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Liberals favour experience over tokenism

By Ben-Peter Terpstra - posted Thursday, 19 September 2013


Question: Why are our establishment media types so upset?

Answer: The Liberal Party favours experience over tokenism.

As one front-page headline yelled on ABC's website: Abbott unveils male-dominated cabinet.

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Even our self-styled conservative columnist, Andrew Bolt, agreed that having one woman in cabinet was "not a good look" (but didn't recommend how many women the Liberals should promote).

Of course, Labor's cabinet was also dominated by men.

Moreover, Rudd and his co-conspirators took down Australia's first female Prime Minister.

That said, in the real world, representative voters have come to terms with some undeniable facts.

Fact one: Millions of women voted for the Coalition.

Like it or not, Australian voters (including millions of women) voted for the merit-focused Coalition over the quota-centric ALP this year.

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I voted for the Liberal candidate for Corangamite Sarah Henderson because my local MP, Labor's Darren Cheeseman, wasn't up to scratch, in my view. It's that simple.

In other words, then, many voters don't care about how many women or men there are in Canberra, because they're focused on policy issues.

During this election, I was concerned about positive outcomes for my community as opposed to magical quotas, full stop.

Fact two: Conservative women are stayers.

The Liberal Party shows that women can have long and influential careers, without a patronising affirmative action system.

As Michaelia Cash, Liberal Senator for Western Australia, points out: "Eight of the 10 longest-serving women in the Commonwealth Parliament since 1901 are Liberal women."

By way of contrast, many of Labor's female politicians have disappointed voters. While elites have benefited from a quota system, the people below them often don't feel the same way.

There's a reason why, for example, Queensland kicked out former Premier Anna Bligh and it's not because Queenslanders are sexist pigs.

Fact three:Labor's mixed messages make little sense.

As previously stated, I voted for Liberal candidate Sarah Henderson this year. What I didn't note, however, was that she was viciously attacked by the Labor machine.

So, on the one hand, we have Laborites saying that there aren't enough Liberal women in Canberra. On the other, they're happy to relentlessly undermine female Coalition candidates.

Henderson lost in 2010 but won in 2013, meaning that she has less experience, in part, because of Labor's slime ball politics. Is that Abbott's fault or the ALP's?

Somewhere, Sophie Mirabella is scratching her head too.

Fact four: Coalition women don't see themselves as victims.

Part of our Left's anger at Abbott stems from the myth that women are fragile flowers in need of set-asides.

This myth, of course, requires us to forget that Liberal women have broken through the "glass ceiling" without quota systems.

For the record, Julie Bishop became Australia's first female foreign minister, without a patronising quota system.

Annabelle Rankin, a single woman, didn't see herself as a victim either. In another first, she became a Queensland Liberal Party Senator in 1947, without a patronizing quota system.

There are more inconvenient examples here.

Fact five: Australians distrust social engineers.

History teaches us that voters tend to distrust social engineers.

Unlike your typical ABC presenter, Australians are more likely to ask: Why does Labor have a quota system for rich city women, but not poor country men? Or, why doesn't the ALP have affirmative action goals for dwarves or Mormons?

Australians too see the implications of social engineering when your typical quota system is focused on media-approved minority groups, and open to political manipulation.

At least, I've never understood why Labor supports "gender-equality" in the workplace for adults, while rejecting gender-balanced marriages for children.

Fact six: Some women just aren't that into politics.

Finally, some women just aren't that into politics, and if we respect a woman's right to choose, why should Canberra be our focus?

Some women choose to invest their energies into raising children. Some women choose to invest their energies into alternative career paths. And, yes, some women believe they can balance both.

Besides, when Australians see a female PM as a puppet held up by faceless men, or stabbed by her fellow Labor sisters, they're more likely to see hypocrisy than equality.

Now, that isn't a good look, Mr Bolt.

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About the Author

Ben-Peter Terpstra has provided commentary for The Daily Caller (Washington D.C.), NewsReal Blog (Los Angeles), Quadrant (Sydney), and Menzies House (Adelaide).

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