Liberal figure Charlotte Mortlock quits party amid feared backlash over dumping of first female leader | Liberal party

Liberal women are “incredibly worried” about a potential voter backlash over the ouster of the party’s first female leader and the renunciation of high-profile figure Charlotte Mortlock’s membership altogether.

Just days after Sussan Ley lost the leadership, Mortlock announced on Sunday that she was quitting the party and leaving Hilma’s Network, the grassroots group she founded to bring together “Liberal-minded women”.

Mortlock, a former Coalition staffer to Andrew Bragg, has been outspoken in pushing the party to adopt a more progressive stance on the climate crisis, calling for gender quotas to increase female representation in the party to 50%.

“I have decided that it is time to step down as managing director of Hilma’s Network and I have also renounced my membership in the Liberal party,” Mortlock said.

“Due to recent events I decided there were other ways I could support women and Australia.”

Mortlock said she is proud of the women the Hilma Network has been able to support through primaries and elections and host events that “force the party to evolve.”

She was also part of a small group that introduced the New South Wales Liberal government to a gender quota proposal that would reserve 40% of federal seats for women-only primaries. This proposal was due to be presented to state council on March 7, but Liberal sources told Guardian Australia it was removed from the agenda by the executive committee.

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Ley announced that he would leave parliament. Without her, only five of the 27 MPs in the Liberal party hall will be women. 11 of the 23 Liberal senators in the Senate are women.

The 2022 election review, co-authored by the Liberals’ new deputy leader Jane Hume, found the party had failed to address the concerns of female voters. A “target” of 50 percent for female candidates and MPs through a binding quota has been proposed.

A Liberal woman speaking to Guardian Australia on condition of anonymity said: “The boys are at it again.”

He added: “We went to elections in 2022 and there were three key issues: women, the environment and integrity. “We did nothing between 2022 and 2025 to solve these issues.

“I’m incredibly worried… here we are in 2026 and we’ve blown up net zero so far and now we think it’s a really good idea to blow up the first female leader of the party.”

Another Liberal woman, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “I think the feminist group is in pretty bad shape.”

He told Guardian Australia that although Ley committed “some pretty big turnovers” the former leader “wasn’t given too many favours”.

“Women voters were already turned off in 2022, so I felt like they weren’t listening to us anyway,” the Liberal said.

“But anecdotally, I heard that when Sussan was chosen, people were a little more open to the offer. [her].”

Speaking about the lack of women in the party and the treatment of women, former Liberal cabinet minister Karen Andrews said there could be a public backlash.

“I think it’s possible that there will be some pushback from female supporters of the party who are concerned that Susan is not approaching the leadership fairly,” Andrews said.

But Andrews agreed with new leader Angus Taylor’s supporters that Ley had time to prove himself.

As co-author of the 2022 review, he remained hopeful that Hume was “fully aware of the Liberal party’s problems with female voters”.

“I think women will want to make sure there are other women in the front row.”

In response to Mortlock’s decision to leave the party, Hume said on Sunday it was “a truly sad moment.”

“Charlotte has made great contributions and been a great voice for women with Liberal values,” he told ABC Insiders.

“I think there is a real opportunity for women’s voices in the Liberal party, and the onus is on us to show Australian women that the Liberal party is the right place for them.”