Gender quotas off the table after catastrophic federal loss

The party’s electoral policies and presentation turned away many female voters; because it will be made clear when the review is made public after the parliament convenes this year.

Women have drifted away from the Coalition in successive elections as the party has lost key seats in major cities. Party officials found that many women were being turned away by Labor’s headline election policies on nuclear energy and work-from-home restrictions on civil servants, which Labor has turned into a broader flexibility-versus-work agenda.

“Yes, Labor weaponized some of this, but we had a set of policies that women either didn’t care about or actually thought made their lives harder,” one party figure said.

The gender imbalance in the Liberal Party’s MPs has remained virtually unchanged over the past decade. Although the party has a target of 50 per cent female representation, a third of Liberal MPs are women.

Loading

The election investigation will remain secret until later in the year; At this point it will be made public and will play a key role in writing the history of the party’s worst election loss and apportioning the blame for it.

A critical observation from Minchin and Goward is that the Coalition has failed to change its spirit, tone, campaigns and media strategy after losing the 2022 election to Labor and moving from government to opposition after nine years in power.

A source familiar with the findings said it had become clear that Dutton’s team was made up of former Morrison government ministers who “lacked the hunger” to move from a bureaucratic, cautious management style required to prosecute a government to a nimble, more political approach.

This imprint reported last month that Dutton told the election review that former defense spokesman Andrew Hastie was “striking” and reluctant to take on Labour.

Unlike when Tony Abbott and Anthony Albanese were opposition leaders, Dutton’s operation made its day-to-day political decisions without constant input, data and research from the party’s professional campaigners, led by federal director Andrew Hirst, who ran the winning 2019 campaign and two subsequent election losses.

Hirst’s secretariat and other party forums such as the federal executive were still subservient to MPs as if they held power and had access to the power of the bureaucracy, rather than becoming entangled in a campaign machine after losing power, an opposition that needed data, ideas and campaign nos from outside the parliamentary chambers.

It was widely reported during the election campaign that Dutton’s office and Hirst’s team had a poor working relationship, a claim confirmed by Minchin and Goward.

“The Dutton opposition was completely obsessed with unity and outside the Voice [to parliament Indigenous referendum]It never developed into a fully functioning political unit,” one source said.

Dutton, Minchin and Hirst declined to comment.

A separate root-and-branch special commission of inquiry into the Liberal Party, which will prove deeper than a normal election review, was approved by the party’s federal leadership last week.

The investigation will examine the party’s federated model and state division structure, with a particular focus on how to elect more female candidates and engage with multicultural communities.

It will be chaired by Senator James McGrath and feature contributions from former NSW premier Mike Baird, former Tasmanian premier Will Hodgman and former federal MPs, party officials and activists including Caroline Inge, Caroline Di Russo, Sascha Meldrum, Jane Buncle, Fiona Cunningham and Danielle Young.

The review is also expected to focus on the party’s lackluster polls, which effectively misled Dutton, as well as US President Donald Trump’s influence in driving down the conservative vote.