The responsibility of leadership

Today the news that the members of the Australia Club (shockingly but unsurprisingly) voted to continue to exclude women from its exclusive and influential membership.

There’s been a lot of debate about the merits of the decisions, the existence of any single-sex institutions and whether or not anyone who is excluded would want to be a member anyway (an argument I find paradoxical – people don’t usually want to be involved with people who deliberately and hurtfully exclude them, but that’s hardly a reason to say the exclusion is valid?), but I digress.

The thing that has me fascinated is that a club that’s members include multiple prime ministers, politicians, high court judges, business leaders and doctors – many, perhaps even the majority, leaders in their chosen profession, is the responsibility of leadership and (when it comes to this particular issue) it’s blatantly lacking.

Leaders who currently or have previously overseen the passage of equal opportunity legislation, budget funding for the most important of equality causes including family violence and women’s safety; business leaders who apply for gender equality citations and sign-off on diversity statement; the lawyers and judges that oversee our justice system, have predominantly been very quiet in explaining the reasons why the vast majority of their members don’t see a place for women in a club that’s based on power and prestige.

Leaders have a responsibility to lead visibly and with integrity.

If those who (were or) are high court judges, prime ministers and CEOs don’t think that women are good enough to have lunch in the same space as them, then at least have the decency to be clear in their reasons and ownership of them.

But we know there’s a reason why most members of the Australian Club are being silent. Because their reasoning is most likely flawed and definitely unpopular.

I hope that the time is coming when the membership of an elite, male only club will become a liability in the pursuit of power rather than an asset.