What's the problem with more women on boards? Men will lose their jobs.

The reaction from corporate Australia is telling.

Earlier this year Independent Senator Nick Xenophon introduced a private bill that seeks to achieve something resembling balanced representation on government boards. Australia has had a soft or ‘aspirational’ 40% target in place for women on government boards since 2011 but it hasn’t been hugely effective.

Just nine out of 18 boards met the Government’s target in 2013-14, compared to 13 boards which met the target in 2012-13. This is what prompted Senator Xenophon to propose additional measures.

“It’s concerning that there’s been an alarming slip in gender balance on government boards. This does not represent community expectations, or the fact that women make up 51 per cent of the Australian population,” the Senator said.
“While there appears to be no valid argument as to why this legislation should not be put in place… there are many arguments as to why it should.”

As sensible as that sounds, it is untrue. Arguments against balanced representation abound.

The bill is not punitive. There is no punishment or legal ramifications for boards that fail to meet the 40% target, rather boards will have to explain why they couldn’t meet it. As far as sticks go, this is very much a carrot.

“What exists now is a policy which effectively asks everyone to please try to do this in making appointments. And if they don’t they can say ‘Oh well we tried’,” Chief Executive Women president Diane Smith-Gander says. “What this bill is saying is you have to do more than try. It mandates that whoever is in charge of making appointments must take gender into account to make sure they meet the 40/40/20 requirements.”

Yet the swift conclusion many made about this bill is that it introduces a quota or that it could mark the beginning of us heading down that treacherous path. It is not a view Senator Xenophon agrees with.

“Anyone who suggests that this is a quota is fear-mongering; it’s a transparency measure,” Senator Xenophon told the Australian Financial Review.

Yet the ASX and the Australian Institute of Company Directors, organisations which are both ostensibly committed to increasing the representation of women on boards, initially made submissions arguing against the bill on those grounds.

This week, after facing backlash from its members, the AICD altered its position by withdrawing its opposition. It proposed some amendments which Women on Boards executive Claire Braund says are unnecessary.

“This is a very reasonable bill, which reflects the views of many in society,” Braund said. “Once again, the peak non-executive directors’ body in Aus­tralia has demonstrated how out of touch it really is in relation to gender balance on boards.”

At a public senate hearing earlier this week, economist, banker and company director Carolyn Hewson said the time for talking is over.

“There are no longer any valid excuses,” she said. “There are so many capable, experienced and well qualified women to comprise at least 40 per cent of our decision-making capacity in Australia.”

“For such a long time I’ve made excuses about the lack of balance in our corporate boards, government boards and many of our civil society boards, thinking change was just a matter of time. Yet, after over 30 years of expecting the trend towards diverse representation to accelerate, we see only slow progress in so many of these areas.”

“Increasingly, I am aware that the system of meritocracy is a system that has largely been designed by men, for men.”

Given that women comprise 51% of the population, why is seeking to ensure 40% of positions on government boards are held by women viewed as radical? Why has it sparked outrage from the same organisations that have been known to spruik the benefits of diversity?

There is a simple explanation as told to Alan Kohler by Diane Smith-Gander yesterday at an AICD event.

It will mean that “some men will have to give up their gigs. They won’t want to do that, but that’s just the way it will have to be”.

At the end of the day it’s a power struggle, those in the driving seat are reluctant to hand over the keys. But Kohler says resistance to measures that will boost women on boards is becoming increasingly futile.

“Male directors and the AICD, who are resisting the imposition of quotas and trying [to] hang on to their ‘gigs’, have their backs to the wall. The campaign to enforce increased female board representation in Australia is not going away, and is only getting fiercer.”

He cited the AICD’s argument that quotas could “act as a hard ceiling on female representation on boards” as particularly curious.

“That sounds rather like a piece of sophistry designed to distract attention from the real agenda – Australian boards are a very long way from hitting a 40 per cent ceiling for female directors, so that is hardly a problem.”

Exactly. The real problem is the resistance to adopt change. If a reasonable mechanism as proposed in Xenophon’s private bill in the realm of government boards, creates this much backlash from the corporate community, is there any hope of achieving greater diversity on boards without being punitive?

In a bid to win this battle could it be that the bill’s opponents are on the way to losing the war?

Should we be worried about these powerful men becoming “unemployed”?