Australia: Gender wars can't help the Labor cause any more than a quota PM

Article here. Excerpt:

'While history will record that Julia Gillard was the nation's first female prime minister, it should also record that she was the first quota PM. Gillard will never escape how she came to her job. Labor's 40 per cent gender quota system put Gillard in parliament and her gender helped elevate her to the position of Prime Minister. Alas, her male backers could not have been more wrong to assume that gender would be an ace card with voters in a contest against Tony Abbott. Voters don't give a toss about gender. And when the PM plays the gender card, she reminds voters that merit took a back seat in her career trajectory.

In a neat twist of irony, one of her backers, Victorian senator David Feeney, finds himself in the middle of a vicious gender war over preselection for the Victorian seat of Batman. Likely to lose his Senate seat at the next election, Feeney wants the safe Labor seat vacated by Martin Ferguson. A woman wants it too. Feeney says he is a huge supporter of affirmative action but not in Batman. Ah, the hypocrisy and predictable identity politics as the gender wars kick off again.'

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