Do you want someone like you in charge?

Why must government be ‘representative’, asks Carol Sarler. It makes no sense. We must fight back against this pernicious new orthodoxy

Only a week ago, as Julia Gillard was sworn in as Prime Minister of Australia, the sheilahood could scarcely believe its luck. A woman, no less! And not just any woman, either: Miss Gillard ticked all the righteous boxes as an avowed feminist, a pro-choice campaigner and a proud member of Emily’s List, an organisation founded — there as here — to promote sex equality in all things, especially in governance.

By Monday this week, the most fervent of fans didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Gillard’s first Cabinet reshuffle not only kept all 14 men in its 18-strong number but even divvied up the additional tasks that the ousted Kevin Rudd might have performed among, yes, the chaps. Funny old place, the real world. For those who ever get there.

Which brings us, as such topics always must, to Harriet Harman and to how infuriatingly far she is from the quick study that Miss Gillard has proved to be — for what Gillard latched on to, at the drop of a voting slip, still eludes our very own Harriet. Even as Gillard played her pragmatic opening gambit, Harriet carried on chewing the ears of the shadow Cabinet, where she is currently pastured and which she insists should be forcibly comprised equally of men and women. It is, I suppose, a superficially attractive proposal — at least it is for those able to disregard value in meritocracy — and were she only lamenting discrimination against women, gay, black or usual-suspect people, it could be a proposal worthy of some support.

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Ella Dorn

Woke was invented by angry schoolgirls

But discrimination is not actually her beef. The clue to her real agenda lies in the precision of her goal; she doesn’t want a generalised increase — ‘more’ skirts, ‘extra’ frocks — nor a 60-40, nor any other numeric split.