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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media. I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

When Scott Morrison lost his job as prime minister, it was women who sacked him.

A review commissioned by the Liberal party after the 2022 election, found that a decline in support among women, was a decisive factor in their loss.

The report outlined ways the party might win women back – but three years on – that has not happened.

Today, contributor to The Saturday Paper, Bri Lee – on what women want – and why they’re not getting it from the Liberal party.

It’s Thursday, April 24.

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RUBY:

So, Bri, thank you for joining me on 7am again.

BRI:

Thank you for having me back. It's good to be back.

RUBY:

So I wanted to start in 2018 with the leadership spill that saw Scott Morrison ultimately assume the top job within the party. So tell me a bit about how it unfolded and what it tells you about the Liberal Party's attitude towards women at the time.

BRI:

So three people went for the leadership position. That was Julie Bishop, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton. Obviously in every political party you've got sort of factions. In the Liberal Party at that point in time obviously there was the sort of moderate faction and the hard line faction. Julie Bishop and Scott Morrison were both in the moderate faction, Peter Dutten was in the hard line faction and at this point in time the other thing you need to know is that Julie Bishop was one of the most popular politicians in Australia with the general public. She'd been working in the foreign affairs department. There was a perception that she was a professional and moderate conservative kind of reliable bankable politician as far as politicians go. But the moderates in the party were not confident that there would be enough votes for Julie Bishop versus Peter Dutton, and they took a position of anyone but Dutton, and then the result was that they kind of got Scott Morrison by default.

Audio excerpt – Julie Bishop:

“There was a ballot conducted in the party room for the leadership of the Liberal Party. The successful candidate was Scott Morrison…”

BRI:

Julie Bishop has subsequently said that she would not have thrown her hat in the ring unless she had been assured that she had enough votes, but the people in the party just could not, would not vote for a woman to be the leader. And I think with hindsight, in my opinion, that's become a bit of a sliding doors moment for the party, because shortly thereafter... Me too hit Parliament House.

Audio excerpt – Greens spokesperson:

“Scott Morrison is presiding over this toxic culture not just in his own party but clearly in ministerial offices and in the parliament itself-…”

Audio excerpt – Speaker two:

“Over half, that is 51 per cent of all people currently in Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces have experienced at least one incident of bullying, sexual harassment or actual or attempted sexual assault.”

Audio excerpt – Scott Morrison:

“Like anyone who works in this building, I find the statistics that are presented there of course appalling and disturbing. I wish I found them more surprising…but I find them just as appalling.”

BRI:

And in 2021, a bunch of National MPs in particular referred to the funding of early childhood education and care as outsourcing of parental responsibility, worried that it would act as a disincentive for mothers who should otherwise be caring for their kids at home. And that's... Around about this time where you're then getting also all of the MeToo stuff hitting Parliament House. There was just what felt like wave after wave of roiling sort of gender-specific issues and the party's problems with women just got worse and worse and worse.

RUBY:

And what about if you were to look at it over time, I suppose, before Scott Morrison, when it comes to the Liberal Party and the way that they've approached representation and also just policy issues.

BRI:

So what's really interesting - for this article, I interviewed Rebecca Huntley, she's a demographer, she's been doing research and strategy for a couple of decades now. And she said that until about the 80s, the Labor Party was considered to be men's preference and women would vote for the Liberals because the Labor party was concerned with rights at work, trade unions, and there were not that many women in the workplace. And the Labor Party responded to that over the decades by instigating goals and quotas for how many of their MPs would be women.

Audio excerpt – News Host:

“Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has made history this morning swearing in a record number of female MPs into his front bench.”

BRI:

Now, certainly on average, women in Australia think that the Labor Party is the one that's more in tune to their needs and understands what is important to them.

The Liberal Party, by contrast, have just consistently taken this sort of hard line against quotas. And the result is that they are almost 80 per cent men. And what has happened as well since the last federal election where the teal independents won a lot of the seats from the more moderate members of the Liberal Party.

Audio excerpt – News Host:

“The moderate wing of the Liberal Party has been decimated by that Teal tidal wave in Sydney and Melbourne seats. At least five climate 200 back challengers have turfed out high-profile Liberals and electorates once considered the safest of seats.”

BRI:

Kate Chaney and Allegra Spender come from proud Liberal families and those are very talented, very effective politicians. Those were assets that the Liberal Party just lost.

It means that the only people sort of left in the Liberal party are from the hardline faction. And there's just been this snowball over the last decade in particular. That means they are currently at the worst possible levels of representation in terms of just numbers of MPs in parliament, and they are now, without a doubt, they have fallen behind average Australians sort of values and where we think we're at in time and that is something that the party itself is aware of and seems to be kind of unable or unwilling to shift.

RUBY:

Coming up after the break - how the Liberal party is trying to win back women.

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RUBY:

So Bri, we've talked a little about the teal independents who, I suppose, could have been Liberals if perhaps the party had worked harder to recruit talented conservative women, so people like Allegra Spender and Kate Chaney. And that story, the story of teal women taking blue ribbon seats in the last election, it's well known, but I'd like to talk a bit about what happened after the election, after the coalition lost office. What did the Liberal Party do about what had happened, how did they train and course correct.

BRI:

First of all, they commissioned a report that was co-authored by two of their own people, one of whom was Senator Jane Hume. And that came out in 2022. It was a sort of, you know, looking through the ashes for any possible learnings. And the report had 49, I think, recommendations it was. Four of those recommendations were explicitly about women.

Audio excerpt – News Host:

“Well the Liberal Party have a women problem. It's most obvious when you look at the House of Representatives chamber. The 47th Parliament has a record number of women but in the Liberal Party just nine of the 42 seats are held by women.”

BRI:

In that 2022 report that the Liberal Party commissioned, they found that a majority of women preferred Labor in all age segments. And the report noted, and I quote here verbatim, “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.”

One of the things they recommended was regular kind of internal party reporting on whether talent was being identified, you know, talented women were being put up for pre-selection. One of their recommendations was the establishment of a kind of, you know, networking experience, knowledge sharing group specifically for women. That was called the Margaret Guilfoyle Network, but I approached Senator Jane Hume and I approached the Deputy Liberal Leader Sussan Ley, who is also the Shadow Minister for Women. I asked them whether the Margaret Guilfoyle Network had run any internships, mentorships, exchanges, etc. I asked whether the Liberal Party had been doing those internal reports about identifying women talent or putting them up for pre-selection. I asked, basically, if they had any comments to make about the gendered components of this 2022 report. And there was certainly no specific response about the Margaret Guilfoyle Network, no response about those internal reporting mechanisms, and the one reply I did get from Minister Ley's office responded with a statement that was about three paragraphs long that barely mentioned women at all, and the first sentence was, “This election is a choice about who can better manage the economy and help Australians get ahead”. It sort of mentions that women bear the brunt of economic distress, and then continues to just talk about cost of living, tax offsets, and home ownership. So, yeah, I felt like the message was very clear in that response. And the impression I'm given when I sit down and do this research now is that this report was commissioned by the Liberal party in 2022. It made a lot of recommendations. None of those have been meaningfully acted upon and we are now at yet another election cycle where none of these problems have been addressed.

RUBY:

And what about Peter Dutton specifically? Can you talk to me about his record on speaking on issues that affect women?

BRI:

Well, what's interesting is that pretty much the only angle he's tried for to sort of appeal to women is that he's tough on crime. It would be tempting to think that that never works, but what we know is that for a lot of people the tough on crime angle is compelling. What it just doesn't work for are the people who already don't like him or that party because on average the research shows that if you are a woman and if you are a woman with a university education, you are not going to want to vote for the Liberal Party. Those are the sort of generalised gendered stats that Huntley's research, for example, shows for sure.

But apart from that sort of tough on crime cop angle, which in my opinion still comes through as incredibly patronising, he's still making that sort of fundamental mistake that Morrison kept making where women are to be protected.

RUBY:

OK, so it sounds like something much bigger would be needed for the Liberal Party to shift its appeal and turn around its fortunes with women.

BRI:

Yeah, I mean, my opinion on the situation is that they're not going to get anywhere while they keep thinking of women as a problem to be solved instead of an asset to be tapped.

Every time people like Peter Dutton come out and say that they would like to see more women in the party, but they're not going to do it at the risk of compromising on people deserving to be there on merit. They just still, I think, don't understand or appreciate how profoundly offensive that is to suggest that if you act on meaningful goals or quotas, to suggest that doing so means you will automatically get subpar, lacking in quality candidates is...it just shows, yeah, I think a fundamental lack of understanding.

RUBY:

Bri, thank you so much for your time.

BRI:

Thank you for having me.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

Elon Musk will start pulling back from his role at the Trump administration’s department of government efficiency, to focus on Tesla.

In an investor call, Musk acknowledged there have been “rocky moments” at the electric car manufacturer this year.

Tesla reported a 71 per cent drop in first quarter profits, compared to the same time last year.

The massive dip is widely seen to be a backlash against Musk’s political activity.

AND

A record number of votes were cast on the first day of early voting on Tuesday, with more than half a million people heading to the polls.

The turnout smashed the previous record, set in 2022, of about 315,000 votes.

The Australian Electoral Commission has asked voters to be patient, as the strong first day showing led to some voters waiting in long queues at polling centres.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am, thanks for listening.

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