Liberal Party still hampered by continuing lack of female representation

Australia Broadcast Center

05-05-2025

The Liberal Party has been told it has a women problem for years now.
But you only have to look at its results in Western Australia to see how it is struggling to make progress.
In the west, the party ran candidates in all 16 of the state's federal seats.
Just four were women, compared to Labor's eight.

Only one of them will be going to Canberra, incumbent Durack MP Melissa Price.
The other three were selected to run for seats considered unwinnable.
In the six seats where the Liberals considered themselves competitive, all candidates were men.
In contrast, Labor had a 50-50 split between men and women among its candidates.
Michaelia Cash is WA's only female Liberal representative in the Senate.
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ABC News: Ian Cutmore
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It's not much better for the Liberals in the Senate where Michaelia Cash is the state's only female Liberal representative, albeit a senior one.
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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.
The problem hasn't escaped attention among some in the party, including outgoing Senator Linda Reynolds.
She described her frustration at working on a gender review for the party a decade ago, which she said "just sat on a shelf".
"As a female, all I see in the Liberal Party is an ocean of males," one listener texted in to ABC Radio Perth during a discussion involving Ms Reynolds.
Linda Reynolds says the Liberals have to understand why women have turned away from them.
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ABC News: Jake Sturmer
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"I totally agree," she replied.
Not just a federal problem
A similar issue can be seen at a state level.
Of the six new Liberals elected to the lower house of state parliament, only one — Cottesloe MP Sandra Brewer — was a woman.
Successful Liberal state election candidate Sandra Brewer watches on as Libby Mettam gives her concession speech at the March election.
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ABC News: Jake Sturmer
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In fairness to the party, that seat was as safe as they got.
Even still, the other five new lower house Liberal MPs were men.
Four years ago, the party's review of its diabolical 2021 election result found "the current representation is inadequate, is detrimental to the full potential of the party, is inconsistent with our values and must be addressed".
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A close-up of Peter Dutton looking slightly past the camera
The Liberals' 2022 election review couldn't be clearer. What is less comprehensible is the party's decision to initiate a policy reform in the 2025 campaign that could not have been better designed to infuriate women.
"Until this is accepted by all members, nothing will change," the reviewers wrote.
At both the state and federal elections, as the numbers show, little changed in the pre-selection of candidates and so little has changed in the result.
But it wasn't always this way.
"When the Liberal Party was formed, we were the progressive national party," Ms Reynolds said.
"Not as in progressive now as we understand it as more woke, but progressive as standing for women.
"And in fact until 2001 the majority of Australian women voted for the Liberal Party, and that seems almost inconceivable now.
"So we have to understand why women have turned away from our party and change."
The hard path forward
The party's post-mortem of its federal loss in 2022 identified a number of issues.
"A sense that the Liberal Party is failing to adequately represent the values and priorities of women" and "a lack of confidence that women within the party would be encouraged to hold leadership positions" topped the list.
Perceptions like that are difficult to turn around, even with concerted action.
And views of the issue's importance differ within the party.
Melissa Price says for her female representation is not at the top of the list of issues the Liberals need to address.
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ABC News: Chris Lewis
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"We need to look at it seriously but, you know, I don't think that's the only thing we need to look at seriously," was the view of the WA Liberals' sole federal lower house MP, Melissa Price, speaking on ABC WA Regional Drive.
"
There's a lot of red flags with this election that I would say female representation wouldn't be at the top for me.
"
Ms Price pointed to the number of female candidates the party had at both the state and federal elections as a sign of progress but acknowledged not all won their seats.
Regardless of where its importance is ranked, there is a path forward.
Supporters of Tangney Liberal candidate Howard Ong listen to Peter Dutton conceding defeat on Saturday night.
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ABC News: Keane Bourke
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"The continued lack of progress on gender parity suggests the Liberal Party needs to do more to actively engage with the women who are already active members of the party and engage with leaders across civic and political organisations that already exist within the community," La Trobe University PhD candidate Phoebe Hayman wrote in The Conversation last week.
"Members may be their most important resource in achieving parliamentary gender parity.
"However, achieving this means first having women in the room."
Many Liberal supporters were shocked by the election outcome.
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ABC News: Courtney Withers
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Of course, that is significantly easier said than done, especially when the party risks locking itself in a downward spiral in which fewer women put their hands up because of the poor experiences of those who have gone before them.
One silver lining of that recommended road ahead though is that the party engaging with community leaders would have a dual benefit — increasing its chances of recruiting more women, and bringing it closer to understanding what the community wants from its representatives.
A 'sliding doors' moment
Another benefit, some would hope, of that shift would be stemming the tide of women who might have otherwise been Liberal candidates running as teal independents.
Often put in that group is
Kate Chaney says many women don't believe the Liberal Party represents them.
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ABC News: Keane Bourke
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Liberal blood runs through her veins. Her uncle is Fred Chaney, the former federal deputy Liberal leader, and her grandfather, Fred Chaney Snr, was a minister in the Menzies government.
While Chaney said on Monday she never considered going into politics before running as an independent, she recognised the party's problems with women.
"When the Liberal Party knocked back Julie Bishop [for leader] and chose Scott Morrison instead, I think that was a sliding doors moment,"
she said.
"And a lot of women looked at that point and thought, 'this does not look like a party that represents me'."
The party's decision to pick Scott Morrison over Julie Bishop has been called a "sliding doors moment".
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ABC News: Matt Roberts
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Despite the threat it poses to her political future, even Chaney hopes the party can "have a good look at what a pathway into politics looks like for women" and avoid irrelevance by representing more Australians.
Only a 'small window to act'
While there are many facets to the Liberal Party's demolition at the election, the solution to winning back support is simple.
Read more about the federal election:
Want even more? Here's where you can find all our 2025
Catch the latest interviews and in-depth coverage on
Be more relevant to voters.
Understanding half the population and properly representing them is a big part of that equation.
The party cannot say it has not been warned about the task ahead.
"The only way the Liberal Party can win enough seats to form majority government again is to win back the support of women," Reynolds wrote in support of gender quotas after the 2022 election.
"The quiet approach has not worked.
"We have a small window to act, and we must."
Time will only shrink that window further.
Any progress, or lack of action, is a choice made by its membership.
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