Australian politics needs fewer ‘vaguely incompetent men’, Amanda Vanstone says, not gender quotas

Amanda Vanstone says of female participation in politics: ‘I think the trick to fix it is not to put more average women in, but to put in fewer average men.’ Photograph: Peter West/AUSPIC Collection

Amanda Vanstone is opposed to quotas for women in politics. Her solution to increasing women’s participation is to tackle the problem the other way around: focus on the men.

“Talented women don’t always make it,” Vanstone told Guardian Australia on Monday. “Vaguely incompetent men frequently make it but vaguely incompetent women never do.”