Latest news with #NewSouthWalesLiberalParty
Sky News AU
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
NSW Liberals consider adopting US style primaries for elections
The New South Wales Liberal Party is considering adopting a US-style primary system when selecting its election candidates. The Daily Telegraph reported that members of the public will be able to vote on who should represent the major party under the proposed system. The plan is gaining increasing popularity from senior Liberal figures, such as Shadow Defence Minister Angus Taylor.
Sky News AU
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
‘Sideshow': Mundine's Liberal Party dig
Indigenous leader Warren Mundine has doubled down on his dig at the Liberal Party's proposal to introduce gender quotas. On the weekend, Mr Mundine said the Liberal Party lost the federal election due to running a 'crap campaign', not because of its female representation. Mr Mundine said the gender quota debate was a 'sideshow' and a 'diversion' from the real issues, such as the New South Wales Liberal Party being put under administration after it did not register 140 candidates for local government. 'That's cost us a lot of good people,' he told Sky News on Monday. 'Yes, we need more women getting out there, and we had some brilliant women who were in that campaign, but they didn't get elected, and they didn't get elected because we had a crap campaign. 'So let's get back to the real issues.' Asked about his 'slippery slope' remark in The Saturday Telegraph - in which he said if gender quotas are the start, there could later be quotas for people of colour - Mr Mundine said more work had to be done across the whole Australian electorate and suggested the party could attract women and young people into politics while focusing on not losing members. 'A political party survives because they focus on the needs of the Australian people and if they answer that question, they answer those needs,' he said. 'We need to look after our members, look after supporters and keep them in the party and attract other people in the party, attract women, attract young people. Now, that's what we should be focusing on rather than having this sideshow, this diversionary thing, which is not going to win us a vote anyway.' Mr Mundine said the Liberal Party should be focussing instead on 'why we lost the election'. 'Why, in Victoria, in 30 years, we've only been in power for four years? Why is it that we've got a useless government in Victoria but we can't even look like winning it?' he said. It comes after Opposition Leader Sussan Ley described herself as 'zealot' towards the issue of increasing female representation within the Liberal Party in her first address to the National Press Club last week. "If some state divisions choose to implement quotas, that is fine. If others don't, that is also fine," she said in her speech. "But what is not fine is not having enough women. As the first woman leader of our federal party, let me send the clearest possible message: We need to do better, recruit better, retain better and support better." On Friday, The Daily Telegraph revealed a 'quotas v merit' WhatsApp group chat was flooded with messages from outraged Liberal Party members after a NSW Liberals Women's Council meeting on Wednesday, where the idea of gender quotas was discussed. Members of the chat slammed a petition created in May calling for gender quotas to be introduced within the party ranks. Former Liberal Party vice president Teena McQueen was among those to blast a petition on the issue being posted publicly - a move she called "disgraceful'. 'FFS … no one struggling to pay the bills cares one bit about quotas,' Ms McQueen said in the chat, later adding 'What absolute moron is behind this?'. Ms McQueen told Sky News on Friday evening that she had been watching the chat for a week prior to contributing to the since-leaked conversation. 'And then I suddenly thought... we've got no policies. You know, people are struggling, as I said, to pay their bills ... and you guys, your greatest concern is quotas?' Ms McQueen said. 'So, I guess it was the frustration that to win elections, we need to care about things that matter and have decent policies on the table.'
