, work towards and measure progress against;
they work and are consistent with merit and equality of opportunity. I have seen them
work in the military and in the corporate world.

A further public call for the implementation of targets was recently made by former Howard government Minister
Teresa Gambaro, who “called on the Liberal hierarchy to back an initial target of 30 per cent female representation,
declaring “it’s time” political parties get out of the dark ages.”38

Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper 19

The Member for Hume, Angus Taylor, who worked as a management consultant before entering parliament,
however, added a note of caution:

One of the great learnings of change management and reform over a long period of
time is that targets are usually necessary but rarely sufficient. I am quite sympathetic
to having targets but I have a concern if we think that’s the silver bullet here.
There is typically a lag indicator – they tell you a few years later what you are doing
wrong now – and we need to look a little deeper to see what is holding us back. I still
think that a degree of patronage and a lack of genuine merit based competition at
every level is the thing that we need to get back to as the basis for driving reform.

Recommendations about the size of targets is beyond the scope of this report. That is a matter for the party. There
are helpful principles to be drawn from the experience of the corporate sector and the military, however, that can
guide the party’s approach.
Each Liberal Party division should take stock of current female membership, participation and representation
especially at leadership levels, and measure this against other Liberal jurisdictions. This data should be used as
a benchmark to set realistic targets to increase grassroots participation.
Targets for pre-selection and parliamentary representation should be set across an electoral cycle. Individual
divisions are in the best position to judge the level at which these should be set. It should be noted that even a
modest target will, over time, achieve substantial change.
Divisions should be required to report annually on progress and such reporting should be submitted to the Federal
Executive to enable an annual division-by-division comparison.

Sponsorship
A growing body of literature finds that confidence is an important factor in the progression of women.39 As recent
research indicates, women’s confidence can be encouraged through the process of ‘mentoring’ or ‘sponsorship’.40
Editor of the Australian Women’s Weekly, Helen McCabe, neatly summarised a range of issues relating to women’s
confidence at the Menzies Research Centre Gender and Politics Forum:

I’ve been in rooms where it is all about the alpha male and who’s the loudest and who
answers the questions first and the problem for women is where there is a gender
difference, we tend to hang back, we don’t push ourselves forward, we sit at the back
of the room and these are big generalisations, I know, but we know that we don’t lean in
and the only way that you’re going to get merit acknowledged in a political context is if
you just get more in the room. How you get more in the room, which is the pipeline issue,
is really tricky.

20 Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper

McCabe also remarked on the broader challenges that women face when thinking about entering politics that may
also be holding them back:

Firstly, a lot of women won’t want to do it because they do want to stay home and have
their children, so I think there’s only a percentage of women in the first place that
actually really think to themselves it’s a cool job. Then getting heard. Then the scrutiny
on your life and the attacks. I think if you get more in the room, then you’ve got a
better chance of being acknowledged for merit. Other women, we’re not great at this,
will provide a support network to some extent and then you’ve got enough chance but
what we do know is that right now in Australian politics, it’s really poor and we can
do a lot better. The Liberal Party, of course, has that issue as much as anybody.

Melissa Grah-McIntosh suggested that mentoring may help the Liberal Party to increase the participation of
women in its ranks:

Mentorship has been found to be the strongest initiative you can have in an
organisation, way over diversity training.

There is an increasing body of work that suggests ‘sponsorship’ may be even more important in encouraging
women progress and succeed. Those who subscribe to the sponsorship model believe mentoring only goes
so far in supporting women to succeed, because mentors are not invested in the outcome. Sponsors, on the other
hand, actively identify talented individuals and assist them to achieve goals and progress through their business
or organisation.
Current Senate candidate for Victoria, Jane Hume described the difference between mentoring and sponsorship
at the MRC’s Gender and Politics Forum: “Mentors tend to have an altruistic motive, whereas sponsors have skin
in the game – they go out on a limb for you”.
The formal or informal sponsorship of women in the Liberal Party by senior men and women may help to improve
the numbers of women involved in the Party. The most natural way to achieve this is for more women to get
involved with the Party from an early age to form organic or natural linkages and alliances, as men have for
decades. Member for Hume, Angus Taylor shared his experience with mentoring and sponsorship during his
time at McKinsey & Co:

The best mentoring is a combination of formal and informal inevitably. At McKinsey &
Co, we were active in creating formal mentoring relationships but it was amazing how
the informal ones would override the formal ones. Having formal mentoring relationships
can work very well but it won’t work in every instance.
[Regarding] mentoring versus sponsorship. The way I have always thought about it
is that a great mentor becomes a great champion if the relationship works. And
championing people, sponsoring people, is an incredibly important part of a mentor’s
role. But the chemistry has to work before that’s possible.

Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper 21

Party Structures

Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to examine the specifics of each element of the Liberal Party structure,
in this the 70th anniversary of the federal Women’s Committee, it seems timely to propose the organisational
structures of the Party and their role in assisting the participation and advancement of women are examined.
Liberals should examine opportunities to improve the linkages between the male and female members of the Party
through formal and information measures. If men, and men’s networks, are part of the problem then they must form
part of the solution. The Party should encourage men and women to work together. The role of Women’s Councils
and Committees is a fundamental part of this equation.

22 Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper

Findings and Recommendations
Today’s women are more educated, independent and more career-minded than their predecessors. Yet for
two decades the proportion of women in the Liberal Party has flat-lined. The party is failing to attract the best
available talent.
There is a clear link between the number of Liberal women in parliament – particularly those in leadership roles –
and voting patterns. The party has lost its competitive advantage with women voters, particularly young women.
Before taking action, the party’s leadership must first persuade members there is a problem. They should take
their inspiration from Menzies, who described the principle art of politics as ‘a persuasion which cuts deep into the
popular mind and heart’. The Liberal Party will only achieve the greater representation of women using strategies
that work with, not against, Liberal principles.
The Party should steer clear of box-ticking, top-down solutions like Labor’s positive discrimination policy. If the aim
is simply to stack green and red leather benches with women, affirmative action evidently works. If the aim is to
improve the quality of representation, however, a more subtle approach is required.
We therefore strongly reject the imposition of quotas. Quotas are part of the semantics of socialist collective action.
They are tools preferred in centrally planned command economies. They are anti-democratic and hostile to freedom.
They are anathema to Liberalism. The Party should take its lead from the corporate sector by adopting a policy of
targeted intervention. Democratic reform demands that the party trusts its members to behave responsibly. Targeted
intervention is not a dictate from above; it is a means of highlighting the party’s gender goals and a reminder that
to enhance the party’s long-term electoral prospects gender does matter.
We cannot place enough emphasis on how important it is for the Liberal Party to achieve change. The electoral
data is clear. We have lost ground to the Labor Party in terms of the female vote. This may affect our chances of
electoral success in future. In the interests of good governance for the nation, it is imperative the Liberal Party is
given the best chance to win elections. There is no more crucial task than ensuring the Liberal Party has every
chance in every jurisdiction to win and retain government.
We believe the following recommendations are consistent with established Liberal principles; particularly that
change should be considered, gradual and built from the grassroots up, not from the top down.

Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper 23

Recommendations

1. As a first step each party division should conduct an audit of female participation in the Party from the grass-
roots level up. Each party division should establish baseline data establishing rates of female participation,
particularly in leadership roles as follows:
a. Number of male and female Young Liberal Movement members;
b. Number of male and female Senior Party members;
c. Number of male and female Branch Presidents;
d. Number of male and female State Electoral Convention or College Presidents;
e. Number of male and female Federal Electoral Convention or College Presidents;
f. Number of male and female State Council delegates;
g. Number of male and female State Executive Vice-Presidents;
h. Number of male and female State Executive Committee representatives.

2. Each jurisdiction should report the gender balance at pre-selections for lower and upper house positions at the
State and Federal level every election cycle as follows:
a. Number of men and women nominating for pre-selection;
b. Number of male and female candidates pre-selected;
c. Number of male and female candidates pre-selected for safe seats;
d. Number of male and female candidates elected.

3. This data should be communicated between divisions to encourage competitive pressure between the states
to improve current representation. Annual results should be reported to each Federal Council AGM.
4. Having identified areas of weakness, each division should set achievable and measurable targets for female
representation at every level of the party. Such targeted intervention should be calibrated to measure progress
year-on-year and election-on-election and division-on-division.
5. The role of gender-specific party sub-sections should be reviewed. Women’s committees have been an historical
strength since the party was founded. Liberals should examine opportunities to improve the linkages between
the male and female members of the Party.

24 Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper

Appendix

Women for Canberra

Broadcast by the Rt. Hon. R.G. Menzies, K.C, M.P., 29 January 1943

There is a revived movement to send a woman or women to the Parliament at Canberra. Political good judgment
requires that I should say nothing about it for fear of attracting one of the new candidates to Kooyong. And why
not? It is a free country (to some extent at any rate) and anyone is free to stand for Kooyong and, in any event, the
question of women in Parliament is so important that it deserves an honest answer.
We have travelled a long way in our civic outlook upon women, and even if we were reluctant and straggling
wayfarers, the events of this war, in which women have been such workers and warriors, would surely have
speeded us an our journey.
In the Middle Ages, we are told, Divines solemnly disputed as to whether woman had a soul. In the twentieth
century our intelligence has increased, and no career is closed and no faculty denied to her. In brief, the real
equality of the sexes - though not their identity - was recognised long ago. True, I have met a few feminists whose
chief ambition appeared to be to 1ook, to sound and to act like men; but their obvious dis-satisfaction with their
own sex has left my own views untouched.
Of course women are at least the equals of men. Of course there is no reason why a qualified woman should not sit
in Parliament or on the Bench or in a professorial Chair or preach from the pulpit, or if you like, command an army
in the field. No educated man today denies a place or a career to a woman just because she is a woman.
But there is a converse proposition which I state with all respect but with proper firmness. No women can demand a
place or a career just because she is a woman. It is outmoded and absurd treat a woman’s sex as a disqualification;
it seems to me equally absurd to claim it as a qualification in itself.
I know that it may be said in answer that there is, particularly an social problems, a special woman’s point of view.
But again, quite frankly, I am sceptical. When I asked, for example, what men think about such and such, my only
reply is that I have no idea, since almost all man have different experiences and different points of view.
Is this not equally true of women?
It is just on this point that I join issue with one or two of the advocates of the ‘Women for Canberra’ Movement.
They appear to think first, irrespective of her party or her views or capacity for direction or administration, some
women should be elected to Canberra because she is a woman and has the woman’s point of view. But how you
would all laugh if Jones stead for parliament and said: ‘I am a man; therefore elect me.’
For myself I decline to vote for any woman just because she is a woman; but I will vote for her with no prejudice
and great cheerfulness if I am satisfied that she is, in the homely phrase, ‘the better man of the two’. For, like most
electors I am not half so interested in the sex or social position or worldly wealth of my representatives and rulers
as I am in the quality of their minds, the soundness of their characters, the humanity of their experience, the sanity
of their policy, and the strength of their wills.
When I rad of a meeting at which women, aspiring to be Labor candidates, UAP candidates, Country Party
candidates, independent candidates, have all foregathered to derive common electoral strength from their
association, I confess to being completely puzzled.
Does the Labor lady really believe in the policy of the Australian Labor Party? Does she earnestly believe that it is
the best thing for the country? Does she really want Parliament to contain a majority of members pledged to carry
it out? If she is a genuine Labor supporter – as no doubt she is – her answer must be yes. If it is, what does she
mean by supporting women candidates who are not or her Party? Will she support Mrs Smith, UAP, against a
sitting Labor member for ‘X’, who happens to be a man?
This is far too important a question to be obscured by a sentimentality which is fundamentally more characteristic
of the nineteenth century than of an age in which men have learned to respect and reverence women for their
courage, strength and intelligence.

Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper 25

I had always understood the case for women in politics to be: ‘Away with prejudice; good governance is more
important that the sex of the governor’. But that case appears to me to be flatly contradicted by such case which
apparently says: ‘That the candidate should have the right sex is more important that good government.
Bring the whole matter down to an instance. Take Kooyong, which I represent. It contains as many women as men.
On my side of politics its women’s political organisation is much larger, and more continuous and more effective
than the men’s political organisation. There is no reason at all why a woman should not be elected by such a
constituency. But if Kooyong elected some woman, irrespective of here political views and indeed, with glorious
indifference to them, then Kooyong would, for all practical purposes, disenfranchise itself. For it is the quality of our
political philosophy, the depth and continuity of our convictions and our fidelity to our political faith that the future
of our democratic Parliament depends.
There is just one additional point that should be mentioned: It is beyond question that, particularly on such
important social problems as education, health and child welfare, women can and should make a powerful
contribution to the future of Australia. This undoubted fact has led some people to conclude that it would be a
good thing to have in Parliament a few women who were specialists in these matters. But this argument ignores
the vital political fact that Parliament is really not the place for the person who specializes in two or three matters.
Parliament has to make the general laws of the country and provide the general political administrators of the
country. As a Member of Parliament I must be prepared to have a view on all matters which come up for decision,
and I must therefore have a policy which goes very far beyond two or three specialised topics. True, I may have
some very special knowledge of some matter and once a year or thereabouts I may have the opportunity of talking
to Parliament about it. But for the most part it will be necessary to deal with matters which are not my speciality
but upon which I must acquire knowledge and exercise judgment.
These requirements apply to women as well as to men. The matter of real importance, therefore , is not that we
should be agitating for some special representation of women in Parliament – as if women represented some
circumscribed electorate in themselves – but that we should shake our minds clear of whatever prejudice may
linger in them and honestly and sincerely acknowledge that there is just as much room in our public bodies for
public-spirited and intelligent women as there is for public-spirited and intelligent men.

26 Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper

Acknowledgements
The Menzies Research Centre thanks the many people inside and outside the Liberal Party who shared their
experiences, thoughts and expertise that helped shape this paper.
Many thanks to the panellists at the MRC’s Gender and Politics Forum: Elizabeth Broderick, Air Chief Marshal Mark
Binskin AC, Helen McCabe, Melissa Grah-McIntosh, the Hon Kelly O’Dwyer MP, Angus Taylor MP, Senator Linda
Reynolds CSC and Premier of Tasmania, the Hon Will Hodgman MP. We would also like to thank the many who
offered insights from the floor.
Thanks also to Robyn Nolan, Rosemary Craddock, Gladys Berejiklian, Tom Harley, Richard Alston, the staff of
the Prime Minister’s Office, Kevin McCann, Senator Dean Smith, Senator Cory Bernardi, Hon Teresa Gambaro MP,
Georgina Downer and Caitlin Fisher. Staff at the Liberal Party’s state divisions assisted by providing participation data.
Professor Ian McAllister at ANU and Associate Professor Haydon Manning at Flinders University helped navigate
the Australian Electoral Survey data.
Thanks to Kay Gilchrist and Lipakshi Dhar for their role in organising the Forum and for their assistance in
preparing this report. Thanks to John Roskam and the staff at the IPA for their assistance. John Veage generously
gave permission to use the cover picture. Thanks to Vanessa Schimizzi and Rowan Thomas for assisting with
typesetting and design.

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Panellists at the MRC Gender and Politics Forum.

Left to right: Melissa Grah-McIntosh, Nick Cater, Angus Taylor MP, Senator Linda Reynolds CSC, Hon Kelly O’Dwyer MP,
Elizabeth Broderick, Helen McCabe, Air Chief Marshall Mark Binskin AC.

Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper 27

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28 Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper

25
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accessed 31 July 2015.

Gender and politics: A Menzies Research Centre Discussion Paper 29

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