August 2017 – Kate Galloway

The male professoriate in law

A male law professor mentioned to me recently that in his experience, if you just do your work, and do it well, then your career will progress – rewards will flow. I was somewhat taken aback by this statement and pointed out that this certainly was not my own experience, and was unlikely to be the experience of many women in academia. Indeed, I suspect this is not the case in any profession.

It got me thinking about the makeup of Australian law schools. We currently have many women law deans around the country – though I do note that some are punching above their weight, holding the role of dean at a substantive position lower than professor. The law school is a feminised work force in many respects – women are highly visible in so many law schools. However I suspect that this is because women form the bulk of our casualised workforce, teaching sessionally.

I wondered though about the makeup of the professoriate. With so many women – and so many capable women – one might expect that there would be equality in the upper ranks of the law school. Let’s see if the numbers bear this out.

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Semantics or substance? Plebiscite/survey

Since my last post, I’ve developed a particular sensitivity to the language surrounding Australia’s marriage equality process.

Billed by the government as a plebiscite using ‘one vote one value’ (Matthias Cormann on 10 August), a ‘democratic right’ to ‘vote’ on the question of marriage equality (Julie Bishop on 10 August), and having ‘the look and feel of an election’ (Allan Tudge on 9 August), in fact the government has directed the ABS to run a survey.

The legal questions as to the process therefore centre on the lawfulness of the direction under the Australian Bureau of Statistics Act, and the question of funding.

The High Court of Australia will today hear two challenges to the survey. While some have expressed the challenge in terms of its undemocratic nature, I can’t see that this is relevant to the question of the lawfulness of a *survey*.

Questions about democratic process are valid. But these are not legal questions to be heard by the High Court so long as the relevant process occurs under the Census and Statistics Act.

The relevant processes are the processes of surveys and of statistics. Statistics involves questions such as sample size and selection, population distribution, and the like. Survey methods go to the reliability of inferences drawn from the analysis. They do not involve questions of fairness, rights, legitimacy, or democracy.

Further, a survey instrument is not a ballot and a survey response is not a vote. Defects in sampling methods are not voter fraud.

Because the government promised a plebiscite, we remain focused on democratic process and so we continue to frame our questions in this way. Even government ministers are stuck in their own language of a citizens’ vote.

But until we can clearly analyse the reality of the legal background to the process as one of statistical collection, we will be less able to analyse its validity – both under the law, and as to its ultimate statistical outcome.

Plebiscite not within ABS role

The Australian government has, notoriously, decided to run what it calls a plebiscite on the question of marriage equality in Australia. It will put up a bill to set up the running of the plebiscite as a mainstream vote, but this is expected to fail. Its fallback position is to have the Australian Bureau of Statistics (‘ABS’) run a voluntary postal vote.

On a straightforward reading of the relevant statutes, it is unlikely that the ABS is empowered by its legislation to run the vote. The former head of the ABS appears also to hold this view.

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