Outgoing Brighton member Louise Asher: Liberal party struggles to find safe seats for women

OUTGOING Liberal Member for Brighton Louise Asher has conceded the party is struggling to find safe seats for women.

OUTGOING Liberal Member for Brighton Louise Asher has conceded the party is struggling to find safe seats for women. Picture: Tanya Fry.

OUTGOING Liberal Member for Brighton Louise Asher has conceded the party is struggling to find safe seats for women.

At the weekend, former Napthine government staffer James Newbury was preselected for the Brighton seat over upper house MP Margaret Fitzherbert and former Bayside mayor Felicity Frederico.

And in the safe seat of Nepean, retiring Liberal MP Martin Dixon’s electorate officer Russell Joseph, 56, beat four other candidates to win preselection.

Ms Asher said Mr Newbury was a great candidate, but the party did have to look at gender issues.

“The party has had a lot of problems in getting women into safer seats,” Ms Asher told the ABC’s Jon Faine.

“(But) I don’t think you can say the party is anti-women over one Brighton preselection.

“What we’ve done as a group — I didn’t vote, MPs don’t have votes on these things — is select in Brighton’s case a 38-year-old outstanding man (Mr Newbury), and I think he will go far.”

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said the party was pursuing policies to boost the number of women in its parliamentary ranks, but defended its preselection processes.

“We have had Roma Britnell preselected where Dennis Napthine had been and as I said there are a number of preselections to come so it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish.,” Mr Guy said.

“The Liberal Party is a democracy, it makes its decisions as a democratic institution should.

“Russell Joseph and James Newbury have my full support.”