Ousted Liberal MP Keith Wolahan says Liberal Party needs to win back city voters after May 3 election defeat

News.com.au

04-05-2025

Ousted Liberal MP Keith Wolahan has warned his shattered party needs to focus on winning metropolitan seats with the party's representation all but dashed in the capital cities.
While Mr Wolahan said the count was still too close for him to formally concede his prized Melboure seat of Menzies – named for Robert Menzies the founder of the Liberal Party – he will likely lose to Labor's Gabriel Ng.
He says the Liberal Party needs to remember greater representations in cities.
'Ever since … election night (on 2022) … it was clear that our party has an issue in urban Australia, which is where most people live – most people live in cities,' he told ABC Insiders on Sunday.
'So we need to turn our mind to that like we have never done before,' Mr Wolahan said.
'We need to really dig deep and think about who we are and who we fight for and who makes up Australia … professional people, professional women, younger people.'
Mr Wolahan's comments were in response to comments made by former Liberal senate leader Simon Birmingham following the Coalition's 2022 defeat where he said the party had 'failed' to represent.
'We've lost the professionals out of the Menzian script, and we need to make sure we win back many more of those professionals, and especially Australian women, who are much more highly educated today thanks to wonderful opportunities provided by successive government,' Mr Birmingham said in 2022.
Despite hopes voters would swing to the Coalition due to the unpopularity of the state Labor government, the Liberal Party lost key seats in Melbourne, including Deakin (held by housing spokesman Michael Sukkar).
Out of 29 Sydney electorates, the Liberal Party holds just five, however counting continues in Paul Fletcher's former seat of Bradfield.
And of the 14 seats in the greater Brisbane region, it has just one seat in the bag, after losing Peter Dutton's seat of Dickson, Bonner, Petrie and Forde and possibly Longman.
However Mr Wolahan wouldn't go into the 'specifics' of why the party had turned off women or voters in the capital cities, and deferred comments to the post-election review.
'It should be a serious one, it should be a comprehensive one party's there's a lack of metropolitan members in the party room,' Mr Wolahan said.
'I think we need the rural and regional members – who I have great respect for and I admire them and they've done an amazing job – to put themselves in the shoes of Australians who live in an urban area.
'That's where we can't just go off perception – we have to go off the perspective of someone else. If we do more of that, then again, I think our party has a bright future.'