Liberal Stoush: Bishop Fail
I like the Liberal rumble that’s going on at the moment; I enjoy the thought of Malcolm Turnbull privately comparing himself to Alexander the Great as he tackles the Gordian Knot (“familiar as his garter”).
A generally problematic aspect of the Liberal leadership issue, however, is Julie Bishop. Where is she in all this? I mean, supposedly she’s the deputy leader of the Opposition, which believe it or not could be quite a powerful position. Not so powerful as if Bishop had actually stood up and taken the shadow treasury portfolio as was her right, but certainly, on paper, the deputy should be regarded as a natural contender for succession in such a situation as the Opposition currently finds itself. And so I ask, where is she?
It always seemed clear that Bishop’s inclusion in the Opposition lineup was sadly a token gesture, designed to mirror the Labor situation and spin spin spin to counter the clear fact that the Liberal party is a dinosaur of the patriarchy. But I have some sympathy with opinion that regardless of how you get somewhere, what you do when you get there is the important thing. I mean, ideally one would get to the deputy leadership of a major political party on merit alone, but this has never ever been the case in tweedy Liberal land – witness the career trajectory of Alexander Downer - and when you’re contending with a patriarchal right-wing structure operating mostly through cronyism, you surely take your token appointment as part of that structure and run with it as best you can.
Sadly it seems clear that the Liberals have promoted somebody who is apparently unable to take advantage of the current chaos to announce a leadership bid or at least to make some undergroundy rumbling noises of interest in pursuing the leadership in the future. I mean, if Bishop didn’t have leadership ambitions, surely she wouldn’t have accepted a leadership role in the first place? And given this, now is the time to do something with that ambition, surely?
This is mildly unfair to Bishop, of course; given how awful the Liberal party really is, it may be impossible for any woman to ever be the leader. But that’s no reason not to try. The fact that she’s not indicated any wish to do anything but use her potentially key position to be a kind of helpmeet to the prating GPS-inbred leader of the day, melding effortlessly into the patriarchal narrative, makes me wonder what on earth she’s doing in politics and why on earth she accepted the position in the first place.
Naturally, given the circumstance of Bishop’s election to the role of deputy, there’s this inherent comparison with Julia Gillard, who, despite the apparent solidity of the Rudd leadership, is constantly being touted as the next Prime Minister. This is a shocking commentary on the Liberal party as an institution that is a) poison to women of talent and b) more willing to promote a person of apparently little talent to what should be a key leadership role than to make a genuine effort to actually recruit women of talent to its ranks.
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