Helen Coonan: Labor rewrites history on female participation

The propensity of the Labor Party to rewrite history was on clear display yesterday with the triumphal chest beating of Labor women ministers at the expense of the Liberal Party. How wrong they are!

On Sunday, along with Malcolm Turnbull, I launched Margaret Fitzherbert’s book, So Many Firsts, describing the rise and rise of Liberal women from Menzies to the present.

In 2006, I held a dinner to raise money to tell this story of the many ground-breaking achievements and quite remarkable contribution of Liberal women to Australian politics.

The idea for the book came to me in 2006 when the Howard government marked its 10th anniversary. Women had done well during the Howard era, despite disparaging media references to white picket fences and a 1950s view of the world.

As the leader of the Opposition, John Howard managed to attract a record number of women who gained preselection and who were then elected to the Parliament in 1996 — 15 new Liberal women politicians in addition to the 10 already in the Parliament.

That year, the Liberal Party had succeeded in electing 12 more women than Labor, and this milestone was achieved without any formal or informal quotas or affirmative action of any kind. No ALP Emily’s list for us!

At the time of the cabinet dinner in 2006, we were celebrating the milestone of 10 women who had served in the federal cabinet since Federation. Seven of these 10 were Liberal women and five of those seven had been appointed under Howard’s  leadership.

Of course, the Senate’s first female president, Margaret Reid, was also elected in 1996 — and a Liberal.

Speaking of the Senate, if the Liberal Party is, as Labor suggests, “gagging” its female colleagues, the tactic is failing miserably in the Upper House.

The statistics give the lie to Labor’s crowing:

Turnbull is gender blind with women given prominent positions in his line-up.

In fact, it is the Australian Labor Party that feels women need special treatment in order to even get to the barrier and be preselected, with their requirement for women to fill a quota of their preselections to “ensure fair representation”.

The women of the Liberal Party and their achievements are the product of their own individual merit. Liberal women are not in Parliament to fill a feel-good party quota.

But the Liberal Party must not waste the opportunity of Opposition to renew and recruit able women for our backbenches and our frontbench.

Although facts never get in the way of a good Labor attack, on this occasion there are no grounds for such an ignorant ill-informed and unjustified assault.