Joe Hockey - completely out of touch with womens issues

[i-need-a-martini]

Of course it doesn't surprise me given who his boss is...

So yesterday he is invited to speak at The Executive Women Australia symposium about leadership, career advancement and board member opportunities. These women are some of the top female executives in the country. 

A friend of mine was there. She's a senior exec with CommBank and earns over $350k a year plus bonuses. She wanted to know (like everyone else there) how the Liberal Party were planning to address the unbalance experienced by professional women like her.

Instead of policies he talks about what a great asset women are in business, particularly in small businesses. And at length goes on about how his housewife mother went back to work to answer the phones at his fathers business to help him through a financial bad patch. He talks about how thrifty his grandmother was and how she struck it lucky by buying into some shares to help boost the family income.

He didn't answer a single question about policy. Only suggested that women get a good (male) mentor to help them in their careers (ignoring the fact that most of these women ARE already mentors for often junior male executives). He also said that when they were in government, they would "talk to men in senior positions to encourage them to give women better opportunities". And that women should ask corporate males "Why?" or "How would you feel if it was your daughter that was passed up for this opportunity?"

My friend walked out fuming. And she was still fuming this morning when we had a quick chat about it.

Why do I have the feeling the status of women is going to reel back 2 decades if the Liberals get in...?

[i-need-a-martini]

Take 2: And that graph relates to a talk given by Joe Hockey on progressing the career of executive women how...?

[lakeland27]

THE federal Coalition's economic credibility has been dealt a blow after a tribunal found that two accountants who costed its 2010 election policies had breached professional standards.

The ruling is an embarrassment to shadow treasurer Joe Hockey, who wrongly insisted during the campaign that the accountants' policy costings had been audited.

Geoffrey Phillip Kid and Cyrus Patell, of the Perth office of accountants WHK Horwath, produced a one-page report for the Coalition on its policies two days before the election.

Mr Hockey said at the time that the pair had certified "in law that our numbers are accurate''

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/lib-policy-costings-exposed-by-ruling-20111130-1o773.html#ixzz2S1A...

[lakeland27]

that article is full of interesting exerpts 🙂

Fellow Coalition frontbencher Andrew Robb also strongly vouched for the costings, saying they were "as good as you could get anywhere in the country, including in Treasury''.

In fact, the document was the result of a carefully worded agreement between the accountants and the Coalition to produce work primarily ''not of an audit nature''.

An audit would examine the assumptions used by the Coalition and whether they were reasonable.

Mr Kidd and Mr Patell's unpublished agreement with the Coalition explicitly required them not to inquire about "the reasonableness or otherwise of the assumptions used".

A Treasury examination of the Coalition's 2010 costings found errors including double counting and questionable assumptions amounting to $11 billion.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/lib-policy-costings-exposed-by-ruling-20111130-1o773.html#ixzz2S1B...

[the_great_she_elephant]

John, I think you are in the wrong thread. Are you old enough for 'senior moments'?

[lakeland27]

Asked about the tribunal ruling, Mr Hockey said it was a matter between the institute and the two accountants. Asked whether he had been wise to call their work an audit, he said: "I'm not getting into it, mate."

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/lib-policy-costings-exposed-by-ruling-20111130-1o773.html#ixzz2S1C...

[jonnjenn]

Hi she el

  I do fear our dear mm is well and truly in d-----e>

[cherples]

far worse than anything the Howard government undertook,'' Mr Eslake said.

The graph below speaks for itself, when did the ALP come to power?
There is a difference in spending what you actually have, and are in surplus, to spending what you do not have (apart from a deficit)

How are you attempting to relate this to a women's executive luncheon?

[wareubin]

These are the women who get to the top only to hit glass ceilings and can't break through no matter what.

For stuff like boards AFAIK the issue is making the right friends and sticking to your career. If you take breaks, like many woman do when they have children, you won't be seen as "the right sort".

At least one study has shown that the reason women are "under represented" in engineering is that they don't like the life-style required.

IMO most of this "glass ceiling" stuff is just not enough women being willing to do what men have to do to succeed.

Or do averages only matter when women don't get enough money?

Yup. You don't hear the feminists demanding quotas for garbage collectors or other low pay male dominated fields.

[izabsmiling]

You don't hear the feminists demanding quotas for garbage collectors or other low pay 

Maybe because they get equal pay ..

Garbage collection  Low pay ? 

what are you calling low pay ?

[izabsmiling]

I think MM added the graphs as I added the info on Joe Hockey and John Howard's spending...which also imo showed how he avoided answering those questions too.