Sussan Ley must give more than words on Liberal Party gender quotas
A reasonable person might assume the Liberal Party would be engaged in deep soul-searching and brave thinking about the future after the absolute thrashing it copped at the federal election.
However, based on Opposition Leader Sussan Ley's performance at the National Press Club on Wednesday, reflection and courage won't make an appearance any time soon.
Ley's speech at least recognised the scale of the Liberal Party's wipeout, and diagnosed that the terrible lack of women among its parliamentary ranks was one of the factors behind it.
'What we as the Liberal Party presented to the Australian people was comprehensively rejected,' she said. 'The scale of that defeat – its size and significance – is not lost on me.'
Or anyone who even remotely observes politics. Over the past two elections, the Coalition has lost 33 seats in the House of Representatives and eight in the Senate. And as Ley pointed out, it now holds just two of 43 inner metropolitan seats and seven of 45 outer metro electorates. 'These numbers reflect a deep and growing disconnect,' Ley told the audience.
The party won't bridge that disconnect until it preselects more women. Just one-third of the Liberal Party's MPs are women. By contrast, 56 per cent of Labor MPs are women – Labor introduced quotas decades ago without the world ending.
This mess is not of Ley's making – that honour rests with her predecessors – but it is on her to fix.
Ley told the Press Club on Wednesday that her party must preselect more women in winnable seats. 'Current approaches have clearly not worked, so I am open to any approach that will.' So far, so good.
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