Awkward detail in Liberals' election campaign

Perth Now

29-04-2025

Even with a remarkable landslide victory, the Liberal Party will fail to meet the gender targets they set for themselves a decade ago.
The prospect of a Liberal National Coalition government seems to be dwindling on election eve, but a failure to have 50 per cent women Liberal MPs was cemented months ago as local branches gave their candidates the nod.
Two retiring senior female Coalition MPs have been replaced with male contenders, and on the whole 34 per cent of Liberal candidates across the country are women.
Swinburne University gender and policy expert, Kay Cook, told NewsWire the lack of female MPs undermined Australia's democracy. The Melbourne electorate of Kooyong is one of the few winnable seats the Liberal Party nominated a woman to contest. NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui Credit: News Corp Australia
'It shows two very different approaches to how the parties view who should have seats at the table and who should have power and who represents their community,' Dr Cook said.
A big difference between the number of male and female candidates within one party was plain to see across the country, she said.
'The Liberals are saying that power, representation, agency, looks very similar to a middle-aged, typically white male, whereas we know that Australia is far more diverse than that.'
'Women are the majority of the population, really we should be aiming for representatives, people who represent the public, to look like and have similar backgrounds to those people.
'So it's sending a message that 'we can speak for you, even though we may not have commonality with you'. And I think that really undermines what representative politics is about.' A decade ago, the Liberal and Labor parties set the same target of 50 per cent women's representation in parliament by 2025. NewsWire / Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia
While Liberal Party politicians have publicly argued against quota systems, the Nationals receive a quota of cabinet seats in Coalition governments.
In 2002, the Labor Party mandated 35 per cent of winnable seats had to be contested by women; that target has been lifted twice to sit now at 50 per cent. In this outgoing parliament, Labor had 47 per cent women MPs in the lower house, and 70 per cent in the Senate - 53 per cent female in total.
The Liberals had 20 per cent women in the lower house, and 45 per cent in the Senate; 29 per cent in total. Retiring MP Karen Andrews won her seat on the Gold Coast with 43 per cent of primary votes in 2022. Her electorate of McPherson has been held by the Liberals for its entire 53-year history. Lawyer Leon Robello won preselection to replace her. NewsWire / David Beach Credit: News Corp Australia
Three female Coalition MPs hold safe seats - Angie Bell, Sussan Ley and Anne Webster - versus 15 men who won with more than a 10 per cent margin last time around. Alison Penfold is running for the Nationals in the safe NSW seat of Lyne following David Gillespie's retirement.
Female Coalition candidates are similarly outnumbered in 'fairly safe' Coalition seats, won by 6 to 10 per cent in the last election. Karen Andrews is retiring from her seat on the Gold Coast (McPherson) leaving three incumbent women vying for fairly safe Liberal seats, compared with 11 men. John Howard popped along to a polling booth at Bondi Junction on Saturday. NewsWire/ Tim Pascoe Credit: News Corp Australia
The centre-right party has almost squared the gender ledger with preselections in marginal seats. Twelve of 26 marginal seats around the country are a fair chance of swinging to the Coalition.
'If somehow the Liberals form government, there are not going to be women in positions of power to really influence the policies,' Dr Cook said.
'There'll be very few women ministers in cabinet.'
Peter Dutton's campaigning has been focused on traditionally masculine fields, Dr Cook said, and a tense exchange between a reporter and the Opposition Leader about female-dominated industries grabbed headlines earlier this month.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has been grilled on what the Coalition is offering working women. During a press conference on Wednesday, a reporter questioned the gender balance in the Coalition's messaging, pointing out that in Dutton's campaign launch speech, women were mentioned only twice — and both times in the context of protection from domestic violence and crime. In response, Mr Dutton defended the Coalition's approach, pointing to housing affordability as a central concern. "I'm offering the chance for them to get a home. Homeless women are at a record level under this government," Dutton said. However, the reporter pressed further, noting that housing is a broader issue affecting all Australians and asked what the Coalition was specifically offering to support women working in sectors such as healthcare and education. "We're going to invest more each year. When we were in government, in education, we doubled the amount of funding that went into education. That helps teachers, females and males. It helps when we put more money back in people's pockets."
But in an earlier campaign stop, in the midst of backflipping on work-from-office mandates, Mr Dutton conceded there was an issue.
Asked if the Coalition had a problem appealing to female voters, Mr Dutton eventually admitted, after repeated questioning, the party had 'work to do'.
His answer, however, did not include the word 'women'.
'There'll be scores of polling between now and the election and we've got work to do – there's no question about that,' he said on April 7.
'We are the underdog in this race, but we're the only party that can provide support to Australians in a very uncertain age, we're the only party that can manage the economy through difficulties, if we see the global recession or recession in the United States.'