Speaker 1: There's one question Julia Banks is asked over and over.
Speaker 2: I get asked, why did you join the Liberal Party
Speaker 2: in the first place.
Speaker 1: It's a question she's been grappling with again in why
Speaker 1: of the parties devastating election loss and the existential questions
Speaker 1: it faces about his future. But looking back, she could
Speaker 1: see why she was drawn in at.
Speaker 2: The time ten years ago. I saw good people in
Speaker 2: the Liberal Party in Malcolm Turnbull, Julie Bishop, Kelly O Dwyer.
Speaker 2: I was aligned to their values, but their true irony
Speaker 2: of the answer to that question is they were calling
Speaker 2: for more women at the time and so I thought, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll join.
Speaker 1: Julia went on to win the seat of Chisholm in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, but just two years later she wanted out.
Speaker 2: The Liberal Party has changed largely due to the actions
Speaker 2: of the reactionary and regressive right wing, who talk about
Speaker 2: and talk to themselves rather than listening to the people.
Speaker 1: Today, the Liberal Party will meet to elect a new leader,
Speaker 1: and whoever wins will need to decide whether to learn
Speaker 1: from the mistakes of the past and what the future
Speaker 1: of the party should be. From Schwartz Media, I'm Daniel James.
Speaker 1: This is seven am today former Liberal MP Julia Banks
Speaker 1: on what it's like to be a woman in the
Speaker 1: Liberal Party and whether the party can change this Tuesday,
Speaker 1: May thirteen. So, Julia, I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about your decision ten years ago now to leave the
Speaker 1: corporate world and join the Liberal Party. What was it
Speaker 1: like stepping into that world?
Speaker 2: Oh, it was pretty stunning. I often describe it as
Speaker 2: like mad Men meets House of Cards. For example, you know,
Speaker 2: I was pre selected in the set of Chisholm, and
Speaker 2: I technically lived a couple of kilometers from the nearest
Speaker 2: boundary to Chisholm. And it was after my pre selection
Speaker 2: that a local branch official said, oh, and by the way,
Speaker 2: you should take out a rental in Chishm so you
Speaker 2: can pretend that you live in Chism. He said, just
Speaker 2: take out a rental or one bedroom rental, and your
Speaker 2: kids can stay overnight a few nights. Awake your kids
Speaker 2: and your husband and da dah. And I said, I
Speaker 2: said to him, like staggered. I said, I am not
Speaker 2: going to start my political career on a lie. And
Speaker 2: he just looked at me and he said, well, you're
Speaker 2: a useless candidate and you're going to be a fucking
Speaker 2: hopeless politician if you can't lie. I just thought, okay,
Speaker 2: this is the beginning. So yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: So that's quite a baptism afire. What other advice were
Speaker 1: you given when you stepped into the world of politics.
Speaker 2: Well, sexism was extraordinary, and the misogyny. You know. I
Speaker 2: remember once a senior official was going to be speaking
Speaker 2: at an event and again the branch official said, so
Speaker 2: he'll be speaking, and he'll be speaking, and he'll be speaking.
Speaker 2: And it was in my electorate of Chisholm, and I'd
Speaker 2: been pre selected by that stage, and I said, well
Speaker 2: what about me, and he said, oh, don't worry, darling,
Speaker 2: we'll give you the raffle. It was. It was right
Speaker 2: out there. It was amazing, gown.
Speaker 1: I'm trying not to swear.
Speaker 2: Believe me, I've done a lot of that.
Speaker 1: So you hit a parliament in twenty sixteen under the
Speaker 1: leadership of Malcolm Tempule, who famously loved to say that
Speaker 1: women hold up part the sky.
Speaker 3: If you want to join up, yeah, women, Yeah, we
Speaker 3: need more more more female, more female candidates.
Speaker 1: No, that's great.
Speaker 3: Women, women hold up half the sky. And you know
Speaker 3: the would be they would like them to hold up
Speaker 3: a larger part of the of the parliamentary seats as well.
Speaker 1: So very malcolm type quote. So did you get a
Speaker 1: sense at all that things were heading in the right
Speaker 1: direction while you're in the parliament?
Speaker 2: Look, I think under the leadership of Turnbull it would
Speaker 2: be naive to say there weren't the rumblings of the
Speaker 2: right wing, but they got their way in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: But then it's no coincidence that after the leadership coup
Speaker 2: I ultimately quit the party three months later. The Member
Speaker 2: for Chisholm, missus speaker on indulgence, May I make a
Speaker 2: personal statement?
Speaker 1: Yes, the Member for Chisholm.
Speaker 2: They proceed, Thank you, mister Speaker. It was important to
Speaker 2: me to say on handsard that my values haven't changed.
Speaker 2: The liberal values have My sensible centrist values belief in
Speaker 2: economic responsibility and focus on always putting the people first
Speaker 2: and acting in the nation's interest have not changed. And
Speaker 2: that was when I went to the cross bench.
Speaker 1: Why did you leave the way that you did.
Speaker 2: I knew immediately after the leadership coup, literally days that
Speaker 2: I was not going to continue, and I intended to
Speaker 2: issue a statement to say I wasn't going to recontest
Speaker 2: the next election, which in fact i'd prepared, I'd given
Speaker 2: Morrison notice. They didn't want me to do that. I
Speaker 2: got phone calls from Morrison, from Friedenberg, from all over
Speaker 2: and I don't do that, don't do that. They were
Speaker 2: trying to make me wait, and I said no, no,
Speaker 2: I am going to do this, and I promised Morrison
Speaker 2: like he was really adamant, did I not do it?
Speaker 2: And then finally he said, well, give me twenty four
Speaker 2: hours and don't speak to the media. And I agreed
Speaker 2: to both those things, which is a huge mistake because
Speaker 2: of course they use that twenty four hours to background
Speaker 2: the media that I'd had some sort of breakdown. And
Speaker 2: so Morrison's press conference I had the tally on in
Speaker 2: the background. Right at the end of the press A
Speaker 2: journalist said to him, and what do you think about
Speaker 2: Julia Banks not recontesting the next election? And he said,
Speaker 2: all I care about is Julie is welfare. And I
Speaker 2: remember being really confused, really confused, and unfortunately for Morrison,
Speaker 2: I'm good mates with a couple of journalists and MPs
Speaker 2: and that's when I discovered that they'd been backgrounding against me,
Speaker 2: and I thought, look, I'm just going to press on
Speaker 2: with every speech. There was a systematic takedown to discredit
Speaker 2: my reputation. So I went from being the whak pedal
Speaker 2: to the bully bitch. Was extraordinary. And that was coupled
Speaker 2: with also sort of what I call patriarchal brides, like
Speaker 2: we'll make you a minister or will we'll send you
Speaker 2: to the un directly from Morrison. Those offers, both of
Speaker 2: which I rejected. And you know it's no coincidence Julie
Speaker 2: Bishop and Kelly O Dwyer left before the Morrison miracle election.
Speaker 4: Mister Speaker, I will leave this place positive about the future,
Speaker 4: proud of the service that I had been able to
Speaker 4: give to my electorate of Curtain, my beloved Liberal Party,
Speaker 4: the state of Western Australia, and my country.
Speaker 3: Her successor will have big shoes to fill, and we
Speaker 3: all know Julie has.
Speaker 4: The best shoes in the Parliament and they.
Speaker 3: Will indeed take some Philly. I just want to talk
Speaker 3: more about the fact that she was a tribal lazer.
Speaker 2: There's also no coincidence that at that election Zarie Stegel
Speaker 2: took the seat of Wringer from Tony Abbott.
Speaker 4: This is a win for moderates with a heart.
Speaker 2: And it's no coincidence that that was the beginning and
Speaker 2: the rise of Climbate two hundred in terms of supporting
Speaker 2: the independent movement.
Speaker 1: After the break, How should the Liberal Party rebuild? Julia?
Speaker 1: In the Liberal Party's review after the last election, they
Speaker 1: identify that they need to do more to attract women,
Speaker 1: but in the end a lot of safe seats with
Speaker 1: the men. So what does it say to you about
Speaker 1: whether the party really does want to reform?
Speaker 2: Well, I think the trains left the station. They've wanted
Speaker 2: that since, as I said before I joined the party,
Speaker 2: and that's ten years ago. Now, you know, Labor have
Speaker 2: done a stunning job. They've done a much better job
Speaker 2: in relation to women, namely because that I mean they
Speaker 2: introduced quotas twenty five years ago. I made speeches during
Speaker 2: my time there that they've got to lose the merit
Speaker 2: myth and introduce quotas. But they have an obstinate rediction
Speaker 2: of quotas, so who knows what they're going to do.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just become a tiresome theme. After every election.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, well, you know, women don't like us,
Speaker 2: so young people don't like us either. Oh, you know,
Speaker 2: gens out of millennials are the main voters now. Most
Speaker 2: of them are from migrant heritage or very diverse backgrounds,
Speaker 2: and they don't appeal to them. And they certainly don't
Speaker 2: appeal to half the population, which is women. They absolutely
Speaker 2: don't appeal to women.
Speaker 1: Do you get the sense that they're more open to
Speaker 1: perhaps having a quota system now in light of this result?
Speaker 2: It's an interesting question because a lot of the women
Speaker 2: remaining in the Liberal Party, women like Jane Hume and
Speaker 2: Micalia Cash, you know, Micaleia Trump is a man of action. Cash,
Speaker 2: they're sort of caught in this patriarchal vortex as well.
Speaker 2: They will mirror the comments that come out, you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of oh no, no, we don't need to
Speaker 2: go to quotas, you know, we'll just stick with our
Speaker 2: merit theme. But we will get to fifty percent. And
Speaker 2: where have those reviews gone? You know, they've been put
Speaker 2: on the shelf. I remember there was a review done
Speaker 2: again ten years ago. More than four people called a
Speaker 2: review and no one knows where that one went or
Speaker 2: the other one.
Speaker 1: Really, well, let's talk about where we are today. How
Speaker 1: do you think think the Liberal Party should go about
Speaker 1: rebuilding if that is possible.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the last two elections twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: and twenty twenty five, the discussion has been about women
Speaker 2: and how do we rebuild, how do we know? What
Speaker 2: do we do? It's become a hollow statement to say
Speaker 2: that they are a party of Mensis. Mensis basically talked
Speaker 2: about in his famous speech the forgotten people, and that
Speaker 2: includes salary professionals, the individual liberty and the right to work.
Speaker 2: The Liberals have forgotten not only women, but GenZ, millennials,
Speaker 2: young people, diverse populations. They're the new forgotten people. They
Speaker 2: are not the party of Mensis anymore. I think our
Speaker 2: focus should be on the community independence movement, particularly in
Speaker 2: the urban seats, because we saw in twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: seismic shift in our political landscape.
Speaker 5: The moderate wing of the Liberal Party has been decimated
Speaker 5: by that TiAl tidal wave. In Sydney and Melbourne seats,
Speaker 5: at least five climate two hundred back challenges have turfed
Speaker 5: out high profile Liberals and electorates, once considered the safest
Speaker 5: of seats.
Speaker 2: But the downside of that has been in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five they will have less power with Labour's increased majority.
Speaker 2: So I believe our focus should be more on that
Speaker 2: community independence movement and how do we make them more powerful?
Speaker 2: And the way to do that, I believe is to
Speaker 2: create a community independence party, if not for any other reason,
Speaker 2: that would also give the country representation in the Senate.
Speaker 2: And if people say that it's an a knoxymoron or
Speaker 2: a contradiction if you have a party of independence, No,
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to follow
Speaker 2: this formula and have a party formula. But as long
Speaker 2: as it follows the three pillars of climate integrity and women,
Speaker 2: the three pillars that will first introduced by Climate two hundred.
Speaker 2: As long as they're aligned to that, then you can
Speaker 2: maintain a flexibility.
Speaker 1: So you've been involved with Climate two hundred, But what
Speaker 1: would it take for you to want to join the
Speaker 1: Liberal Party.
Speaker 2: Again, that's a really good question, because I hear so
Speaker 2: many people, like in the media in business say, oh,
Speaker 2: the til independence or the community independence, particularly in the cities,
Speaker 2: they're the sort of women that the Liberal Party need.
Speaker 2: I can tell you that women they're trying to get,
Speaker 2: they wouldn't go near the Liberal Party.
Speaker 1: Well, Juliet, thank you very much for your time and
Speaker 1: for your insights.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Daniel, I really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 2: Thanks again. Cheers.
Speaker 1: Also in the US today, Anthony Albernezi has announced his
Speaker 1: new ministry. Michelle Rowland will become Australia's new Attorney General,
Speaker 1: replacing Mark Dreyfus, who was ousted due to a factional fight.
Speaker 1: Tim as Is also been promoted to Minister for Science,
Speaker 1: Industry and Innovation after Ed Husick was also axed. Mark
Speaker 1: Butler will keep the Health portfolio and pick up the NDIS,
Speaker 1: and Murray Watt will become the new Minister for Environment
Speaker 1: and Water. The ministers will be sworn in at nine
Speaker 1: am this morning. And Donald Trump was reportedly about to
Speaker 1: receive a luxury dumbo jet as a gift from the
Speaker 1: ruling family of Qatar. The plane, which is so opulent
Speaker 1: it is known as a flying palace, could be used
Speaker 1: as the US President's air Force one. The Qatari government
Speaker 1: acknowledged the plan, but denied that a final decision had
Speaker 1: been made. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.