Liberal MP Julia Banks calls for gender quotas in Parliament, takes aim at 'undermining' behaviour

Updated

Liberal MP Julia Banks has turned down a three-month secondment to the United Nations which Labor has interpreted as an attempt to silence her.

Key points: Labor suggested offer of New York secondment was made to silence Ms Banks

Liberal MP said Federal Parliament was a decade behind the business world in promoting women to leadership positions

The Member for Chisholm said there were "equal numbers of meritorious Liberal women out there in the real world"

The ABC understands the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, offered Ms Banks the posting to New York, but she refused.

Accepting would have seen her miss the rest of the parliamentary year.

The Opposition has speculated about Mr Morrison's motives for making the offer.

"She would get the opportunity to be in New York and he would get the opportunity not to have her in front of the Australian people talking about things like bullying, intimidation and, heaven forbid, quotas in the Liberal Party to get more women elected," Labor senator Kristina Keneally said.

It comes after Ms Banks used a speech in parliament to take aim at "widespread, pervasive and undermining" behaviour in Federal Parliament, saying gender quotas are the only way to ensure equal representation in the party.

In a late evening address to the House of Representatives, the Member of Chisholm said the appalling behaviour she was describing related to "bullying, intimidation, harassment — sexual or otherwise — or a lack of integrity".

"In my political journey a culture of appalling behaviour has been widespread, pervasive and undermining like white ants," she told the chamber.

Ms Banks explained she had decided to not to contest her seat at the next election as an "effective and palatable" response to the behaviour she had witnessed.

"That's not the same as saying you're walking past the behaviour," she said.

"Walking away is very powerful and there are many men, but particularly many women, in the workplace who have done this.

"Similarly, there are thousands would love to but can't afford to for a raft of reasons."

She said she'd been "stunned" by the nation's reaction to her statement two weeks ago, which detailed her reasons for leaving.

"From across the political divide there was both the groundswell of heart-warming support received from both in and outside this place, to reprisals and retribution and the old 'nothing to see here, no formal complaint, no evidence, name and shame' etcetera."

Her speech came after Senators Lucy Gichuhi and Linda Reynolds backtracked on threats to name bullies in Parliament and announced they would let the Liberal party deal with the issue internally.

Quota/target timeline: 1994 — ALP sets quota to preselect women in 35 per cent of winnable seats by 2002

— ALP sets to preselect women in 35 per cent of winnable seats by 2002 2012 — ALP updates quota to preselect women in 40 per cent of winnable seats

— ALP updates to preselect women in 40 per cent of winnable seats 2015 — ALP updates quota to preselect women in 50 per cent of winnable seats by 2025

— ALP updates to preselect women in 50 per cent of winnable seats by 2025 2016 — Coalition sets target to preselect women in 50 per cent of winnable seats by 2025

Ms Banks' speech appears a response to that, with the MP saying the public were sick of issues of harassment and bullying going unremarked, as she thanked those who had been in touch since she went public.

"The supporters come from Australians from all walks of life. Men and women who want real change, and are fed up with the major parties treating such issues as either something they want to be swept under the carpet, to be managed as media or crisis management 'optics issue', or for political point scoring," she said.

"Australians have bought none of it. In fact, this reaction is just made the support from Australian men and women even more emboldened."

Ms Banks dedicated her speech to people who could not call out harassment for fear of financial or career reprisals.

"These are usually the same reasons that prevent women from calling out or filling official reports for their behaviour, so to all those women this speech is for you."

Morrison says he's been supporting Banks

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he had been "talking closely with Julia now for several weeks and it has been a pretty harrowing time".

"My approach has been to get around and support colleagues and ensure there is the support available to them that they need," he said.

Ms Banks, who is a former corporate lawyer decried Federal Parliament as being a decade behind the business world which had long ago identified, and sought to redress, a lack of women in leadership positions.

"The business world addressed this issue years ago. I know. I was there," she said.

However unlike the business world, she argued the party could not rely on targets because in the corporate sector they could be tied to incentives and performance measures, whereas in politics they could not.

"It seemed that quotas are only resisted when they relate to gender," she said.

"Quotas are not demeaning to women and nor will women be regarded as the 'quota girl'."

Reference was also made to those who have raised concerns that gender quotas could lead to "micro-quotas" based on sexuality or ethnicity, something Ms Banks described as "ludicrous".

The MP pointed out the Coalition already used the principle of quotas to ensure the states were evenly represented on the front bench.

"There are equal numbers meritorious Liberal woman out there in the real world as there are men," she said.

"It's really simple if you only have a man running and you can't find a woman. Find one.

"They represent half the population and so should a modern Liberal Party."

Independent MP Cathy McGowan said it was clear there was an issue to address around women in Federal Parliament.

"I would always believe a woman who tells me she's been bullied. You don't make that up," she told RN Breakfast.

"This year we've had an enormous amount of conversation in public about different women members of Parliament — the Michaelia Cash discussion, the experience with Barnaby Joyce, the bonking ban.

"And I don't think it's been respectful. We've had an argument about 'do we have a problem?' — I think we need to move the discussion. There's something obviously going on, it needs to change."

She said she was not confident that quotas would fix the gender problem entirely.

"The Government itself has set a target of 50 per cent of women on all government boards, and they haven't reached it. And I don't see the strategy in place to help them reach it," she said.

"So if the Government can't actually do it on the boards it's got control over, setting quotas, I think the change has got to be much, much greater than that."

Topics: federal-government, government-and-politics, australia

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