Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven Am.
Speaker 1: When Scott Morrison lost his job as Prime Minister, it
Speaker 1: was women who sacked him. A review commissioned by the
Speaker 1: Liberal Party after the twenty twenty two election found that
Speaker 1: a decline in support among women was a decisive factor
Speaker 1: in their loss. The report outlined ways that the party
Speaker 1: might win women back, but three years on that has
Speaker 1: not happened. Today. Contributor to the Saturday Paper, Breeley on
Speaker 1: what women want and why they're not getting it from
Speaker 1: the Liberal Party. It's Thursday, April twenty four so, Brie,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining me on seven am. Again, thank
Speaker 1: you for having me back. It's good to be back.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to start in twenty eighteen with the
Speaker 1: leadership spill that saw Scott Morrison Oltimle assume the top
Speaker 1: job within the party. So tell me a bit about
Speaker 1: how it unfolded and what it tells you about the
Speaker 1: Liberal Party's attitude towards women at the time.
Speaker 2: So three people went for the leadership position. That was
Speaker 2: Julie Bishop, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton. Obviously, in every
Speaker 2: political party you've got sort of factions. In the Liberal
Speaker 2: Party at that point in time. Obviously there was the
Speaker 2: sort of moderate faction and the hardline faction. Julie Bishop
Speaker 2: and Scott Morrison were both in the moderate faction. Peter
Speaker 2: Dutt was in the hardline faction. And at this point
Speaker 2: in time. The other thing you need to know is
Speaker 2: that Julie Bishop was one of the most popular politicians
Speaker 2: in Australia with the general public. She'd been working in
Speaker 2: the Foreign Affairs Department. There was a perception that she
Speaker 2: was a professional and moderate conservative, kind of reliable, bankable
Speaker 2: politician as far as politicians go. But the moderates in
Speaker 2: the party were not confident that there would be enough
Speaker 2: votes for Julie Bishop versus Peter Dutton, and they took
Speaker 2: a position of anyone but Dutton, and then the result
Speaker 2: was that they kind of got Scott Morrison by default.
Speaker 3: Where there was a ballot producted in the party room
Speaker 3: for the leadership of the Liberal.
Speaker 4: Party, the successful candidate was Scott Morrison.
Speaker 2: Julie Bishop has subsequently said that she would not have
Speaker 2: put her thrown her hat in the ring unless she
Speaker 2: had been assured that she would have enough votes, but
Speaker 2: the people in the party just could would not vote
Speaker 2: for a woman to be the leader. And I think
Speaker 2: with hindsight, in my opinion, that's become a bit of
Speaker 2: a sliding doors moment for the party because shortly thereafter
Speaker 2: me too hit Parliament House.
Speaker 3: Scott Morrison is presiding over this toxic culture, not just
Speaker 3: in his own party, but clearly in ministerial offices and
Speaker 3: in the Parliament itself. Over half, that is, fifty one
Speaker 3: percent of all people currently in Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces have
Speaker 3: experienced at least one incident of blean sexual harassment or
Speaker 3: actual or attempted sexual assault.
Speaker 5: Like anyone who works in this building, I find the
Speaker 5: statistics that are presented there, of course appalling and disturbing.
Speaker 5: I wish I found them more surprising, but I find
Speaker 5: them just as appalling.
Speaker 2: And in twenty twenty one, a bunch of National MPs
Speaker 2: in particular referred to the funding of early childhood education
Speaker 2: and care as outsourcing of parental responsibility, worried that it
Speaker 2: would act as a disincentive for mothers who should otherwise
Speaker 2: be caring for their kids at home. And that's around
Speaker 2: about this time where you're then getting also all of
Speaker 2: the me too stuff hitting Parliament House. There was just
Speaker 2: what felt like wave after wave of roiling sort of
Speaker 2: gender specific issues and the party's problems with women just
Speaker 2: got worse and worse and worse.
Speaker 1: And what about if you were to look at it
Speaker 1: over time, I suppose before Scott Morrison when it comes
Speaker 1: to the Liberal Party and the way that they've approached
Speaker 1: representation and also just policy issues.
Speaker 2: So what's really interesting for this article? I interviewed Rebecca Huntley.
Speaker 2: She's a demographer. She's been doing research and strategy for
Speaker 2: a couple of decades now, and she said that until
Speaker 2: about the eighties, the Labor Party was considered to be
Speaker 2: men's preference and women would vote for the Liberals because
Speaker 2: the Labor Party was concerned with rights at work trade
Speaker 2: unions and there were not that many women in the workplace,
Speaker 2: and the Labor Party responded to that over the decades
Speaker 2: by instigating goals and quotas for how many of their
Speaker 2: MPs would be women.
Speaker 4: Well, Prime Minister Anthony Albanizi has made history this morning
Speaker 4: swearing in a record number of female MPs into his
Speaker 4: front bench.
Speaker 2: Now, certainly on average, women in Australia think that the
Speaker 2: Labor Party the one that's more in tune to their
Speaker 2: needs and understands what is important to them. The Liberal Party,
Speaker 2: by contrast, have just consistently taken this sort of hardline
Speaker 2: against quotas and the result is that they are almost
Speaker 2: eighty percent men. And what has happened as well since
Speaker 2: the last federal election where the Teal Independence won a
Speaker 2: lot of the seats from the more moderate members of
Speaker 2: the Liberal Party.
Speaker 6: The moderate wing of the Liberal Party has been decimated
Speaker 6: by that Teal tidal wave. In Sydney and Melbourne seats,
Speaker 6: at least five climate two hundred back challengers have turfed
Speaker 6: out high profile Liberals and electorates once considered the safest
Speaker 6: of seats.
Speaker 2: Kate Cheney and allegris Bender come from proud Liberal families
Speaker 2: and those are very talented, very effective politicians. Those were
Speaker 2: assets that the Liberal Party just lost. It means that
Speaker 2: the only people sort of left in the Liberal Party
Speaker 2: are from the hardline faction, and there's just been this
Speaker 2: snowball over the last decade. In particular, that means they
Speaker 2: are currently at the worst possible levels of representation in
Speaker 2: terms of just numbers of MPs in Parliament and they
Speaker 2: are now, without a doubt they have fallen behind average
Speaker 2: Australian's sort of values and where we think we're at
Speaker 2: in time, and that is something that the party itself
Speaker 2: is aware of and seems to be kind of unable
Speaker 2: or unwilling to shift.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break, how the Liberal Party is
Speaker 1: trying to win back women.
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Speaker 1: So Bree, we've talked a little about the tier independents
Speaker 1: who I suppose could have been Liberals if you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps the party had worked harder to recruit talented conservative
Speaker 1: women for people like Alec Respender and Kate Cheney. And
Speaker 1: that story, the story of till women taking Blue ribbon
Speaker 1: seats in the last election. You know, it's well known,
Speaker 1: but I'd like to talk a bit about what happened
Speaker 1: after the election. After the coalition lost office. What did
Speaker 1: the Liberal Party do about what had happened? How did
Speaker 1: they try and course correct?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, they commissioned a report that was
Speaker 2: co offered by two of their own people, one of
Speaker 2: whom was Senator Jane Hume, and that came out in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. It was a sort of you know,
Speaker 2: looking through the ashes for any possible learnings. And the
Speaker 2: report had forty nine I think recommendations. It was four
Speaker 2: of those recommendations were explicitly about women or.
Speaker 4: The Liberal Party have a women problem. It's most obvious
Speaker 4: when you look at the House of Representatives chamber. The
Speaker 4: forty seventh Parliament has a record number of women, but
Speaker 4: in the Liberal Party just nine of the forty two
Speaker 4: seats are held by women.
Speaker 2: In that twenty twenty two report that the Liberal Party commissioned,
Speaker 2: they found that a majority of women preferred labor in
Speaker 2: all age segments. And the report noted, and I quote
Speaker 2: here verbatim, liberal defectors in teal seats were highly likely
Speaker 2: to agree with the statement that the treatment or attitude
Speaker 2: toward women within the Liberal Party had a strong influence
Speaker 2: on my vote. One of the things they recommended was
Speaker 2: a regular kind of internal party reporting on the talent
Speaker 2: was being identified, you know, talented women were being put
Speaker 2: up for pre selection. One of the recommendations was the
Speaker 2: establishment of a kind of you know, networking experience, knowledge
Speaker 2: sharing groups specifically for women that was called the Margaret
Speaker 2: Gilfoil Network. But I approached Senator Jane Hume, and I
Speaker 2: approached the Deputy Liberal Leader Susan Lee, who is also
Speaker 2: the Shadow Minister for Women. I asked them whether the
Speaker 2: Margaret Gilfoyle Network had run any internships, mentorships, exchanges, etc.
Speaker 2: I asked whether the Liberal Party had been doing those
Speaker 2: internal reports about identifying women talent or putting them up
Speaker 2: for pre selection. I asked basically if they had any
Speaker 2: comments to make about the gendered components of this twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two report. And there was certainly no specific response
Speaker 2: about the Margaret Gilfoil Network, no response about those internal
Speaker 2: reporting mechanisms, And the one reply I did get from
Speaker 2: Minister Lee's office responded with a statement that was about
Speaker 2: three paragraphs long that barely mentioned women at all, and
Speaker 2: the first sentence was this election is a choice about
Speaker 2: who can better manage the economy and help Australians get ahead.
Speaker 2: It sort of mentions that women bear the brunt of
Speaker 2: economic distress and then continues to just talk about cost
Speaker 2: of living, tax offsets, and home ownership. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: felt like the message was very clear in that response.
Speaker 2: And the impression I'm given when I sit down and
Speaker 2: do this research now is that this report was commissioned
Speaker 2: by the Liberal Party in twenty twenty two. It made
Speaker 2: a lot of recommendations, none of those have been meaningfully
Speaker 2: acted upon, and we are now at yet another election
Speaker 2: cycle where none of these problems have been addressed.
Speaker 1: And what about Peter Dutton specifically, can you talk to
Speaker 1: me about his record on speaking on issues that affect women.
Speaker 2: Well, what's in interesting is that pretty much the only
Speaker 2: angle he's tried for to sort of appeal to women
Speaker 2: is that he's tough on crime. It would be tempting
Speaker 2: to think that that never works, but what we know
Speaker 2: is that for a lot of people, the tough on
Speaker 2: crime angle is compelling. What it just doesn't work for
Speaker 2: are the people who already don't like him or that party. Because,
Speaker 2: on average, the research shows that if you are a woman,
Speaker 2: and if you are a woman with a university education,
Speaker 2: you are not going to want to vote for the
Speaker 2: Liberal Party. Those are the sort of generalized gendered stats
Speaker 2: that Huntley's research, for example, shows for sure. But apart
Speaker 2: from that sort of tough on crime cop angle, which
Speaker 2: in my opinion still comes through as incredibly patronizing, he's
Speaker 2: still making that sort of fundamental mistake that Morrison kept
Speaker 2: making where women are to be protected.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it sounds like something much bigger would be
Speaker 1: needed for the Liberal Party to shift its appeal and
Speaker 1: turn around, and it's fortunes with women.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, my opinion on the situation is that
Speaker 2: they're not going to get anywhere while they keep thinking
Speaker 2: of women as a problem to be solved instead of
Speaker 2: an asset to be tapped. Every time people like Peter
Speaker 2: Dutton come out and say that, you know, they would
Speaker 2: like to see more women in the party, but they're
Speaker 2: not going to do it at the risk of compromising
Speaker 2: people be deserving to be there on merit. They just still,
Speaker 2: i think don't understand or appreciate how profoundly offensive that
Speaker 2: is to suggest that if you act on meaningful goals
Speaker 2: or quoters, to suggest that doing so means you will
Speaker 2: automatically get subpar lacking in quality candidates. Is it just
Speaker 2: shows a yeah, I think a fundamental lack of understanding.
Speaker 1: Free Thank you so much for your time, Thank you.
Speaker 2: For having me.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, Elon Musk will start pulling
Speaker 1: back from his role at the Trump Administration's Department of
Speaker 1: Government Efficiency to focus on Tesla. In an investor call,
Speaker 1: Musk acknowledged there have been rocky moments at the electric
Speaker 1: car manufacturer. This year, Tesla reported a seventy one percent
Speaker 1: drop in first quarter profits compared to the same time
Speaker 1: last year. The massive dip is widely seen to be
Speaker 1: a backlash against Musk's political activity, and a record number
Speaker 1: of votes were cast on the first day of early
Speaker 1: voting on Tuesday, with more than half a million people
Speaker 1: heading to the polls. The turnout smashed the previous record
Speaker 1: set in twenty twenty two of about three hundred and
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand votes. The Australian Electoral Commission has asked voters
Speaker 1: to be patient, as the strong first day showing led
Speaker 1: to some voters waiting in long queues at polling centers.
Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones is a thanks for listening