The NSW Liberals have many problems but they are finally fixing one

The looming byelections in Epping, Hornsby and Pittwater are somewhat unusual for the NSW Liberals.

Not because two of the seats were left empty by retiring senior Liberals who were once the most senior members of a government. Nor is it because the third was vacated by an ex-MP facing child sex assault charges.

Rather, the byelections on October 19 are unusual because two of the three Liberal candidates are women. Could it be that the NSW Liberals have finally read the room?

Northern Beaches Deputy Mayor Georgia Ryburn has won preselection for the state seat of Pittwater.Credit: Steven Siewert

Northern Beaches Deputy Mayor Georgia Ryburn, a victim of the Liberal’s council nominations debacle, was preselected as the candidate for Pittwater on Wednesday night. Former senior staffer to Dominic Perrottet Monica Tudehope is the candidate for Epping, leaving James Wallace running in Hornsby as the only outlier.

If Ryburn and Tudehope are both successful, 50 per cent of the NSW parliamentary Liberal Party will be women.

But it remains a sizeable if, because Ryburn has a big challenge ahead of her.

Monica Tudehope, Liberal candidate for Epping.

While Tudehope in Epping is seeking to replace former premier Perrottet and Wallace will succeed the one-time treasurer Matt Kean in Hornsby, Ryburn needs to win back the trust of Liberal voters who have been denied the chance to vote blue in this weekend’s local government elections.

The NSW Liberals made the spectacular blunder of failing to nominate 140 candidates across 16 councils. One of the worst affected was Northern Beaches Council, where no endorsed Liberal will appear on the ballot paper.

Ryburn also has the added complication that Pittwater voters have been forced to a byelection because their former Liberal MP Rory Amon was charged with child sex offences. He denies the allegations.

Her main rival will be teal candidate Jacqui Scruby, who narrowly missed out on beating Amon in the March 2023 election. She fell just 606 votes short.

The Liberals’ so-called women problem is not unique to NSW. After the federal Coalition loss in 2022, the Hume-Loughnane review found that “Liberal defectors in teal seats were highly likely to agree with the statement that the treatment or attitude toward women within the Liberal Party had a strong influence on my vote”.

It recommended that the federal executive adopt a target of 50 per cent female representation “within our parliamentary ranks with 10 years, or three terms”. And how is that tracking? In NSW, women make up 41 per cent of preselected federal candidates, 29 per cent in Victoria and 27 per cent of candidates in Western Australia.

In Queensland, federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s home state, only 18 per cent of candidates are women. At the same time, Dutton recommended a three-man committee be appointed to lead the troubled NSW division of the party. One of those men, the former NSW minister Rob Stokes, declined the invitation.

NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman has since insisted that two women must be on the committee, and has named former federal MP Fiona Scott and ex-state MP Peta Seaton. Dutton is resisting. One will do, he says.

For all its many faults, the NSW Liberals are finally accepting that it needs women in its ranks if it is to be truly representative of the electorate. Someone should tell that to the federal arm of the party.

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