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ABC News
03-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
How the Liberals' loss at the 2025 federal election shows a failure to learn from WA
The scale of Labor's victory — or maybe more accurately, the scale of the Liberals' failure — surprised many last night. But it shouldn't have, especially not for Western Australian Liberals. Because at the last three elections, the WA branch delivered its three worst ever results. Each was meant to be a lesson to learn. Listen more. Develop solid policies with wide appeal. Rid factional influence from every level of the party. Election essentials: The numbers speak for themselves. According to retiring ABC election analyst Antony Green, more than a quarter of WA voters switched from supporting the Liberals and Nationals to Labor between 2013 and 2021. Labor Tangney candidate Sam Lim embraces a supporter after comfortably winning a seat the Liberals desperately wanted back. ( ABC News: Keane Bourke ) As the Coalition comes to terms with its devastating result overnight, some supporters in WA will no doubt be wishing they had tuned their ears to the alarm bells that were ringing out west in 2017, then 2021 — and all over again just two months ago. Post-mortem lessons The Liberals' problems were spelled out in the state party's most recent full post-mortem that came after the nightmare 2021 poll. That report found policy development "appeared to rest entirely with the leader" and criticised "ill thought-out policies". Similar criticisms have already been levelled at Peter Dutton. Dejected supporters of Tangney Liberal candidate Howard Ong listen to Peter Dutton conceding the election. ( ABC News: Keane Bourke ) "There's been a lack of policy, and the ones they have produced haven't filled out the gaps, like on nuclear, on gas, or they've left it too late, like defence," The Liberals chose to Some seats have yet to be confirmed, including Bullwinkel where the Liberals' Matt Moran says he's confident of victory. ( ABC News: Keane Bourke ) Labor But perhaps most concerning for the Liberals was the conclusion that: "There seemed to be a policy disconnect from the party's traditional base." "While the message was understood, it had no impact or effect on electors' voting intentions," the review noted. 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 Failure in Curtin, Tangney That disconnect between the party and its traditional base has been clear in the three demolitions at a state level. In 2017 and 2021, the party's traditional strongholds slipped away with little resistance, and many haven't returned. The Liberals' Tom White failed in his attempt to win the seat of Curtin from teal independent Kate Chaney. ( ABC News: Courtney Withers ) Curtin, which is blue-ribbon heartland, looks to have drifted further away from the Liberals as a result of Climate 200-backed independent Kate Chaney, despite textbook Liberal candidate Tom White campaigning for more than a year. In Tangney, Labor's most marginal seat in the state and another traditional Liberal stronghold, the Liberals went backwards by three per cent. Moore, which the Liberals had held for nearly three decades, couldn't be prevented from falling into Labor's hands by former Federal Liberal MP Vince Connelly. Labor's Tom French snatched the formerly Liberal held seat of Moore on Saturday, in Perth's outer northern suburbs. The main bright spot for the party was in Canning where Andrew Hastie — who was accused of keeping a low profile on the federal campaign while working on his seat — boosted his margin by 3.6 per cent. If former Malcolm Turnbull-staffer Matt Moran can swing Bullwinkel — a new seat straddling Perth's urban fringe and stretching out into regional WA — it will be another glimmer of hope for the party, although one which had been expected as a bare minimum result. That two of the state's three regional seats in O'Connor and Durack swung significantly to the Liberals was merely what would have been expected, given Labor's unpopularity in the regions over issues like ending the live sheep trade. Rock bottom? It's an understatement to say the night's results leave the Liberals with some significant soul-searching to do. "We will rebuild," pledged Mr Dutton in his concession speech. But the lessons of the WA branch show that even truly diabolical results aren't always enough to turn the party around in a meaningful way. It was not much of a party at Tom White's election night function after he failed to win the seat of Curtin from teal independent Kate Chaney. ( ABC News: Courtney Withers ) "It's like a drug addict finally realising they have to change," was how the state's Nationals leader, Shane Love, described the conservatives' third consecutive abysmal state election result. It will be up to the Liberals to decide if this result is their rock bottom or ignore the lessons and face further electoral pain next time around. The 2025 election explained: Loading
Sky News AU
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
Monique Ryan turning her back on Sky News host a spectacular own goal for the Teal movement and its promise to champion women
The Teal independents swept into office three years ago on a promise to 'fix' the bloke-heavy culture and give women a voice in federal politics. Transparency and that ubiquitous deep blue-green remains their self-appointed brand, designed to appeal to female constituents - working mums like me now searching for the right person to vote for on May 3. So it was a curious message to broadcast this week when one of their much-hyped female MPs avoided an accomplished female journalist in a public space who was politely asking reasonable questions on camera. In a now viral video, Kooyong member Monique Ryan turned her back in an attempt to dodge a simple 'How are you?' from Sky News host Laura Jayes. After a brief exchange, she then instructed Ms Jayes to move along because voters apparently now needed her attention before leaving it to a junior staffer to reiterate that an interview opportunity had already been 'declined'. Don't forget that just weeks ago, Dr Ryan fled from a female Channel Seven reporter inside parliament asking why her husband was ripping down her Liberal opponent's campaign corflutes. Her patronising rudeness to Ms Jayes at a pre-poll site in Melbourne this week invited the spotlight for all the wrong reasons but mainly, I would argue, for this one. In a week when women's support for the Coalition was tanking and Labor was doing a better job framing female-focused election policies, the Teals squandered an opportunity to advocate for us. Labor and the Coalition have always been criticised as having 'a Problem With Women' - in the party or in the community - because they have no idea what matters to female voters. Indeed, a review of the 2022 Federal Election, co-authored by Liberal Senator Jane Hume and former federal director of the Liberal Party Brian Loughnane, noted: 'Liberal defectors in 'Teal seats' were highly likely to agree with the statement that 'the treatment or attitude toward women within the Liberal Party had a strong influence on my vote'.' I would argue that the Women Problem own goal is now well and truly in the Climate 200-backed Teal net, along with their glossy branding. These independents have had plenty of opportunity to flex their female power but in reality they have failed to deliver any meaningful policy outcomes for women. Nothing tangible on childcare reform or the pressure of small business where so many women work and the Big One: cost-of-living relief. Crickets. How do you 'redefine' leadership for women when your appeal is marinating in privilege? Sure. It's another federal election and therefore another scramble for the female vote, especially with pre poll numbers so high. And Labor sure is doing everything it can to frame the Coalition as out of touch and regressive, despite the TV debate sting of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton telling PM Anthony Albanese that he 'couldn't lie straight in bed'. But Labor, now ahead among women 54 to 46 points via the latest Newspoll for The Australian which was a staggering reversal from numbers in January, has filled the void. And credit where it is due, especially regarding the pledge made this week by Minister for Women Katy Gallagher to end the vile and all too frequent financial abuse of women by fixing loopholes in tax, social security and superannuation. This is a key area where women feel no one in government has been listening. 'We will take action to legislate practical changes in the superannuation, tax and social security systems so they cannot be weaponised by perpetrators,' Ms Gallagher said. 'We will look at how we can stop abusers receiving their victim's superannuation because there is no world where we believe that perpetrators of violence should benefit from the death of someone they themselves have abused.' Interestingly, the Labor's Commitment to Women package was unveiled a day after Mr Dutton, no doubt wounded by that evaporating female support, said he would announce more domestic violence initiatives. 'The whole area of protecting women and children is incredibly important to me,' Mr Dutton said. He has leaned on his police past to show he is serious about women's safety and on Thursday, the Coalition said it would tackle domestic violence nationally via a $90 million 'comprehensive package'. Framing it as 'a very clear message that we don't accept violence against women', Mr Dutton added that 'we're going to fix up Labor's mess'. No matter how critically important these issues are though, how much faith should female voters have in any of these promises? A woman in an abusive relationship might now think that her life is about to change, only to be told in a few months: sorry, we don't have the cash for that. Teals, as architects of virtue signalling, have sold women voters a fantasy of politics. They may talk a big game but where is the follow through? We only want answers to the hard questions and to cast our vote where we know it will matter. Louise Roberts is a journalist and editor who has worked as a TV and radio commentator in Australia, the UK and the US. Louise is a winner of the Peter Ruehl Award for Outstanding Columnist in the NRMA Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism and has been shortlisted in other awards for her opinion work.
