Pale, stale and male. Ley leaving lights Liberals’ women problem

Angus Taylor’s sacking of Sussan Ley as leader of the Liberal Party reinforces long-standing perceptions about the Party’s treatment of women. Aleta Moriarty reports.

The 2025 elections showed a widening gap in the composition of two-party preferential voting with the Coalition attractive Men’s votes are 9% higher than women’s votes; Female voters are less likely to vote for the Coalition than at any time in recent history.

Especially young and middle-aged women left the party; only 19.8% voted Coalition (less than 1 in 5).

This was a consolidation of a long-term trend. 2022 elections will be held by the Coalition women’s problem reached crisis levels.

Only 32% of women voted for the Coalition; this represents a collapse in female support due to the Morrison government’s mishandling of the Brittany Higgins rape allegation and the wider treatment of women.

“The treatment of women in politics” has been identified as the Coalition’s second biggest electoral weakness, falling only narrowly behind aged care.

The female vote in the Labor Party is also in decline; Women feel underrepresented in housing, education and other key social issues that affect them.

The Liberal Party’s voter base is increasingly older and male. Accordingly demographic analysismostly 55+ age group. The party is mainly living off older voters who remember the Liberals supporting women, but those voters are dying and young women are moving sharply to the left.

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Legacy of misogyny

The Liberal Party’s modern reputation for misogyny is still fresh, including Tony Abbott’s long history of offensive remarks. Perhaps the most famous was in 2010 Comment On carbon pricing: “The thing Australian housewives need to understand when ironing” is that electricity prices will rise.

In 2013, his praise of a female candidate’s “sex appeal” sparked widespread criticism. She described telling her daughters that their virginity was “the greatest gift you can give someone.” He once suggested that childless, single Prime Minister Julia Gillard should “make herself an honest woman”. As Minister of Health, he described abortion as the “easy way out”.

To this day, he has no qualms about kicking a woman, attacking Child Sexual Abuse Advocate Grace Tame and calling her unworthy of the Australian of the Year award.

And if Abbott set the template, Scott Morrison has perfected the art of insensitive responses to women’s issues. His handling of the Brittany Higgins rape allegation in 2021 made clear everything that was wrong with the Liberal Party’s approach to women.

The Morrison government’s mishandling of the Higgins claim has sparked unprecedented public outrage. Open March 15, 2021estimated 110,000-150,000 people attended across Australia March4JusticeIt is the largest women’s march ever held in the country.

The protests were triggered by a perfect storm: Higgins’ rape allegation, historic rape allegations against then-Attorney General Christian Porter, sexual harassment revelations collected by activist Chanel Contos, and its broader recognition. Gender equality was declining in Australia.

There may be walks contributed The defeat of the Morrison Government In the 2022 federal election, voters, especially women, punished the Coalition for ignoring their concerns. And women today have neither forgotten nor forgiven, especially when they saw poor Brittany Higgins dragged through the legal system after being raped.

The combination of decades of sexist commentary, structural under-representation and hostile responses to women’s concerns has created a perception that the Liberal Party has been unable to shake. Political scientist Dr. Williams noted The party “has not been a pioneer among women since the 20th century.”

It is unlikely that there will be One Nation in the near future either. declared A decidedly anti-feminist, pro-life platform will bring together women voters from reasonable centrists to the center-right.

Education and age factors

The strongest indicator of voting against the coalition University graduate women. These voters have consistently turned their backs on both major parties, particularly the Coalition.

The Liberal Party’s base (older, male voters) is actively resisting the changes needed to attract younger women. This creates a vicious circle: The party cannot attract young women without structural change, but its current base does not allow structural change.

Moreover, as better-educated women become more politically active, the two-party system becomes increasingly toxic and distrust increases, according to one study. Study by ANU and Griffith University.

Source: Griffith University

Glass Cliff

Four women currently lead the Liberal opposition across Australia: Kellie Sloane (NSW), Jess Wilson (Victoria), Lia Finocchiaro (Northern Territory) and Ashton Hurn (South Australia). Women make up the majority of Liberal State leaders for the first time

But there is a problem. Inside 124 years of federationOnly one female Conservative leader, Gladys Berejiklian, has ever won a state election and become prime minister. (NSW 2019).

The only successful Liberal female prime minister was the first non-Labor woman to win a state election in 2019, but to resign in 2021 amid the ICAC corruption investigation.

Two women have done it in the Territories: Kate Carnell (ACT, 1990s) and Lia Finocchiaro (NT, current).

Otherwise, it will mean “defeat after defeat” for the 17 women who lead the party across nine Australian territories.

Like a Crikey headline said ($): As for the Liberal Party’s women’s issue, “rats learn faster.”

Gen Z and Millennial voters outnumber Baby Boomers for the first time in the 2025 elections. These young voters, especially women, are shifting sharply to the left; University-educated women have been identified as the strongest predictor of votes for independents and Greens, who are disenfranchised with the major parties.

Until the party carries out real structural reform, rather than making performance appointments to women to clean up electoral disasters, it will continue to bleed female voters at increasing rates in favor of the Greens and independents.

In a country where gender parity in parliament is finally possible, the Liberal Party’s resistance to change doesn’t just seem anachronistic. Terminal appears.

The question is not whether the Liberal Party can ignore the women’s issue.

The question is whether it can survive as a party where fewer than one in five young women will vote for it.

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Practicing researcher in the field of human rights, disability inclusion and gender. He completed his doctorate at the University of Melbourne. Twenty years of working experience in organizations such as the United Nations, UN Women, the World Bank, and the University of Melbourne.