Sussan Ley must give more than words on Liberal Party gender quotas

A reasonable person might assume the Liberal Party would be engaged in deep soul-searching and brave thinking about the future after the absolute thrashing it copped at the federal election.

However, based on Opposition Leader Sussan Ley’s performance at the National Press Club on Wednesday, reflection and courage won’t make an appearance any time soon.

Ley’s speech at least recognised the scale of the Liberal Party’s wipeout, and diagnosed that the terrible lack of women among its parliamentary ranks was one of the factors behind it.

Deputy Liberal leader Ted O’Brien, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and Nationals leader David Littleproud at a shadow ministry meeting. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“What we as the Liberal Party presented to the Australian people was comprehensively rejected,” she said. “The scale of that defeat – its size and significance – is not lost on me.”

Or anyone who even remotely observes politics. Over the past two elections, the Coalition has lost 33 seats in the House of Representatives and eight in the Senate. And as Ley pointed out, it now holds just two of 43 inner metropolitan seats and seven of 45 outer metro electorates. “These numbers reflect a deep and growing disconnect,” Ley told the audience.

The party won’t bridge that disconnect until it preselects more women. Just one-third of the Liberal Party’s MPs are women. By contrast, 56 per cent of Labor MPs are women – Labor introduced quotas decades ago without the world ending.

This mess is not of Ley’s making – that honour rests with her predecessors – but it is on her to fix.

Ley told the Press Club on Wednesday that her party must preselect more women in winnable seats. “Current approaches have clearly not worked, so I am open to any approach that will.” So far, so good.

But then things went off the rails when Ley said she was “agnostic on specific methods to make it happen, but I am a zealot that it does actually happen”. She went on to explain that if state divisions want to introduce quotas “that is fine”, and if they don’t “that is also fine”. The comments were the political equivalent of shrugging your shoulders and saying “meh”.

Perhaps she is worried some of the Liberal Party cave dwellers might use her endorsement of quotas as grounds to end her tenure as opposition leader. If that is the case, Ley is more interested in keeping her job than being herself, and facing facts.

So, is it possible Ley – the first woman to lead the Liberal Party – deep down does back quotas? It remains unclear. She at least suggested she was open to them. But we have heard this script before: Scott Morrison said he was “very open” to the idea in 2021. “We tried it the other way and it isn’t getting us the results we would like to see, so I would like to see us do better on that front,” the then-prime minister said.

Nothing changed, and historic wipeouts followed. The rout could get even worse unless the party – and its leaders like Ley – start taking this issue seriously instead of offering another round of weasel words.

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