The Sauce: What is a woman? Candidates put through ‘Gillard test’ – as one senior Libs trips up

Federal Liberal candidates are being screened for their “wokeness” by being asked “what is a woman” – as one very senior Lib fails spectacularly.

Federal Liberal Party candidates are being screened for their “wokeness” by being asked “What is a woman?”.

And while the candidates passed, The Sauce can reveal one very senior party official did not.

The question was posed by one of 300 party members gathered at Norths on Wednesday night for the preselection of a candidate for the teal independent-held seat of North Sydney.

Four women vying to be chosen as candidate were peppered with a range of questions, before one preselector asked “the woman question”, our mole at the scene said.

Our source said the question was designed to “flush out woke views” of any of the candidates, presumably to avoid a Sir Keir Starmer moment after the UK Opposition leader suggested that as many as “one in a thousand women have penises”.

NSW Liberal Party president Jason Falinski. Picture: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

“It’s about seeing where they sit on the gender ideology fence,” our source said.

The first of the four candidates – Salesforce executive Gisele Kapterian, Lowy Institute research fellow Jess Collins, public policy leader Georgia Lovell and department media manager Sophie Lambert – answered the question without missing a beat.

The preselector clearly wanted to hear from everyone, and so put her hand up again to ask the next candidate the same question.

NSW Liberal Party president Jason Falinski – who was choosing the members to ask the questions – pointed to the preselector, before stating: “You sir”.

The preselector failed to respond, prompting Falinski to declare again: “You sir, you can ask a question”.

Finally, the preselector responds, standing up before asking Falinski: “Are you talking to me? I am a woman.”

Gisele Kapterian will now begin her campaign against teal independent MP Kylea Tink.

Our source claimed there was an audible gasp, before a visibly mortified Falinski tried to make light of the situation, blaming it on his “glasses”, the lights being turned down and the mistake “all part of the evening’s entertainment”.

Kapterian, a former international trade lawyer who also worked for Julie Bishop, clearly passed the “woke” test – despite being a moderate – going on to win preselection.

An impressive array of references – which included one from former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian, another from Liberal leader Peter Dutton and also former North Sydney MP Joe Hockey who was in the audience – no doubt helped.

Dutton is also understood to have given a reference to right-winger Collins.

Kapterian will now begin her campaign against teal independent MP Kylea Tink.

LEFT LOCKED

Looks like the usual rabble that is the Liberal left-wing have united to lock in behind former NSW Cabinet minister Andrew Constance in his bid to kickstart a political career in Canberra.

Moderate sources say the former Bega MP has the faction behind him to fill the Senate vacancy made by Marise Payne.

The move is bad news for his left-wing rival Dave Sharma, who will struggle to stay in the race.

Constance will be up against right-wingers Jess Collins – whose nomination is still believed to be live despite her attempt to become the candidate for North Sydney – Lou Amato and Zed Seselja.

NIMBY history

The Minns government has declared war on “NIMBYS”, but up until recently, many Labor MPs – including one who would go on to become prime minister – were paid-up members of the Not In My Backyard club.

Premier Chris Minns, in his first private members statement as a Kogarah MP to state parliament back in May 2015 spoke of the “significant consternation” within the electorate of “extreme development changes” that were proposed by a development control plan.

Minns noted how the plan had no development occurring around the nearby Oatley train station, which happened to be in the electorate of Liberal MP Mark Coure.

NSW Premier Chris Minns. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Flavio Brancaleone

“Local residents are extremely dubious of this claim when the proposal allows for seven-storey, that is 21 metres, high-rise development in residential areas along the Princes Highway that are two kilometres from the closest train station while at the same time has no new development around and directly adjacent to Oatley train station — a station on which the State Government has lavished services, commuter parking and infrastructure since its election,” he said.

“My great fear is that residents who live in Carlton South are being sacrificed with a proposal for inordinately large-scale developments in their area.”

Over in Marrickville, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke against overdevelopment in a 2017 newsletter, writing how Mirvac was trying to build “28-storey developments” where there were “single-storey and two storey houses”.

“In an area that doesn’t have great road access to it and has congestion right now, 28-storeys is a massive overdevelopment,” he wrote.

“It is greed gone mad, and I told Mirvac that. Marrickville has a character to it, and the idea that you can go into an area of Marrickville that has one- and two-storey heritage houses, which families live in, and just change that to 28 storeys is, quite frankly, absurd.”

Developers must be laughing now.

HOPES FADE

It has been billed as “A New Hope”, but the Liberal Party’s much-publicised November convention is apparently looking more like the Death Star, according to one party member.

The member reckons there have been about seven emails sent out, urging members to register in a sign of possible sluggish ticket sales.

“There’s been emails from the president, the convention chair, from the party. ,” our informant said.

“It’s gotten to the point of an email being sent out last Friday with the question ‘Do you have hope?’ in the subject line.”

This is surprising given the keynote speakers will include Liberal leader Peter Dutton, NSW Liberal leader Mark Speakman, Ex-attorney general George Brandis and republican party pollster Kristen Soltis-Anderson.

BACK TRACK

Labor MP Ron Hoenig’s Spring Gazette newsletter is out. The Heffron MP has jam-packed his mail-out with a whole host of community news, including projects being delivered for his constituents.

One that caught the eye of Liberal MP Matt Cross was the inclusion of the $89m light rail project.

As Cross points out, it was only back in 2020 Hoenig was raising concerns about the project in parliament, stating how he had “repeatedly categorised the project as a shambles” and how “Infrastructure NSW put up a big red flag and told the NSW Government, “Do not do this”.

“Thankfully the Liberals delivered light rail, because Ron and his community clearly now love it,” Mr Cross said. “He’s had a light rail change of heart.”

OOPS

Due to a production error, a photo of senior NSW public servant Peter Duncan was published in The Sauce last week captioned as Transport for NSW secretary Josh Murray. We apologise for the mistake.