The key is the final question - what institutional changes need to be introduced? I suspect that the conservatives will remain, as a matter of fundamental philosophy, opposed to institutional changes. (Dr) James Page

Two really good points that I got from this article:
1) That the pipeline of talent coming through for selection to Cabinet based on experience and skills does not include enough women, partly because there are not enough women Parliamentarians in the LNP (particularly low compared to the Opposition's % of women elected).
2) That the Coalition either aren't doing enough to get more women LNP candidates elected, or they don't see that it's a problem.

Both these points would make really good articles on their own.
What I'm wondering is, why did Mathew Burke spend most of the article defending the concept of promoting on merit vs quotas when he could have focused on constructive critique on those two important points?

Mathew, I hope you write more articles on this because I am interested in your views on those two points - what could the Coalition do to get more LNP women elected, and do they even understand their gender diversity problem?

Should the LNP also have the sort of affirmative action that Labor runs and results in a monoculture of elite middle class feminist lawyers being foisted on the community in leadership roles?

Honestly now, how many Grrrls did it take to destroy Don Chipp's Democrats, and State and federal Labor?

Playing the gender card (and the class card!) did not work for Julia Whatshername in government and it will not work for Labor in opposition either.

It isn't about getting the sort of womyn that the self-styled 'Progressives' push. It is about encouraging people with the right skills, ability, life experience and record of successful work and achievement to stand for a pre-selection that is heavily weighted in favour of the yes-men and yes-women of the ilk of this sly and gutless party/union person:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf4nlIEHfaU

No political party, no government, is doing the public any favours at all in putting young motor-mouths like Penny Wong aka The Penguin, into ministerial positions they are ill suited for, just because they are women and ride the feminist bandwagon. It was an insult to the intelligence of the public, referred to disparagingly as 'punters' by Rudd, when he (Rudd) elevated Wong into the role of Finance Minister (Dr No he called her, LOL) a position she was so obviously unsuited for and for which there were much better qualified PEOPLE available.

As I have written previously <http://apo.org.au/commentary/moving-backwards-women-australian-parliaments> a major problem caused by the failure of the conservative parties to put women into parliament in recent years is the lack of women available for its front bench positions. Hence the dramatic falls in the proportion of women in government after conservative victories, particularly in Western Australia, Queensland and at the federal level. Thanks to quotas, the Labor Party does not have the same lack of women in its parliamentary parties - in June this year women made up 40 percent of Labor parliamentarians around Australia compared with 21 percent of Coalition parliamentarians. One interesting way in which new conservative governments have been making up for the lack of women in their Cabinets is through the appointment of women as Speaker, for the first time as in Queensland and NSW or for the third time in the House of Representatives (after Labor's Joan Child and Anna Burke).