The LNP will host their International Women’s Day event this year at a strictly men-old club in Brisbane on Friday.
The event is to be held at Tattersall’s, an exclusive club that expressly prohibits women from becoming members – unless they are married to a member, in which case they can be admitted with their ‘Partner’s Card’.
The club is 150 years old and costs $1,000 per year for membership. While for the rest of the year it strictly only allows men and wives as its guests, the exclusive club will host the LNP women for lunch.
“At the end of the day men are men and women are women and I know increasingly in society the lines are getting blurred,” said LNP Women Vice President Peta Simpson.
“But how can we celebrate international women’s day knowing that there’s not an international men’s day – and then when the men do want to have something that’s for themselves, we can’t respect it?”
The second explanation Simpson offered was that the decision was purely based on price, and that Tattersall’s offered the best price for the event at short notice. But she then implied the decision was symbolic, and that having an IWD event at Tattersall’s is in fact a protest against its entrenched bias.
“At the end of the day, point blank, we made a decision on price. We booked it through one of our women members. And what better place to, I guess, rage against the establishment than in the establishment?”
The prime minister and minister for women Tony Abbott weighed in on the decision, announcing jovially in parliament that it represents “just how wonderful this broad church” that he leads is.
He then suggested that the event represents a win for women.
“Obviously they’ve just broken down the last barrier and they’ve made the men-only club admit women,” he said.
“Admit women! Isn’t that fantastic? At last, this bastion of chauvinism has admitted women and they’ve done it on International Women’s Day because of the Liberal National Party.”
He then congratulated the LNP for smashing the glass ceiling “yet again”.
“Good on the Liberal National Party, smashing the glass ceiling yet again. I say congratulations and thank God that bastion of old-fashioned chauvinism has finally collapsed like the walls of Jericho at the trumpet cry of the Liberal National Party.”
Abbott failed to mention that although the LNP women will be allowed to dine at the club, they are still explicitly banned from becoming members.
“This is yet another scary insight into the Liberal Party’s 1950s views on gender equality,” Senator Larissa Waters, the Australian Greens spokesperson for women, says. “That Tony Abbott thinks celebrating International Women’s Day at a men’s-only club is ‘smashing the glass ceiling’, once again shows he is unfit to be Minister for Women. It’s telling that Tattersall’s is making a special exemption for the event so that women do not have to show a ‘partner card’ to gain access.”
If the choice of venue was determined at late notice, Waters says that’s telling. “Having to arrange at venue at the last minute shows the LNP forgot about International Women’s Day, just like their party routinely forgets about women when making Cabinet appointments including Minister for Women.”
The decision – and the prime minister’s response – have already garnered significant criticism on social media, with many wondering if the decision is a prank. It isn’t.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed a quote mentioned above to Fiona Simpson. This was a production error and we apologise for the confusion.
