What ‘morons' mentioned the Q word? They'd be the smart Libs trying to save their party
According to three Liberal women, it was McQueen who once joked that she 'would kill to be sexually harassed' as the party reckoned with its treatment of women. Last week, McQueen posed this question in relation to the quotas petition: 'What absolute moron is behind this?'
Those 'morons' – plural – would be NSW Liberal Women's Council president Berenice Walker, vice president Adelaide Cuneo, former NSW minister Rob Stokes and his wife, Sophie, and Charlotte Mortlock, executive director of Hilma's Network, which was established to boost female representation in the Liberals.
To date, some 500-plus people have signed the petition, which pleads: 'If we do all want more women in parliament, then we must stop the preoccupation with theory, rhetoric and excuses, and accelerate this historic change.' Notably, one of the signatories is Manly MP James Griffin. He is the only senior NSW frontbencher to publicly put his name to the quotas push.
It was a bold move for Griffin. Only a fortnight earlier, NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman made his position clear. 'I don't think we need quotas at the moment in the Liberal Party,' he told the Herald in an interview before his budget reply speech. Speakman noted that his state parliamentary party was close to reaching gender parity.
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That is worth celebrating, sure. And it's a damn sight better than the federal Liberal position: just six of the 43 Liberal MPs to sit in the House of Representatives will be women. It must be noted, however, that the improved representation of women in the NSW parliament was achieved because former premier Dominic Perrottet intervened ahead of the last state election to stop the party running an all-male upper house ticket. Perrottet prevailed, and three male MPs were sacrificed to guarantee equal gender representation on the ticket.
(Perrottet did not, however, manage to win the fight over the northern beaches seat of Pittwater. He wanted a woman to run, but the party insisted on Rory Amon. Amon is now facing child sexual assault charges, which he denies, and the seat is in teal hands, won by Jacqui Scruby in a byelection.)
The decision of Griffin, widely viewed as the most likely leadership rival to Speakman, to sign the petition creates an obvious divide between him and his leader. Griffin's take is: 'Quotas are not a compromise on merit; they're a practical response to a system that needs improvement.'
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