Senator calls for a Liberal Party fundraising levy to ‘give women a chance’

Victorian senator Jane Hume says the Liberal Party is facing an “existential crisis” and has called on the party to introduce a fundraising levy for all federal MPs, forcing them to contribute to a new women’s network aimed at boosting the number of women in the party.

With the Liberals’ female representation in parliament at its lowest ebb in 30 years, Hume – the co-author of the party’s review after losing the 2022 federal election – says it’s time the party realised that increasing the number of women in its ranks is the best way to win back government.

Victorian senator Jane Hume said the Liberal Party must respond to the age-old question: What do women want?Credit: Luis Ascui

The proposed reform may be seen as hindering the prospect of a return of several high-profile moderate male MPs who lost seats to independent candidates in May, including former treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

In her first interview since the report was released, Hume said she could “recognise the frustration” of female voters.

“They feel like they are not seeing themselves represented in either the parliamentary team or in our membership,” she said.

“We need to change if we are going to see a significant evolution ... and we must persuade the membership that this is the best way to get back into government.”

Hume and her review co-author, former party director Brian Loughnane, received 600 submissions and conducted 50 interviews as part of their election post-mortem, which blamed COVID-19, allegations of poor treatment towards women within the government and party, and “scandal, disunity and instability” for the election loss.

Their final report, released late last month, found that the party’s vote was weakest among women aged 18 to 34, and that women between 35 and 54 were the most likely demographic to shift away from the Liberal Party. But it stopped short of following in Labor’s footsteps and introducing quotas to get more women elected.

A growing number of current and former Liberal MPs – including Katie Allen, Melissa McIntosh, Angie Bell, Linda Reynolds, Bridget Archer and Wendy Askew – say they are open to starting a conversation on quotas, but Hume said the membership “will walk” if the party imposes a “top-down directive”.

“Quotas are a top-down measure; we are a membership-led, grassroots organisation,” she said. “People join the Liberal Party because they largely don’t like being told what to do.”

A wave of teal independents in Canberra picked up Liberal-held seats at the 2022 election.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Instead, the review recommended a target of 50 per cent female representation within parliamentary ranks in 10 years.

To achieve the goal, the party estimates that at least 60 per cent of seats targeted by the party at each election, as well as any electorates where MPs voluntarily retire, would need to be filled with female candidates at the next three elections.

Hume wouldn’t be drawn on what the targets might mean for the political futures of high-profile male former Liberal MPs such as Frydenberg or Tim Wilson who lost their seats to teal candidates in May.

Dame Margaret Guilfoyle served from 1971 to 1987, during one of the most tumultuous periods in Australian political history.Credit: Mario Borg

Hume, who hasn’t always backed female candidates at past preselections, said she would continue to back candidates on merit, but all sitting MPs had started the process of succession planning by identifying multiple capable women to replace them when they retired.

As a professional woman and a single mother from Melbourne’s affluent inner-east, in many ways Hume represents the very voter that has turned away from the party in the past decade. She strongly believes the Liberal Party should not abandon inner-city seats lost to teals, as some Liberal MPs have argued.

“It’s really important to win those seats back,” she said.

“There are many good people out there that may not have joined the party who would make great candidates. We need to be more open-minded from a preselector’s point of view.”

When challenged about the party’s track record, which includes lower childcare rebates, allegations of poor treatment of female staff, and dated ideas about gender roles, Hume defended Liberal policies but admitted the Coalition had been “a little bit rigid” in framing its pitch to women.

“[Women] feel like they are not seeing themselves represented in either the parliamentary team or in our membership,” says Senator Jane Hume.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

“If you try and nut it down into one word and answer, [to] what does a modern woman want, [it] is opportunity,” she said.

“Fairness is a very subjective concept, and is easily misinterpreted, but removing barriers to entry is what we must aim to do.”

As part of her push to improve her party’s gender imbalance, Hume is proposing the establishment of a women’s network to engage current and former female parliamentarians, members, staff and supporters with the aim of promoting greater female representation in parliament.

Named the Dame Margaret Guilfoyle Network, after Australia’s first female finance minister, Hume said the organisation would connect Liberal-leaning women with employment opportunities, claiming the election review found Liberal women were “crying out” for support.

“We have this amazing group of female staff: they are smart, they are savvy, and they disappear, we lose them,” Hume said.

“I would like to think it’s for those women that are Liberal-leaning that don’t want to sign their names up, because they see that there can be some limitations to nailing your political colours to the mast, professionally.”

She described the recommendation – one of 49 in the review – as “fundamental” to the party’s future success, but believes the network needs the financial support of all federal MPs, who could be forced to each contribute $1000 of fundraising money to it.

“It’s going to take a lot of continued momentum, but I do feel like it’s fundamental to the other recommendations,” Hume said.

The 2022 Australian Election Study also found that only about one in four people under the age of 40 reported voting for the Coalition, the lowest level in the study’s 35-year history. The study found that unlike previous generations, Millennials were not becoming more conservative as they got older.

As a mother of three children aged between 17 and 21, Hume believes the party has failed to communicate its values to a new generation of voters and must ask: “What is it that we can do to appeal to the younger generation?”

“We used to say it’s alright, they’ll grow up, they’ll come to their senses, and they’ll vote conservative eventually. But they’re not, and we can’t allow ourselves to lose generations,” she said.

“I feel that we have often resorted to saying that once a recession hits, they’ll understand. But we have to keep working out what is important to them and responding to it.

"I am not saying we need to change who we are, or change the value set. But we have to find a way to apply our values to those things that are important to the next generation coming through.”

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