Ken Wyatt warns Liberals must change after election loss or risk becoming 'lesser party'

Australia Broadcast Center

06-05-2025

A former Liberal elder who spectacularly quit the party after leaving federal parliament has lashed his previous colleagues, urging them to "wake up" and become more inclusive in the wake of another bruising election result.
Ken Wyatt was Indigenous Australians minister between 2019 and 2022 in the Morrison government but lost his seat of Hasluck at the last federal election.
He
His former party continues to struggle in the west, having recorded its three worst election results at the last three state polls and losing five seats over the last two federal elections.
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peter dutton jacob greber piece
The Liberal Party has been told it has a women problem for years now, but you only have to look at its WA results to see how it's still struggling to change, writes Keane Bourke.
Mr Wyatt said he believed the party's issues ran so deep that WA Premier Roger Cook could serve another two terms.
"Because once you lost people, particularly in the primary vote area, that's hard to recover," he told the ABC.
"And we have lost women by the score, and to recover from that means that you have to be genuine in being inclusive and a broad church.
"You have to act and do a better task of being inclusive and involving what is the diversity of this nation."
Women not 'sandwich makers': Wyatt
Another post-election review would be "redundant" in Mr Wyatt's view because similar recommendations have already been made by multiple previous poll post-mortems.
it's been two years since the WA Liberals launched their 'Blueprint 2025' to improve future campaigns.
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ABC News: Keane Bourke
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He said the way forward was to reach out to the community to understand a wider range of views and tap prospective candidates on the shoulder rather than expecting them to self-nominate.
"What I would do if I was the Liberal Party now is I'd hold a series of round table forums with select groups that reflect our community and seek their input as to what they should change and how they would be more appealable," he said.
"If they don't engage then you're not going to change.
"The reality is wake up, start becoming inclusive."
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He echoed comments by one of his former cabinet colleagues,
Photo shows
Former Liberal Senator and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds speaks about the Liberals 2025 federal election defeat
Retiring Liberal senator Linda Reynolds labels the party's federal election campaign a "comprehensive failure", and blasts it for not doing more to increase female representation.
"I have seen it in my party when I was a member, women offering ideas but the ideas not being accepted," Mr Wyatt said.
"But then later, that same idea being offered up by a male and being accepted.
"We cannot do that. They are not sandwich makers. They are equal leaders."
The party stalwart said while that progress would rely on party members realising the need for change, the alternative was the Liberals becoming "a lesser party in the long-term".
Bullwinkel, Fremantle still undecided
Mr Wyatt's comments come as a nervous wait for the party continues in Bullwinkel, the only seat it is hoping to pick up in WA.
The two-candidate-preferred count has Labor's Trish Cook narrowly ahead of Liberal Matt Moran, but that could change as thousands of postal and out-of-district votes are counted.
There is also no clear result in Fremantle, where Labor's Josh Wilson is ahead on primary votes but will have to wait for preferences to be tallied before knowing if he will keep the seat he has held for nine years.
It is understood counting had slowed in Fremantle as votes were moved from polling places to central locations, but is expected to be underway again as of Tuesday morning.
The Australian Electoral Commission said on Tuesday it had begun "fresh scrutiny" — a "mandatory secondary count of all votes that have been counted so far".
"While fresh scrutiny doesn't typically provide any additional results information to reflect on aside from some minor changes, it will provide some further clarity for seats that had their two-candidate preferred contests reset," Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope said.
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