If they get over 50%, will it be OK for men to put on the same turn that the women have been putting on? Well, some women have put on. I believe that most women would be embarrassed by the Amazons.

One political satirist (pay to read) has written this morning how Liberal men will be encouraged to have the operation to make them women, thereby solving the party's problem. On the taxpayers’ tab, naturally.

I suppose that parties with this woman “problem” could always put up only women candidates; the dopey electorate would accept that; they would accept anything after reinstating the Albanese Communist-style government.

No matter. Australia is well and truly rooted anyway. Both men and women in Australian politics are responsible for that.

Long live misogynism, that's what you get from reading this article. Patronising nonsense like; "and both my sisters have had significant careers" the implication there, all that despite being women Then this corker; "The Teals are the most unbalanced by sex, and the most unbalanced. While campaigning for transparency and honesty in government they are a Trojan horse for commercial rent-seeking interests in the "renewables" industry (got to say that when you are funded by Big Coal)." "Anthony Albanese and the ALP are the least competent federal government in memory. It seems a gender bias also manifests in milquetoast males and mediocre to disastrous leadership." Simply a hard right opinion, with nothing at all to say about the wack job Noalition and its two thirds of old men from yesteryear, soundly rejected by the Australian people only two months ago.

The fact that only 4 countries in the world have more women than men in their legislatures (in Andorra and UAE women don’t “outnumber” men, the split is 50-50), hardly demonstrates that Australia “doesn't have a gender problem”; it shows very starkly that most countries still do.

As to the make-up of individual parties in Australia, it’s important to distinguish the larger parties from the minor ones. Statistically the gender ratios for smaller parties are likely to vary widely – a party with only one Senator will be 100% male or 100% female in its parliamentary representation, as the table in this article shows. But the larger the number of MPs, the smaller the statistical probability that a purely meritocratic process will produce significantly more male than female representatives (or vice versa).

The Liberal Party and LNP combined have only 7 women of 34 members in the House of Representatives. There is a 0.0004107 probability that a random selection of 34 people would yield 7 females or fewer. That is very strong evidence that the Liberals’ selection processes are not, in fact, meritocratic.

I do not support quotas and believe in meritocracy. Meritocracy favours neither men nor women based on their gender. But statistics tell us that the Liberals’ low female representation is extremely unlikely to be random accident, and this suggests that there are barriers to female participation in the party. It could be because the party doesn’t appeal to high-quality female candidates, or because the selection processes are biased against them - especially in winnable seats.

The Liberals are also even more unpopular among female than male voters. At the 2025 election just 39% of women supported the L-NP on a two-party preferred basis, compared to 45.5% of men.

Mandating quotas may not be the answer, but Sussan Ley needs to address the linked reasons why there are so few Liberal women in Parliament and why the party is so unpopular with female voters.

Hi Rhian,

You've hit the nail on the head, the Liberal Party has a long history of being an old boys party (establishment), and only the right sort of chap is considered suitable to represent the party. For the author; there are 687 representatives in the North Korean "parliament" with only 121 (17.6%) women, maybe Graham should highlight NK as the ideal to strive for, with plenty of fellas running the show! Closer to home, my 3 reps local, state and federal are all women (LNP male was aholed in May), can't say much about the new federal member, but she did replace a "slug", but the other 2, local LNP and state Labor, are great reps doing to top job in my opinion.

Graham has assumed that affirmative action and merit are mutually exclusive, when they are in fact complimentary.

While affirmative action helps to provide equal representation in the short-term, the ultimate goal of it is to render itself obsolete once our perceptions and attitudes have changed and biases are no longer a hurdle. It’s a temporary measure - one that articles like this only serve to confirm the necessity of, and delay our ability to abandon it as unnecessary.

But the bit that caught my eye was:

“The quota system has, on average, produced a less qualified type of female.”

Yes, that goes without saying, given how good the women before quotas had to be to push through the barriers. But that doesn’t mean they’re not qualified.

By that token, we could say that the quota system has produced a more qualified type of male, now that there are less positions available to them.

Intuitively, “merit” sounds noble and logical, but in practice it’s little more than a myth posing as neutrality. It assumes a level playing field that has never existed, as though opportunity, mentorship, confidence, and visibility are evenly distributed across gender, class, and race.

In reality, “merit” has been shaped by who has access, whose potential is recognised, and who fits the pre-existing mould. It’s less about ability and more about networks, norms, and narratives. For decades, being male, white, and well-connected was the silent quota. But because that version of merit was informal and unspoken, it was never questioned.

Affirmative action doesn’t undermine merit - it confronts the uncomfortable truth that we’ve never truly had it. It attempts to negate old barriers until the paradigms it shifts render it no longer necessary.

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Dear Graham,

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As of 2025, there are 4.14 billion, males in the world, representing 50.27% of the world population. The population of females is 4.09 billion, representing 49.73% of the world population.

The majority of countries and regions in the world have more females than males. But the two most populous countries, China and India, have a higher male population by a margin. Therefore, there are more males than females in the world.

If the populations of China and India are excluded, there are more females than males in the rest of the world.

In Australia, the ratio is 49.6% males for 50.4% females.

In the federal House of Representatives in 2025, the ratio is 55% males for 45% females. In the Senate, it is 43% males for 57% females.

As there are a total of 76 senators and 150 members of the House of Representatives, that means there are 115 males and 111 females in the Australian parliament.

Not to worry, Australia is not yet a matriarchy. The number of women in our federal parliament is still less than 50%.

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