Election 2022: Libs shoot themselves in the foot as boys club spawns teal challengers

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and prospective future member for Kooyong Monique Ryan. Teal women shouldn’t be condemned for not wanting to enter a race which is staked against women in the Liberal Party, writes Peter Van Onselen. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Irrespective of whether the teal independents win or lose their seats at this election, all the women contesting safe Liberal seats as teal independents have been lost to the Liberal Party. Even if they win they won’t rise through the ranks into ministerial roles in the Liberal Party in government. Nor help it find its feet in opposition by modernising its policy agenda, if Scott Morrison loses the election.

Ponder that for a moment. The Liberals have long failed to correct their deeply skewed imbalance of representation because - among other excuses - not enough women have shown an interest in contesting higher office. Yet they are now spending millions of dollars trying to stave off challenges from a well funded and motivated collection of women in some of their traditionally safest electorates.

The collective challenge by the teals is tying down the Treasurer in his local electorate during a campaign the Coalition wants to be centred on the economy. Future cabinet ministers like David Sharma and Tim Wilson might lose their seats. Leading factional moderates like Jason Falinski and Trent Zimmerman might lose too, consigning the Liberal Party to an even more conservative future. The time, money and energy being put into saving these seats - even if successful - could well be the difference between victory and defeat for the Coalition government at the general election.

Liberal MP Dave Sharma and rival Allegra Spender. Most teal independents would likely have been interested in a career within the parliament within the Liberal Party had they been even remotely encouraged. Picture: News Corp

But the real focus of this piece it to highlight the opportunity cost to the Liberal Party from not doing enough to encourage women into its ranks. It has resulted in the teal movement. Consider the collective credentials of these women challenging Liberal men in safe seats and then reflect on the trotted out notion that Liberals seriously try and claim they can’t attract good women to run for politics.

Josh Frydenberg’s challenger in Kooyong, Monique Ryan, is a medical doctor, the head of neurology at the Melbourne children’s hospital no less. Hardly a low altitude flyer.

Dave Sharma’s challenger in Wentworth, Allegra Spender, is a former management consultant at McKinsey and Company. Anyone who knows anything about top tier consultancy firms knows how hard it is to get into them. She has a masters in economics from Cambridge and was the managing director of her mother Carla Zampatti’s fashion empire for a decade before becoming the CEO of a not-for-profit.

The North Sydney independent, Kylea Tink, was the CEO of the McGrath Foundation, before that she was the CEO of Camp Quality.

Mackellar independent Sophie Scamps is an Oxford educated medical doctor, having previously been a high performance athlete. Now a local GP she was previously an emergency ward doctor.

Tim Wilson’s challenger in Goldstein, Zoe Daniel, is an award-winning former three time foreign correspondent for the national broadcaster. Her final posting was as the chief of the ABC’s Washington bureau.

It is not that these women are necessarily better qualified than the men they are challenging (some are, some aren’t), but all of them would make excellent MPs. And most of them would likely have been interested in a career within the parliament within the Liberal Party had they been even remotely encouraged. And there are many more women like them turned off a career on the conservative side of politics because they are actively discouraged from entering the boys club that is the Liberal Party in Canberra.

It is not by chance that Labor has gone a long way towards overcoming the blokey union culture in recent decades. Getting to a point at which half of its parliamentarians are women. Gender quotas forces such cultural change.

One Liberal told me none of these teal women would be prepared to go through the preselection processes to become a Liberal candidate in a safe seat. Perhaps, but that’s the whole point. They shouldn’t be condemned for not wanting to enter a race which is staked against women in the Liberal Party. For not wanting to waste their professional time staking branches when their careers are clearly impressive. Liberals need to find ways to improve their systems to entice such women into the tent, rather than relying on those exclusionary systems to self justify why these teal independents were always going to be a problem.

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.