Women in Australian Politics

Deputy Prime Minister Julie Bishop with Michaelia Cash, the new Minister for Women. Picture: News Corp AustraliaSource:News Corp Australia

Praise has been heaped upon new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for "more than doubling the number of women in federal cabinet" (Wilson 2015).

Prime Minister Turnbull appointed five female ministers in Sunday's cabinet reshuffle, including the country's first female Minister of Defence, Senator Marise Payne (Emery 2015).

"There is no greater enthusiast than me for seeing more women in positions of power and influence in Parliament, in ministries right across the country," said Turnbull (Associated Press 2015).

While many are celebrating the better representation of women in the cabinet, the move is not without its detractors. Oriel 2015 suggested that the move was an act of 'tokenism' and that the Turnbull government appointed the women ministers merely to quiet gender equality advocates.

Oriel 2015 says "equal opportunity demands the demonstration of equal merit" and this is a stance that few would debate. However, perhaps the fact that we are questioning the merits of the freshly appointed women cabinet ministers and not the merits of the male cabinet ministers is at the heart of the problem in the first place?

It also begs the question; if women are not achieving equal performance outcomes in the workplace, why aren't they?

Australian has only seen one female prime minister and of the fifty prime ministerial chiefs of staff, only three have been female (Crabb 2015).

The promotion of women should not addressed with cynicism. Gender equality needs to be further advocated by the Turnbull government and they also need to reevaluate pathways for women and focus on the importance of paid parental leave schemes.Until more women are being represented in parliament, it is impossible for the government to fairly represent the views of the country.

As former Chief of Staff Peta Credlin said;

"You want women in places where they can make a difference, because half the policy in this country is for us, but only about a tenth of it is by us.
And if we do not stand up and put women in the epicentre of decision making, whether it's boardrooms, government boards, politics, cabinet rooms, wherever, if you don't have women there, we will not exist. (Crabb 2015)"


References:

Crabb, A 2015, 'Another lesson on what it means to be a woman in high office', ABC News, 23 September 2015, viewed 23 September 2015,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-23/crabb-a-lesson-on-what-it-means-to-be-a-woman-in-high-office/6798602

Emery, K 2015, 'Cabinet women show girls a politcal career path', The West Australian, 22 September 2015, viewed 23 September 2015, https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/29595657/cabinet-women-show-girls-a-politics-career-path/

Oriel, J 2015, 'Malcolm Turnbull ends era of female victimhood', The Australian, 23 September 2015, viewed 23 September 2015,
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/malcolm-turnbull-ends-the-era-of-female-victimhood/story-e6frg6zo-1227539269523

Wilson, L 2015,'Malcolm Turnbull has more than doubled the number of women in cabinet', News.com, 20 September 2015, viewed 23 September 2015, http://www.news.com.au/national/politics/prime-minister-malcolm-turnbull-has-more-than-doubled-the-number-of-women-in-cabinet/story-fns0jze1-1227535991914

Associated Press, 2015, 'New Australian Prime Minister flasg more women in cabinet', New York Times, 15 September 2015, viewed 23 September 2015,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/09/14/world/asia/ap-as-australia-politics.html