Gareth Hutchen of the Guardian reports:
The Liberal MP Julia Banks and the Liberal senator Lucy Gichuhi both claim they were subjected to bullying and intimidation from male colleagues during last month’s leadership spill. The behaviour prompted Banks to quit parliament.
Bishop questioned why her party had trouble attracting and attaining women.
“It’s not acceptable for our party to contribute to the fall in Australia’s ratings from 15th in the world in terms of female parliamentary representation in 1999 to 50th today,” she said. “There’s a lot to be done.
“I have never been a fan of quotas but they may be the Lib’s only hope to win back female supporters,” Daisy Turnbull Brown wrote on Twitter.
She also said Canberra was “fundamentally kid/family unfriendly”, but that wasn’t the only reason more women aren’t in the Liberal party.
Earlier this week the former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard said Labor had done a far better job in the last two decades boosting the number of women in its ranks because it had set gender targets, unlike the Liberal party.
“Today, women are 46% of federal Labor, a jump of over 30 percentage points. In contrast, the Liberal party has inched forward to 23%, a jump of just over nine percentage points.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/sep/06/julie-bishop-appalling-behaviour-politics-enough-is-enough?
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