‘They are morons': Millennial warns Liberal Party against ‘ocean of males'

News.com.au

06-05-2025

The millennial who set up a grassroots movement to recruit young women into the Liberal Party has declared that if the party chooses two males for the leadership team 'they are morons.'
Accusing the Liberal Party of forcing women to 'sell a sh*t sandwich', former Sky News anchor and new mum Charlotte Mortlock said change was vital if the party is going to survive.
The Liberal Party looks set to be left with as little as five women in the 150-seat parliament, a group that could fit inside a six-seater Hyundai Santa Fe.
But despite the dire situation, there's now chatter the Liberal Party is toying with the option of a male only leadership team.
'If these people think the way forward after that diabolical result is to have two men leading the party, they are morons,' Liberal Charlotte Mortolock said.
'If we knock back Sussan Ley, who has been a loyal deputy, then this is Julie Bishop 2.0 and it's history repeating itself.'
She warned that women in the Liberal Party have 'had enough' of being painted as 'crumb maidens' forced to pretend to be happy without a seat at the table.
There was speculation on Monday that the Liberal Party could preselect a double act of Angus Taylor and Dan Tehan for the toughest job in Australian politics.
Rising star Zoe McKenzie has been mooted as a manager of opposition business if she hangs onto her seat in Victoria.
As the bloodletting continues in the party over the Labor landslide, women are speaking out about the need to preselect more women into winnable seats to revitalise the party.
Ms Mortlock previously spoke out after the executive director of the Menzies Research Centre Nick Cater wrote an opinion article in The Australian that was published under the headline 'Single young females the biggest threat to parties on the right'.
'Single women, particularly single mothers, have a vested interest in state intervention. A generation ago they could have expected a breadwinner to support them,'' he said.
'Today, that breadwinner is the government to all intents and purposes, an ever-reliable partner with deep pockets to top up their meagre income,' Cater added.
Ms Mortlock responded that she didn't see young, single women as a threat, 'I see them as the solution.'
'This cohort of young, single Australian women is more educated and has a higher amount of disposable income than their grandmothers and mothers,'' she said.
'Young, single Australian women don't need husbands. They need, and deserve, legislation and political parties that talk to them, not about them.'
There's also speculation that Liberal Senator Jane Hume, who is theoretically a moderate, has teamed up with right-winger Angus Taylor and could be angling for the Opposition Senate leadership replacing Michaelia Cash.
In the last parliament, the Coalition had 11 women among 57 MPs in the House of Representatives.
Ms Mortlock also backed gender quotas for candidates that 'aren't even negotiable'.
'They are a must,' she said. 'If they don't expect us to demand that, they must assume we have no self-respect and are still crumb maidens,'' she told The Australian Financial Review.
Former Liberal Defence Minister Senator Linda Reynolds agreed that the Liberal Party was an 'ocean of males'.
'It's one of the issues I have been fighting for, for a very long time in the Liberal Party,' the senator said.
'Ten years ago I was part of a review into gender … and we recommended targets and how to get there without quotas.
Meanwhile, Liberal frontbencher Hollie Hughes has launched an extraordinary attack on opposition treasury spokesman Angus Taylor saying she 'didn't know what he had been doing for three years.'
The man most likely to become the next Liberal leader was not up to the job she has warned.
'I have concerns about his capability. I feel we have zero economic policy to sell,' Senator Hughes said on Radio National.
'I don't know what he's been doing for three years. There was no tax policy, there was no economic narrative.'
Senator Hughes is set to leave parliament but will still have a vote for the next Liberal leader.
She is aligned with the Centre Right faction backing Sussan Ley.