we have just had 6 years of people promoted on gender or union affliation. Did not the vast majority nsay no more? Its a pity Amanda retired so early. She is one female voice of reason and one of Radio Nationals true assets.

I'm a woman and a card carrying member of the Liberal Party. If the ALP had had an all male Front Bench it would not have bothered me in the slighted. As I said previously I support whoever is chosen as the best for the job

I voted for the Liberal candidate for Corangamite Sarah Henderson because my local MP, Labor's Darren Cheeseman, wasn't up to scratch, in my view. It's that simple.

In other words, then, many voters don't care about how many women or men there are in Canberra, because they're focused on policy issues.

SF: ‘I support whoever is chosen as the best for the job’

Having sat on several selection panels over the years, one thing I learned is that there is no one ‘best’ person for a job.

At least one-third of job applicants for most jobs are a perfect fit in terms of skills and experience. The final selection ends up being merely a hairsplitting exercise and comes down to either eenie-meenie-minee-mo or issues like age, gender, charm, attractiveness, hobbies, fashion sense or someone’s eyes being too close together.

No one ever admits to this, of course. All selection panels go to a lot of trouble to look as if they are diligently scrutinising each and every applicant and that the person chosen is the one and only perfect fit for the job.

The fact that there is only one woman in Abbott’s Cabinet does not mean that there is only one woman in the Abbott government that is suitable for a Cabinet post. It merely means that none of the women suited to a Cabinet post have been chosen.

@ Killarney

I work at Executive level and can tell you that in those positions men are infinity better 90% of the time at least. Women just don't cut it and the same in politics.I have experience there too my father was an elected member of government for 25 years.

As The Roast pointed out, perhaps TA will channel his inner woman and represent them as Tonya B Bott.

The problem with the glass ceiling is that from the men's point of view there is no such thing: it is a glass floor.