Call for Victorian Liberal Party to consider quotas to boost female representation

Following the 2022 electoral drubbing, two female regional Liberals say quotas should be considered — and new leader John Pesutto isn’t ruling it out.

The Victorian Liberal Party should consider quotas to boost female representation, regional frontbenchers Cindy McLeish and Roma Britnell say.

Opposition Leader John Pesutto has also flagged the potential to “call in” preselections in circumstances where talented women are overlooked in internal ballots.

Elected leader last month, Mr Pesutto told The Weekly Times that “administrative processes” to boost the number female MPs in state caucus was on the table in the event of unsatisfactory preselection results.

Both Ms McLeish and Ms Britnell achieved two-party preferred swings in their favour on 2022 election night, unlike most seats across Victoria which swung Labor’s way.

Ms McLeish said quotas needed to be examined in order to build the momentum for a female leader in the future.

“Clearly what we’ve been doing hasn’t been working (in terms of preselecting women),” the Eildon MP said.

“It’s difficult for the party because we lost a number of excellent female, as well as male MPs, in 2014 and 2018, we didn’t make the gains necessary (at last year’s election) and lost an excellent female Liberal MP in Louise Staley.”

Ms Britnell said quotas shouldn’t be ruled out but added other measures to boost female representation needed to be examined too.

“I’m open to all ideas because clearly it’s an area that we need to work on as a party,” the South West Coast MP said.

“The Liberal Party has a proud history of women representing the party but there’s plenty more work to do to improve our position. Whether that’s quotas, or a more proactive approach ahead of preselections – that’s something we’ll work on this year.”

Victorian Opposition leader John Pesutto with deputy leader David Southwick and upper house leader Georgie Crozier. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Mr Pesutto said quotas have “always been a challenging one internally as much as there’s a prevailing view inside the Liberal Party”.

“We just need to elect more female members of the Liberal Party,” he told The Weekly Times.

“And we’ve certainly got high numbers of female representation in our membership – we just need to translate that into (getting MPs elected).

“In the short term, at least, we need to look at using some administrative processes to get good, talented females into parliament. There’s no shortage of them in the Liberal Party – we just need to get them through (to a general election).”

Last year, several preselection ballots conducted by the NSW Liberal Party overlooked well-credentialed women – most notably Roads Minister Natalie Ward, who lost her bid to jump from the NSW upper to lower house.

“We’ve got to get more female candidates putting their hands up for preselection,” Ms Pesutto said.

“I know the membership pretty well and I know there’s very talented females in there and would love to see them in parliament and we’ve got to make it more attractive for them to put their hands up and contest preselection and in some cases, where it’s appropriate, to use administrative processes to maybe call some in, to ensure we’re endorsing a female candidate for that seat.”