Yeah, I obviously know the red pill is a matrix reference - but yeah, you might want to be aware that it's also used by some quite extreme fringe groups nowadays, who use the term "redpill" to mean "waking up" from the matrix of normal society into a world which fits their ideology better, often a very extreme version of a "we should go back to a world where men are dominant and decide everything" ideal, though also I believe the term's been picked up by some nazi-fringe types now. I'm glad it's not something you've come across in that context; I have quite a bit and some of the people I've ended up arguing with as a result were... not fun, let's say. Sorry if it sounded like I was being terse about it, it's just there's some rather grim stuff out there and there are some bad associations that term is getting nowadays because of the asshole fringe types :/
I think that in general it's true that gender and ethnicity blind recruitment makes most sense (for jobs where that makes sense - obviously some jobs are more headhunting-style, and there I guess counter-bias training for recruiters might be more useful). In terms of the diversity and competency thing, obviously competency is key in hiring - however, I think there are occasionally some valid arguments (if not ones I always agree with myself) that can be made on those grounds for positive discrimination in certain types of work. I believe there's reasonable evidence that working groups with more demographic diversity tend to have improved average problem-solving skills, for example, so it may be the case, especially in a field where different perspectives are useful, that it's not irrational to put together a more diverse team. I think there's also an argument that there are jobs where it makes sense for the people doing certain types of work to reflect the communities they work in. Policing and social work, for example, rely on people being able to make on-the-ground links in local communities, and having teams that are very unreflective of their area can make it harder for some of those agencies to have an impact.
Finally, there's the glass ceiling argument; that it's worth having positive discrimination in work areas that are traditionally monocultural, because this weakens the perception of those groups as being for that gender/ethnicity/etc (and it's the perception that seems to be behind hiring bias) - in terms of competence, I think it's clearly true that in cases where a certain ethnic or gender category is put off going for certain jobs or has an inbuilt hiring bias for them, those roles/companies/etc may then be missing out on competent people as a result of their gender, so I can see the logic behind trying to redress that balance. Of course when and where these arguments make sense to apply is pretty specific, and it's true that often too blunt an approach is taken to these sorts of things, especially by companies or departments that want to look like they're doing the right thing more than they want to focus on where they have recruitment strategy issues and how to resolve them. It's not as simplistic as "people putting diversity ahead of competence", though, there are some actually complex/nuanced issues to look at with this.
Finally re Turnbull's government - I think you might find that the government of the day has comparatively little influence in overall public sector hiring practices? I dunno exactly what the scope of that was, but if that's the whole Aus public services, then it might well include a lot of areas devolved to local administration, and departments where the ministers are focussing on policy and don't have a departmental running strategy, etc. Aus is probably more like the UK in that sense, these would be areas dealt with by senior civil servants (whereas in the US the decisions tend to be more appointees of Governors/Presidents).