Marise Payne’s retirement from the Senate, announced at the beginning of September and which took effect at its end, marked the end of a remarkable list of achievements. She had the longest stint of any woman in the history of the Senate, and in that time was both the first female Defence minister and provided spectacular and prolific silence as minister for women.
Now the issue becomes who’s to replace her? We look at the candidates floating around as options and how they’ve been auditioning for this role in recent years.
Dave Sharma
Alexander Downer will be pleased, having pre-emptively (and correctly as it turned out) mourned the loss of potentially “truly great men” such as Sharma to independents who, apparently, “will be totally forgotten in 10 years”. (By the by, Sharma had earned this level of admiration from the sad clown of Auspol during his stint as a legal adviser to the then-Foreign Affairs minister between 2004 and 2006, during which time the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), at Downer’s request, bugged the Timor-Leste cabinet to help Australia in negotiations with the tiny state, recovering from civil war, in relation to resources under the Timor Sea.)
Anyway, since being swept from the seat of Wentworth by the teal wave and replaced by Allegra Spender, Sharma has done some classic post-politics work, joining newly formed tech investment advisers SWG Capital — incidentally, The Australian Financial Review‘s coverage of the move brutally referred to him as a “Former Liberal rising star“. But this didn’t carry the same sense of finality of former treasurer and fellow “truly great man” Josh Frydenberg heading to Goldman Sachs, and Sharma has kept his hand in with Liberal politics, providing regular commentary for The Australian on the potential future of the party.
Responding to the post-election review he argued that to win back seats such as his old hunting ground: “We need to be as focused on the threat from our left as we are to that on the right.” One wonders, in that context, what he makes of a Peter Dutton-lead party. He’s also engaged in that other extremely popular post-2022 past time: blaming Scott Morrison.
Andrew Constance
Constance, former NSW Transport minister, can at least claim he’s been clashing with Morrison since before it was cool for a Liberal politician to do so. When as prime minister Morrison first showed his natural talent for making everyone furious at him during the fires that ravaged NSW across the cusp on 2019-20, Constance, his own house very nearly wiped out by those fires, made it clear whose side he was on:
I didn’t even know he was coming, I haven’t had a call from him. To be honest the locals probably gave him the welcome he probably deserved.
Should Constance run, it would be his second attempt to to enter the federal arena — in 2022 he quit state politics to run in the lower house seat of Gilmore. Thanks partly to the fact the Nationals didn’t run a candidate, he did a lot better than 2019’s candidate, Warren Mundine, by achieving a 12% swing and coming within 400 or so votes of giving the Coalition a rare pick-up in that election.
He reflected at the time on the need for serious action on climate change, and that his party was risking irrelevance:
The party can’t exist for itself, it’s got to exist for the community. It’s got to reflect community values and community thinking. Politics can’t continue as a dog-eat-dog world because it isn’t resulting in good outcomes for our community.
Hmmm. This all seems a bit touchy-feely for the current Libs.
Zed Seselja
Ah, now we’re talking. The former Morrison government minister is reportedly considering a late run for the spot, back by the hard right of the party. Seselja was, shall we say, a tangential teal scalp, taken out by independent and former rugby player David Pocock in 2022. During his time as a senator for the most progressive electorate in the country he managed the impressive feat of voting consistently against everything they said they wanted — supporting penalty rate cuts, opposing assisted suicide and marriage equality. The last of these in particular would please Dutton, who famously bemoaned the failure of the NRL to find all those existing and popular anti-marriage equality songs that exist.
Hey, separately, is it weird that a party that had less than 30% female representation at federal level even before Payne’s retirement so far doesn’t appear to have identified a single woman to replace her?
Do the Libs STILL have a problem with women? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
More accurately, the Libs STILL have a problem with their men’s attitude to and treatment of women.
Any chance Katherine Deves will be given the job? Surely she ticks the boxes – a female as right wing as Zed.
Any chance if this happened the people of NSW would put her last on the Senate ballot? It would involve below the line voting, but I’d be willing to do it, just to keep her out.
More of the same men of merit taking precious seats in Parliament for more of the same poverty of intellect, of ethics, of competence and of capacity to take responsibility. There is not a Barbara Pocock, Deb O’Neil, Clare O’Neil, or Penny Wong amongst them
Wasn’t Warren Mundine in the early running? I fear the Senate is becoming a play thing for the parties, lets us open it to a By Election.
Once Mundine has done the damage on the Voice, Dutton will treat him in the same manner as the Libs did to Kerr after the Dismissal
Wozza talked about changing the date, and his date was promptly cancelled.
Nor a David Pocock, or any of the other worthy Independents.
As a Canberran who always Put Zed Last and has been very pleased to welcome David Pocock to our second Senate seat, I smiled at the thought of Zed thinking he might represent NSW. The fact that he has not found another job since his defeat in May 2022 will surprise no-one.
What? No Catherine Deeves?
It will be interesting to see who gets up at pre selection. There will be no hope for Dutton’s lot if Seselja gets it There is no sign thatDutton has got the faintest idea about how to win back the Teal seats ,let alone wi any others. Frydenberg has certainly made the right decision from his own career point of view. He might have won back Kooyong but would never have been able to gather up all the right win religious lot and ride them into government. Regardless of the result of the Referendum, Dutton and co have an uphill battle.
And Mr Dutton’s performance to date? Reap what you sow.