The kind of women who know instinctively that to step from corporate careers into the political Colosseum would entail a kind of shrinking. Just as Alice in Wonderland stooped and shrank herself by skulling a bottle labelled DRINK ME, these women would need to swallow pride and promise compliance to enter the political fray for the slim chance their hard work and ability – let’s call it merit for the sake of it – be rewarded. Among those milling about the CEW dinner were incoming Macquarie chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake, Coca-Cola Amatil chief executive Alison Watkins, REA chief executive Tracey Fellows, Herald and Weekly Times chair Penny Fowler, forrmer Reserve Bank director Heather Ridout, ABC chief Michelle Guthrie, Carnival Australia Chair Ann Sherry. And the mood was defiant. Loading CEW president Kathryn Fagg, chair of Boral and former Reserve Bank board member spoke of the “deep-seated resentment around women in leadership positions" that had been evident in the frothing about the exit of AMP chair Catherine Brenner, and said the ensuing public attacks on female directors was "harsh, unfair and sensationalist". The message was clear: women need to push back. In the Liberal Party, the mood is the same. The women are sick of being pushed around, sick of being sidelined or cast aside in favour of less able male colleagues, sick of a culture of “bullying and intimidation” and sick of the paltry attempts to lure women into Parliament, of the shallow, infertile rhetoric about gender equality. We can all see it is no meritocracy and blokes run the show.

Former cabinet member Julie Bishop says the culture in Canberra is “appalling”. Liberal MP Julia Banks and Senator Lucy Gichuhi have reported shocking bullying: shouting, lack of respect, threats to undermine preselection efforts, brutishness. Then there’s the chronic under-representation of women. Cabinet member Marise Payne says this is a “very serious problem”. So does Sussan Ley, who is now advocating quotas after having long opposed them. Victorian senator Judith Troeth is too, saying quotas should be employed temporarily to rectify “abysmally low” numbers of women in Parliament. Former senator Judith Troeth is calling for quotas. Credit:Glen McCurtayne It’s not about merit – one quick glance around the CEW dinner attests to that. Julie Bishop said this week: “I say to my party … it is not acceptable for us to have in 2018 less than 25 per cent of our parliamentarians as female. It is not acceptable for our party to contribute to the fall in Australia’s ratings from 15th in the world in terms of female parliamentarian representation in 1999, to 50th today.” No, it’s not. And as for the blokes who are denying that there is a systemic cultural issue within the Liberal Party, my only question is this: you do know we can see you, right?

Women scoffed as senior Liberal men claimed there was no problem and that politics was just rough and tumble, or as Peter Dutton says “in these times you get robust conversations between people”. Craig Kelly, who apparently has been asleep through the years of debate about the national scourge of violence against women, told women MPs to “roll with the punches”. As prominent, respected NSW Liberal staffer Anna McPhee said in a speech not long before she died last year: “Unless the Liberal Party really is the broad church it claims to be, then perhaps to borrow a descriptive phrase from Paul Keating, the Liberals will be the unrepresentative swill.” The electoral consequences are potentially grave. McPhee said: “Since 2001 women have not chosen the Liberal Party at the ballot box." And yet, despite this, the women labouring for decades within the party still wait to be taken seriously. Quotas are an obvious answer and hardly radical. Even AMP has them now. Until the political world catches up to the corporate world, which is where the Liberal Party has historically sought allies, the “structural deficit” of women in the party will continue to weep like a sore.

The new Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the whole leadership debacle had been a "Muppet Show” and the curtains had come down on it. He is clearly hoping it will go away. But it won't. Surely the response to serious allegations, and such obvious, significant shortcomings should be opening curtains not closing them. This will be one of his greatest tests as leader: will he plough through the platitudes and the discomfort of real change, apologise to Banks on behalf of the party for the ugly attempts to bully then discredit her and make serious efforts to win back women? As Ann Sherry told the CEW, "Seeing the world differently means looking under the rock, and not being scared by what you find." Julia Baird hosts the Drum on ABC TV and is the author of Media Tarts: How the Australian Press Frames Female Politicians.