The Liberal Party could struggle to meet its target — internally recommended after its bruising federal election loss — of women making up half of its federal MPs and senators by 2032.
The latest missed opportunity came at the weekend, when Frankston Mayor Nathan Conroy beat two internal female opponents to become the Liberal candidate for the upcoming Dunkley by-election.
Liberal sources say Conroy is seen as a good candidate with strong local name recognition, who might be able to overcome Labor’s 6% margin and beat Anthony Albanese’s chosen Dunkley candidate, Jodie Belyea.
But Conroy’s preselection does nothing to improve the Liberal Party’s odds of meeting its gender parity target.
The goal was recommended in the party’s review of its 2022 election loss. In the autopsy, former party director Brian Loughnane and Senator Jane Hume recommended a recruitment drive to attract more female candidates, but ruled out formal gender quotas. The review recommended the party’s federal executive adopt a target of 50% female representation within the party’s parliamentary ranks within 10 years or three terms. It also recommended the adoption of “practical measures to increase the female representation in the Parliament as quickly as possible”.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported last June that the recommendations in the post-election review had been formally adopted by the party.
Since that review was completed, in late 2022, the proportion of female Liberals in federal Parliament has actually decreased. Ex-foreign minister Marise Payne stepped down last year and ex-Wentworth MP Dave Sharma took her Senate seat.
In the Senate, where the Liberals hold 25 seats, there are now 10 Liberal women.
In the House of Representatives, there are nine Liberal women, including two Liberal National Party members who caucus with the Liberals. The Liberals hold 40 lower house seats in total.
There are several women who have been preselected for races in the next federal election, which is expected to be held in May 2025.
Mary Aldred has been preselected for Monash, and would replace sitting Liberal MP Russell Broadbent. Katie Allen has been preselected to challenge Labor for the seat of Higgins, which she formerly held. Susie Bower will have another go at taking the seat of Lyons from Labor, after coming close to winning it in 2022. And Gisele Kapterian will take on teal independent Kylea Tink in North Sydney.
In the Victorian seat of Kooyong, which ex-treasurer Josh Frydenberg lost to teal independent Monique Ryan in 2022, sources tell Crikey finance professional Amelia Hamer has a good chance of winning a forthcoming preselection battle. In another Victorian seat lost to a teal, Goldstein, ex-Liberal MP Tim Wilson will likely face off against two female candidates when the party selects its candidate later this year.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Conroy were both contacted for comment.
Should the Liberal Party be working harder to get more women into Parliament? Let us know your thoughts 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.
Why would anyone think bringing back Tim Wilson was a good idea
There is plenty of space on the political spectrum to be right of where I stand. Within my immediate family I am by far the furthest left and my brother the furthest right. He lives in Goldstein and in March 2022 said to me that he would be voting for Zoe Daniel. I knew then that Tim was a goner.
Quoted in the The Age, Tim Wilson said: “Can I be brutally honest? I think defeat was a gift the community gave me,” and went on to say:“I think people could see I was in a hurry. And then thought, probably, I needed to be humbled. And part of me thinks they were right.”
I don’t think anyone has ever professed finding humilty with so much hubris. And I guess you’d agree, Privileged Starvation, if Tim Wilson does win the Liberal preselection for Goldstein, Tim is likely to be given a second “gift” from the community at the 2025 election, because the Liberal Party has not changed one bit from the party it was in 2022. Furthermore, in the intervening 3 years in Goldstein, more rusted on old Liberal voters will have passed away and been replaced with a younger demographic who are less inclined to vote Liberal.
Ah yes, community rejection is in fact them giving you a gift….*rolls eyes*
“Member for IPA-Over-Goldstein”? Especially after the way, on being elected, he then took off to use that elected position to pursue those self-serving ‘hobbies’ of his and his ‘associates’?
From the positions he was granted by The Party in government – not least “AntiSuperMan Heading the House Economics Committee”?
…. Talk about conflicts of interest in plain sight = ‘par for the Coalition course’?
Liberal ‘gated stoals’?
More Cashs, Reynolds, Hansons (originally Liberal candidate), Humes, Mirrabellas, Stokes, Flints, Newmans, Vanstones, Deves, Prices, maybe a Credlin or two – that’d make a difference.
When I was an EEO officer back in the 1980s we used to say we’d know we had equal opportunity when there were as many hopeless women as men in … (insert name of any industry here). Never ever thought the Libs would get there first.
“Bait for catch”.
Liberal women have to be as bad or even more awful than their male counterparts in order to be allowed in the LNP boy’s club.
… Almost forgot. Bishops Major and Minor.
Which Bishop is which?
Goes with age, as Mater and Pater dropped them off at Big School.
Major, Speaker and “chopper aficionado’, Ma/Brony : and the minor ruby slipper’d/”We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto” Julie – jetting around the country on our tab, on ‘official business’ to cities where her Eagles were playing; to India (with Jethro and Gambaro) for Gina to show off her domestic political pull, at an Indian biz-partner’s wedding/contract signing celebrations, leaving us with that return fare bill, ’til called in.
Please, please, please, can the Liberal Party select more Sophie Mirrabellas? At the 2013 election, when there was a 3.6% two party preferred swing to the Liberals, Mirrabella managed to blow an 8.99% margin to lose to independent Cath McGowan. McGowan’s campaign model has since become a paradigm for the independents now known as the Teals. One day, historians might write that Mirrabella’s spectacular 2013 failure was the beginning of the end for the Liberal Party. We owe her a debt of gratitude. A life size gold plated statue of Mirrabella should be erected in the main street of Indi to remind us all of what she has done for us and the Liberal Party.
Sorry, that should have been in the main street of Wangaratta in the electorate of Indi.
Why not go the whole hog? Make that a fool’s gold statue?
That apparently is iron sulphide and it is pretty hard, but if the sculptor is happy with that medium, why not?
NOOOOO!
The Liberals just keeping pushing out the Pale Stale Males. All dressed identically in navy blue suit and blue tie. There must be a cloning machine stuck on the PSM setting at Liberal headquarters.
Look at who they selected for Aston ?
Yes President, Manny Cicchiello. I guess you did a bit of a google around when it was announced like I did. Cicchiello is deputy principal of Lighthouse Christian College in Keysborough. All denominations are welcome …
Rosheena was a proxy for her Pale Stale Male Newscorpse employee husband. And if anyone had read her columns in The Age you’d quickly realise she was totally unelectable anywhere other than the bluest of blue ribbon Liberal seats. And perhaps not even there.
They put up a woman as candidate and she was rejected by the electorate : how do the Liberal Party ‘ensure’ anything within spitting distance of ‘50% parliamentary representation’ if the electorate aren’t buying their wares.
…. Look at the state of the country – let alone the world- why aren’t ‘we’ pushing for a meritocracy? That would be ‘gender-neutral’.
Astonishingly they selected Dave Sharma for the Senate vacancy in NSW! A man who twice lost elections for Wentworth to women
It was astonishing. But I think Sharma was a better choice than Zed Seselja, the ACT’s reject, who was also a candidate for Marise Payne’s NSW Senate spot.
What a choice – Sharma or Seselja!
It nicely gets a leading moderate away from a potential challenge, with him safely cloistered on the red benches. Zed holds the distinction of being the only major party candidate ever to loose a Territory Senate seat, hardly a ringing endorsement of his ongoing electability.
All I can say is: Keep it up! The exclusion of women will finally be noticed by every female voter ….which will pave the way for more Teal candidates. That’s must be your intention. No?
I’ve always referred to the Liberals as the Mens Party. Look at who replaced the so called moderates in the teal seats- 6 intelligent, attractive women. Many of the Liberal women in parliament are hard faced, tough acting harridans attempting to be as mean as the men.
They have a long way to go!
Most of the existing female MP’s are very poor quality. Think Ley, Cash, Reynolds.
There are a handful in the NSW parliament that are passable but on the whole no sensible, competent woman wants the job.
“Most of the existing female MPs are very poor quality”. Perhaps, but not compared to existing male MPs. Hopefully the new series of Muster Dogs on ABC will offer a solution.
.’But not compared existing male MP’s’ goes a long way to exposing the Liberals quandary. Maybe the Libs should ask the Labor party if they have a few women to spare?
One of the few competent Liberal members is Karen Andrews. She is retiring for her southern Gold Coast seat of McPherson at the next election. If the Teals can take that one, I think the Liberal Party will definitely be going gentle into that good night.
Karen Andrews – I wonder if she leaked the intelligence that that refugee boat was in our waters, election day last : and if she didn’t, if she was able to figure out ‘which alternate Minister for Home Affairs/PM(?) had’?
And if it dawned on her that something ‘passe-piscatorial’ was emanating from Morrison’s office, kept schtum for as long as she did, while calling for ‘Schemo to go’ after the election : but did not stand with Archer in parliament to vote to censure him.
Any betting man would gladly put money on your theory. He who had five jobs in the ministry but can’t find one outside the parliament would definitely have been wearing eau de week-old-fishguts. Karen probably didn’t stand with Bridget because she couldn’t stand the bullying snipes she’d cop from the knuckle draggers in her party.
Don’t paint Andrews in a positive light – she vetoed a railway construction because it was planned to go behind one of her investment properties in the GC hinterland.
Presented with a golden parliamentary opportunity – to convert her cheap populist verbiage chaff to tangible action – to stand with and support Bridget Archer : she dogged it – for the party line.