“Women are unquestionably destined to exercise more and more influence upon practical politics in Australia…In the educating of the electorate in liberal ideas they have for many years been an effective force. Now we have an organisation in which all distinctions have gone, and with men and women working equally for the one body.” *
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Good sentiment, right?
A man is in a meeting with 100 colleagues. He is furious with a senior woman and makes comments about her.
He doesn’t say she should lose her job or that he thinks her policy work is poor. Instead, he threatens to “tear her a new orifice”. He also says she has never had a real man.
That meeting was in April, at the upper house preselection for the NSW National Party.
The man doing the threatening was Murray-Darling MP John Williams.
He has not been disendorsed at this stage.
Who did he threaten? Robyn Parker, the then NSW Minister for the Environment, who is a survivor of rape.
Not that it matters who was the recipient of this vile behaviour. No woman – no person - should ever have to endure that kind of language or that kind of behaviour. And no political party, in particular, should permit that threat and treatment by anyone, to anyone, man or woman, rape survivor or not.
But it seems to me that we have a carnival of sexism, racism and homophobia across all levels of politics and parties in this country; and that we only hear about it when it is too late for us to know.
Ms Parker told Fairfax reporter Kirsty Needham last week that such sexist behaviour was not isolated to the Nationals and Liberal parties, "but is very prevalent in NSW politics".
She told Needham: "The incident to me demonstrates an attitude that women are weak and under the control of men . . . nothing could be further from the truth in my case."
Our conservative parties are in crisis when it comes to equal participation. They know it. We the public know it. The Labor Party is being dragged to equality by the activists of Emily’s List.
Parties need to change rapidly.
Of course, it’s idiotic that a government thinks it’s suitable to have a man as the Minister for Women. But that’s partly show; and showing-off. It’s a way of telling the 51 per cent that they can’t have a voice for themselves; that they aren’t competent to run serious matters of business.
Senior people in the Liberal Party agree that something needs to change. Former Senator Sue Boyce said a year ago how disappointed she was that the Federal Cabinet had just one woman. Now, she’s been joined by Victorian Liberal backbencher Sharman Stone, who said this year her party should introduce mandatory quotas to help boost the number of women in parliament.
And a couple of weeks ago, outgoing Liberal president Alan Stockdale said the party needed to boost its membership and increase the number of women in senior roles.
"The party needs to attract and retain more women as office bearers, as candidates and as MPs. This should be seen as a key priority for the party as a whole," Stockdale said.
The Nationals are not quite on board. I rang on Tuesday to speak to what might be described as the Women’s Council in NSW. The young person I spoke to, who was the contact point, described herself as the events coordinator. National Party, yes, we need events coordinators – but that’s not the only role for the Women’s Council.
Women are no longer the auxiliary. We don’t just put on events. We are the main game. We want to play the main game.
Boyce is retired from politics but I interrupted her Queensland holiday to ask for advice. She said she wants to campaign to improve the status of women in the Liberal Party.
“I was really heartened by Alan Stockdale’s comments last month – but what the Liberals really need is a strategy,” Boyce said.
Well, yes, so why not quotas? It’s been very successful for Labor women through Emily’s List.
“There is no appetite for quotas within the Liberal Party – but I would make the point that we are the party of business,'' Boyce said.
“No-one says ‘We have to make profit next year and I hope it happens.’
“We have to have a plan.”
And she’s determined to make that plan happen. When Boyce returns to work at her family company (specialising in plumbing and drainage, just as male dominated as politics) on July 22, she wants to be part of the change required within the Liberal Party.
“I'm hoping to talk to senior people within the party and put together a plan in the next few months,” she said.
This is not about party politics. There is nothing in a conservative platform which says women are inferior and can’t do the job.
Boyce says that she has never encountered anything like the kinds of comments made to Parker and she is surprised Williams wasn’t disendorsed immediately.
“Usually the sexism is more subtle, it’s an unconscious bias,” Boyce said.
Then she corrects herself. It’s a conscious bias, she says. Men hire and preselect people just like them.
And that’s always other men.
*Robert Menzies quoted on the Liberal women page on the Liberal Party website.
Follow me on Twitter @jennaprice or email jenna_p@bigpond.net.au
