Extract from The Guardian
Party insiders tell how Scott Morrison’s newly minted assistant minister for women built her support with anti-abortion and anti-trans views
Last modified on Sat 3 Apr 2021 06.01 AEDT
By any measure it has been a meteoric rise for Amanda Stoker.
After only entering parliament as a senator in 2018, the 38-year-old Queensland lawyer now holds key responsibilities in a newly minted Scott Morrison government; as assistant minister for women, industrial relations and as assistant minister to the attorney general.
Her appointment to the positions by a prime minister looking to douse the flames of a crisis over the treatment of women in parliament and beyond has not been without controversy. Stoker had previously been vocally anti-abortion and been accused of anti-trans rhetoric.
And it was immediately attacked by Grace Tame, Australian of the year, who referred to some of Stoker’s past public advocacy, querying if she was appropriate for the role.
Stoker’s elevation has also raised questions both in her own party and among her opponents about what the overtly conservative senator stands for and how, to some, she appears to have changed from being a politician associated with the party’s liberal sides to taking an apparently more hardline right stance.
‘Suddenly she was speaking at Cherish Life events’
Stoker rose to power after being appointed to take over the liberal George Brandis’s seat that he vacated in 2018.
One long-term LNP heavyweight, who declined to be named, says that to them she initially appeared to share the values of her predecessor.
“She was, before then, what we would have said was a libertarian. She was part of the George Brandis group – liberals, not conservatives.”
“And suddenly, she was speaking at Cherish Life events. It seemed quite the turnaround. If you asked me who she was before 2018 about Amanda, I would have said just right of a moderate. Which is obviously not what you would say now.”
This speculation by some around Stoker’s image is not limited to the party. Her political rivals have commented on it.
The Labor senator Murray Watt accuses Stoker of harnessing her “image as an arch-conservative to win preselection and hold her spot”.
“She has wrapped up a former moderate persona in an arch-conservative reactionary cloak,” Watt says.
No one approached by Guardian Australia wanted to speak on the record, but off the record observers and party members are more forthcoming.
“She’s very smart. Very. She missed out on preselection and each time she went back and began building support where she needed it, and then Brandis said he was going, and it was during another time when the LNP was in trouble because of its record with women, so it was her time,” another party watcher says.
“She had it sewn up, but I don’t think she was leaving it to chance.”
Asked about some of her colleagues’ perceptions about her move from the centre to the Christian-right, a spokesman for the new assistant minister for women didn’t acknowledge the questions directly.
“Senator Stoker is delighted to have been allocated additional responsibilities by the Prime Minister,” the spokesman said in a statement.
“Senator Stoker is particularly looking forward to contributing to the Government’s response to issues involving women’s equality, women’s safety, women’s economic security and women’s health and wellbeing. The government is committed to responding to these issues for the benefit of Australian women from all backgrounds and walks of life.
“As a member of the Executive, Senator Stoker understands that it is her duty to act in the interests of the Commonwealth and to support the Prime Minister and the Government including in situations where there may be a divergence between Government policy and her personally held beliefs.”
It’s how public some of those
personally held beliefs have been that has raised eyebrows now the
senator has been named the assistant minister for women.
Amanda Stoker and Scott Morrison arrive at a church service for the commencement of parliament on 2 February 2021. Photograph: Dominic Lorrimer/AAP
“That person would go back to their supporters and say ‘we missed out, but Amanda was in support’, and then suddenly she would have a whole heap of new supporters,” an LNP member familiar with preselections says.
Stoker’s appearances on Sky News, “what we sometimes call Base TV” as one Liberal puts it, have helped to establish her as a voice of the Christian-right within the party.
“She’s been in a tough fight with James McGrath for the number one ticket spot, and while James has a lot of institutional support, Amanda has been working the base very hard from the moment she hit Canberra and there is no better way to speak to the blue-rinse brigade who hold those valuable votes than a spot on Sky after dark,” a long-term LNP member says.
“She’s been very smart about it. But she now has to continue it – she can’t back away from some of the positions she has taken, because that’s why they like her, but she can’t be as vocal about it now she is the assistant minister for women, because she can’t just represent her base in that job.
“It’s a double-edged sword for her – it helps protect her ticket spot on one side, because she has serious responsibilities and the PM has obviously anointed her as a rising star. That’s a plus. But because of that, she can’t talk to some of that group’s pet issues as loud as she has been.
“Let’s just say if [former LNP state leader] Deb [Frecklington] complained about bullying now, I don’t think assistant minister for women Amanda Stoker would accuse her of ‘playing the gender card’ like she did last year.
“Or maybe she’ll just set up another ‘Mandy Jane’ profile to share those views instead,” the senior LNP member says, alluding to the pseudonym social media account Stoker admitted to using in 2020. Stoker told the Courier Mail the account was her personal profile (Jane being her middle name).
The account often referred to Stoker in the third person and defended her against claims other people were making against her, as well as comment on controversial issues.
Stoker told the paper it was a personal profile, which she used when replying to comments from her mobile phone, instead of her desktop computer that was logged in to her work profile.
Critic of ‘transgender agenda’
In her three years in parliament, Stoker has become one of the loudest critics of what she calls the “transgender agenda”, starting a petition seeking support for her mission to “keep women’s sport for women” and “protect children from hormone treatment and surgical procedures”.
The petition, which has only garnered 5,864 signatures, suggests that recognising a person’s gender identity differs from their birth sex is an abandonment of “objective truth”, “common sense” and “our understanding of basic biology”.
Transgender Victoria’s executive director, Sally Goldner, says the petition “is invalidating to trans people”, attempting to deny “transgender people’s existence and our lived experience”.
Asked how she could represent transgender women given those comments, Stoker’s spokesperson again said she would advance women’s equality, safety, economic security, health and wellbeing “for the benefit of Australian women from all backgrounds and walks of life”.
Amanda Stoker makes her first speech in the Senate on 20 June 2018. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Goldner describes this as not so much an olive branch, but more of an “olive twig” or an “olive seed”.
Goldner credits Stoker for implicitly recognising “we have federal anti-discrimination laws that affirm trans and gender diverse people as our preferred gender” but questions whether Stoker’s views really are any different from the government’s.
“Stoker’s comments are consistent with most of the anti-trans rhetoric we’ve heard from Liberal and National members in their eight years in office.”
Goldner calls for Stoker to “value women of all backgrounds” and take “concrete action” to improve trans people’s lives, starting with directly consulting trans women and trans-specific organisations.
The Liberal senator Claire Chandler, another conservative young woman who has taken up the cause with gusto since she entered the Senate in 2019, welcomed Stoker’s promotion and urged her not to drop the issue.
“There are many women from right across the political spectrum who welcome Amanda’s willingness to point out the relevance of biological sex in women’s sports and other women’s services,” Chandler tells Guardian Australia.
“The suggestion that an assistant minister for women should stop expressing her view on issues of importance to many Australian women is ludicrous.”
Stoker’s support for hardliners saw her admonished by Australian of the Year, Grace Tame, for what she saw as the senator’s support of Bettina Arndt’s ‘fake rape crisis’ campaign, which Stoker raised in Senate estimates.
Stoker immediately released a statement saying Tame was “passionate but not informed” and may not have been aware of her role as a prosecutor and barrister working for women and children who had been victims of abuse.
“I did not attend Ms Arndt’s campus tour. I raised it in Senate estimates to highlight the universities’ inconsistent approaches to free speech and de-platforming,” Stoker said.
But immediately after Stoker’s estimates questioning in October 2019, Arndt sent an email out to supporters which included a video of Stoker’s questioning, saying she had met with the senator and encouraged her followers to widely share Stoker’s “brilliant display”.
“Now Amanda is promising to help the regulator ensure they address the appalling bias in their own instructions to universities regarding this issue,” Arndt said.
“I have a team of serious players on board … I’ll be writing about some of the other fascinating developments in the weeks to come but couldn’t resist sending you the Stoker video today. I’m really keen that we circulate this as widely as possible.
“This is a shot across the bows of the feminists who have had the running on this issue for so long. And the more people who know about it the better.”
Stoker’s rise at both a parliamentary level and as a power player within the Queensland LNP rests in her winning her Senate ticket battle with McGrath. The number one spot is seen as a guaranteed place in the Senate, with the number two spot going to a Nationals member of the LNP, with Matt Canavan entitled to that place. While it is not impossible to win a Senate seat from the number three spot (Gerard Rennick did it), it is a lot less certain.
Whispers that Stoker could be parachuted into the seat of Bowman when Andrew Laming departs at the next election were shut down by Stoker, who said she would not be making a move. Some within the LNP said senior Coalition members had said it was “too soon”. Stoker has also denied she is supporting Henry Pike, someone she has described as “a good friend” in parliamentary speeches to win the seat over Fran Ward, who, until the state executive voted to reopen preselection in Bowman on Wednesday night, was the only other candidate.
Barrister Maggie Forrest, the LNP’s honorary legal counsel, a role Stoker once filled in the party, is also expected to throw her hat in for preselection, making it a three-way contest.
“Senator Stoker does not have a vote on state executive nor in the Bowman preselection. She is impressed with the quality of all of the candidates and trusts the locals to choose the best one for the job,” her spokesman said.
“Amanda has not made a statement of support for any candidate at this stage, nor did she advocate for the reopening of nominations. Your statement that the Assistant Minister is openly supporting a male candidate over a woman in Bowman is false.”
Her LNP colleagues who have watched her navigate her way to her current position could all agree on one thing – “you underestimate Amanda at your peril”.
“She’s made some mistakes in her eagerness and, as you would expect, like everyone ambitious, she’s rubbed some people the wrong way on her way up,” a party source says.
“The question is whether she can keep it all balanced. And anyone who thinks she isn’t thinking three steps ahead when it comes to the politics, probably hasn’t been watching close enough.”
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