All smiles now: Taimus Werner-Gibbings is back on the ticket, but Labor took a hit in the process. Photo: Region.
There is no doubt the Labor Party’s affirmative action policy has been successful in getting more women into parliaments across the nation.
While the Liberal Party has resisted such a move despite internal pressure from those concerned about its lack of adequate female representation and a public perception that it has a problem with women, actively encouraged by opponents, Labor has written into its rule book measures that require a certain number of women to be preselected.
The Liberals don’t like quotas on principle, arguing that women should be chosen and elected on their merits.
Nothing wrong with that theoretically, but on the ground, it doesn’t seem to be working.
So kudos to Labor for giving women a helping hand.
But every now and then, the process can go a little awry and turn farcical.
The preselection contest for the Brindabella electorate in Canberra’s south is a case in point.
The original outcome, where the top-polling candidate, a man, was dumped to ensure the female quota caused enough of a stink for the ACT’s three federal MPS and Chief Minister Andrew Barr to intervene.
The subsequent deal put Taimus Werner-Gibbings back on to the ticket, along with Louise Crossman, the woman who bumped him off.
Another woman who had been preselected will now contest the neighbouring Murrumbidgee electorate, where a man has had to make way for her.
It’s a good result for Mr Werner-Gibbings, who you would have thought would have been safe from the quota machinations after outpolling sitting MLA and Minister Mick Gentleman.
But being unaligned factionally was probably his undoing. As a good soldier, he would have been expected to go quietly.
That obviously did not happen with him or his supporters maintaining the rage enough to attract some heavyweight support.
After all, Mr Werner-Gibbings almost won a seat in 2020, only to be shaded by the Greens’ Johnathon Davis, who left the Assembly in November over allegations of sexual impropriety and won’t be around in October.
Odds are Mr Werner-Gibbings will get there this time if the preselection mess hasn’t turned voters off altogether.
And that is the problem Labor was facing. Not only was the clumsy quota manipulation grossly unfair, but it was also damaging to the party in general.
The party council’s actions also undermined the very mechanism it was ostensibly trying to uphold.
Preselections can be complicated enough when the factional balance must be maintained, not to mention score-settling and outright warfare. Add the quota requirement and the situation demands skill and alacrity to support women candidates but respect the democratic process.
None of that was on show in Brindabella.
The situation has been resolved and probably headed off a branch revolt, but it is not an auspicious start to an election year for a government looking for a seventh term and facing a Liberal Party shifting to the centre and showing more political grit. And being led by a woman.
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