July 13, 2025 • 13 mins
The Liberal Party knows it needs to change. But the battle over how is already tearing the party apart. Sussan Ley has declared herself a “zealot” for getting more women into parliament.
But she faces stiff resistance from the conservative wing of the party, including from some of its older statesmen which see quotas as undemocratic and an attack on the idea of ‘merit’,
But gender imbalance is not the only problem they’re facing. Liberal insiders say unless the party finds a way to broaden its appeal it will continue to suffer “a spiral of disaster that feeds on itself” which will render itself incapable of ever returning to government.
Today, national correspondent for The Saturday Paper Mike Seccombe, on why the Liberal party can’t agree on how to save itself.
If you enjoy 7am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at 7ampodcast.com.au/support.
Socials: Stay in touch with us on Instagram
Guest: National correspondent for The Saturday Paper Mike Seccombe
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM.
The Liberal Party knows it needs to change, but the
battle over how is already tearing the party apart. Susan
Lee has declared herself a zalot for getting more women
into Parliament, but she faces stiff resistance from Angus Taylor,
(00:24):
Tony Abbott and others who see quotas as undemocratic and
an attack on the idea of merit. But gender imbalance
is not the only problem they're facing. Unless the party
finds a way to broaden its appeal, it will continue
to suffer what Liberal insiders call a spiral or disaster
that feeds on itself, and the end result, they fear,
(00:44):
is an inability to ever win again. Today, National correspondent
for the Saturday paper, Mike Second and why the Liberal
Party can't agree on how to save itself. It's Monday, Mike.
(01:06):
We know quoters are the philosophical equivalent of tript unite
to many in the Liberal Party, even as they basically
all know that they need to attract more female candidates.
So what other ideas have they got to solve their
issue with women?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well, there's an interesting one that's been around this past
week or so from Julian Lisa, who's a longtime member
and currently Shadow Attorney General, and he's been championing this
for years, and that is that they would shift to
primary elections.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Well.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
The New South Wales Liberal Party is considering adopting US
style primaries when selecting its election candidates, the Daily Telegraph
reporting this morning, members of the public will be able
to vote on who should represent the major party under
a proposal.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Much like the Democrats and the Republicans have in the States,
and they have in certain areas of Britain, whereby a
candidate selection wouldn't be a matter for members of the
party but could be thrown open to the broader community.
His model, and he's open to refining it. Under his idea,
the party would put up a sort of list of
(02:12):
a roster of candidates, and then the citizen who would
gather in a school hall or somewhere and people would
get to vote on who should be the candidate.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
People who are not party members but who wanted to
participate in choosing their Liberal candidate could also play play
a role and select their candidate. What this would mean
is that people are not being selected behind closed doors anymore.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
So it would broaden the demographics of those making the
candidates selection, and the hope would be, of course, that
that would make the candidates more palatable to the broader electric.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
And what if people inside the party said to you
about whether primaries could work.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Look, they've raised very real concerns, logistical as much as anything.
Primaries are an expensive thing to run, for a start,
so there would be cost involved. The other thing is
they worry about people turning up to vote in a
primary who actually don't have the best interests of the
Liberal Party at art, and therefore might stack the case
for the candidate they perceive to be the weakest. There's
(03:15):
also the question about, you know, as we've seen in America,
you know, big money coming in behind one or another
candidate on behalf of vested interests. So there's some real
logistical issues to be resolved. And then of course there's
also ideological ones, you know, which is it dilutes the
say of the rank and file who pay their membership
(03:35):
and turn up to meetings, Well, why is their voting
power suddenly diluted? You would have to think that a
lot of them would resent that, as would a number
of incumbent candidates, I would.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Think, so, how does it currently work.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well, it varies a bit by state, but essentially, you know,
there are two means of selection. It's either done by
the rank and file of the branch, the grassroots membership,
or by the party organization, or by some combination of
those two. You know, in either case it's a small
group of people making the call as to who the
candidate would be. The problem here is, of course, that
(04:07):
the Liberal Party is not a unitary thing. It's a
federated structure, meaning each state jurisdiction is sovereign and it
has its own constitution. So in order to make a change,
whether for quotas or for the primaries, you would have
to persuade each of these states and territories to change,
you know, And as one senior moderate from New South
Wales put it to me, that might be less difficult
(04:28):
in his state, for example, which is, you know, as
he described it, more mainstream than some of the others.
Even then it's unlikely, you know, a fifty percent quota
would get up, but maybe something smaller would in his view.
But you know, he pointed to the example of South Australia,
which he put it has been overrun by religious conservatives.
So you can see that this federated structure makes it
(04:50):
very logistically difficult to make change. You know, you can't
just say from the top down where this is how
it's going to work. And I suspect that this is
why Susan Lee has walked a bit carefully on this,
you know, called herself agnostic on the matter of quotas.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Now, I'm agnostic on specific methods to make it happen,
but I am a zealot that it actually does happen.
Current approaches have clearly not worked, so I'm open to
any approach that will.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
I suspect that she would really like to change the
system such that we do have quotas, But she, as
many others, realize that there's really not a great deal
of chance getting it up.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
As the first woman leader of our federal party, let
me send the clearest possible message. We need to do better,
recruit better, retain better, and support better.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
After the break a corolla full of women, Mike tell
me about the Liberal Party membership as it is now.
Who makes its ranks.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Well, mostly old white guys. That's not my description. That
comes from a source who actually said, male, pale and stale,
he said, and he went under his site some stats.
According to him, the average branch member in New South
Wales is now more than seventy years old I think
he said seventy two, but getting up there anyway, well
beyond normal retirement age and male. Someone from the Victorian
(06:23):
branch told me it's broadly the same demographic there and
there's no reason to assume that it would be different
in any other states. So yeah, essentially old white guys
making the calls. And of course the voters that the
party needs to attract obviously are about half that age
and female. So there's a problem here, you know. The
problem is that the branch rank and file is inclined
(06:44):
to select candidates attitudinally similar to them, and Australia has
moved on. Ten years ago there was a report commissioned
by the National Executive at the party which recommended a
target of fifty percent women candidates by twenty twenty five,
which of course now is well. In the twenty twenty
five election for the House of Representatives, twenty nine Liberals
(07:05):
were elected. Only six of them were women, so that's
about twenty percent. As Annabel Krab from the ABC rote
in a piece assuming that the new leader Susan Lee
gets a com car to go to Parliament House, the
rest of the female representation could fit in a to
out a corolla and drive themselves there.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
That's such a good line.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
It's a great line, isn't it And so evocative of
the problem.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
And so when it comes to the demographics and to
quotas which Labor introduced decades ago, and they're proving to
be successful, measuring by how many women are in the
party at the moment. When it comes to liberals, who
inside the party is stopping them from just getting on
with introducing quotas.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well, it's basically the conservatives.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Well a guy don't believe in quotas.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
I don't think I believe in quotas for anything.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
I just think you have to make judgments about individuals.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
We do need to get more capable women into the
post how about quotas.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Look, I'm very much opposed to quotas.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Still the most recent example of course Angus Taylor, the
most senior of the New South Wales right wing members, and.
Speaker 6 (08:15):
I'm never a believer in subverting democratic processes with quotas.
There's other ways I've found through the course of my
professional career through mentoring in particular attraction and recruitment processes,
retention processes as well.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Essentially said that it would subvert party democracy, which is
a pretty big call frankly, you know, as though quotas
and competent representation are somehow mutually exclusive. You know, various
reviews over the years have sought to spell out a
path forward by bringing more women into the party, and
the right always resists. Not only the right, though, I
(08:53):
would suggest there's a big incumbency factor here, you know,
if you're a male seat warmer sitting in the Parliament,
possibly contribut bitting possibly not the thought that women might
get a bit of a leg up, just on the
basis that their women would be anathema to you and
you would see it as a threat to your cozy existence.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Is there hope, Mike, that the various reviews could spell
out a path forward or revive the idea of quotas
in a way that makes it easier for Susan Lee
to push ahead with them despite such significant opposition.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I would like to offer hope. I mean, it's been
raised so many times and has never gone anywhere. You know,
there's at least two, arguably three of reviews going on
at the moment, and they will probably show some useful
things for the party. Like you know, it was a
mistake to target Anglo tradees in the outer suburbs when
what they should have been targeting was highly educated female
(09:44):
professional people in the metro areas. But as to how
they're going to do that, and as to how they're
going to get the candidates, particularly the female candidates they
need to do it, I don't hold out a lot
of hope. Frankly.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Beyond representation, what have we seen from the Liberals when
it comes to attempts to develop policies that appealed to
a broader base.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Well, this is an interesting thing too. I mean, if
we look at the last election, for example, it used
to be the case that the Liberals enjoyed a big
advantage over labor when it came to economic management. Well,
if you look at the published polls from the last election,
wasn't the case anymore. In the case of the cost
of living, you know, the economic issue that was most
resonant for most voters, it was pretty much a dead heat.
(10:25):
But you know, in terms of what the voters preferred.
So you know, if that's a dead heat, you've got
to start looking at other policy areas. So what did
we have We had We had a very flaky policy
on nuclear We had a policy on climate change, which
is important to younger voters, which was woefully inadequate. They
were behind on education, on health, on childcare, on all
(10:49):
those issues that concern younger voters and women. So you know,
it's not just a matter of candidate selection, it's a
matter of policy selection. It's a matter of campaigning in
the areas where they need to pick up the votes.
And so far they seem to be, you know, doing
it wrong on all of those things.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
And if the Liberal Party fails to modernize, fails to
iron out all these deep fundamental problems they have within themselves,
what happens if they perish? What happens to Australian democracy.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Well, it would obviously be a bad thing for democracy,
I would argue. I mean, for democracy to function, you
need a government and you need a viable opposition to
test you know what the government is advancing in the parliament.
So it would be it would be a bad thing.
But I doubt that there would be a vacuum frankly,
I mean we've seen this on the conservative side of politics.
I mean, the Liberal Party itself grew out of the
(11:38):
failure of the previous Conservative United Australia Party. So particularly
on the conservative side of politics, this happens periodically. You know,
they arise, they do well, they die and they are
replaced by something better.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
At the moment, we have suggestions out there, for example,
that the Teel candidates who've knocked off a bunch of
Liberals in their most you know, blue ribbon seats, that
they could form an alternative party that would present a
vision of what liberalism is to be, which is economically dry,
socially progressive.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
As the great philosopher Eddie Vedder once said, its evolution, baby.
Thanks for match this. Also in the news, the Trump
(12:40):
administration's review of the Orcust Defense Pact, which was expected
to be published over the weekend, is incomplete. The American
review is being led by Senior peddicant On official Albert Colby,
who has made Commons skeptical of the defense arrangement in
the past. But despite that, Australia's Acting Defense Minister Patrick
Conroy says he is confident that the US will continue
to support the deal, which includes Australia receiving three to
(13:03):
FIVET Virginia class nuclear powered submarines and Brina Minster. Anthony
Albanezi will meet with President Jijing King this week as
part of his six day visit to China. China is
Australia's largest trading partner and trade is expected to dominate
the agenda. The visit comes in the wake of the
government's decision to step up screening of Chinese investment and
(13:26):
critical minerals. Tomorrow and seven AM we'll have a full
report on how China took over the global critical mineral
supply chain and what that means for Australia's future. Daniel
James is the seven AM see that
Hi, I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM.
The Liberal Party knows it needs to change, but the
battle over how is already tearing the party apart. Susan
Lee has declared herself a zalot for getting more women
into Parliament, but she faces stiff resistance from Angus Taylor,
(00:24):
Tony Abbott and others who see quotas as undemocratic and
an attack on the idea of merit. But gender imbalance
is not the only problem they're facing. Unless the party
finds a way to broaden its appeal, it will continue
to suffer what Liberal insiders call a spiral or disaster
that feeds on itself, and the end result, they fear,
(00:44):
is an inability to ever win again. Today, National correspondent
for the Saturday paper, Mike Second and why the Liberal
Party can't agree on how to save itself. It's Monday, Mike.
(01:06):
We know quoters are the philosophical equivalent of tript unite
to many in the Liberal Party, even as they basically
all know that they need to attract more female candidates.
So what other ideas have they got to solve their
issue with women?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well, there's an interesting one that's been around this past
week or so from Julian Lisa, who's a longtime member
and currently Shadow Attorney General, and he's been championing this
for years, and that is that they would shift to
primary elections.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Well.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
The New South Wales Liberal Party is considering adopting US
style primaries when selecting its election candidates, the Daily Telegraph
reporting this morning, members of the public will be able
to vote on who should represent the major party under
a proposal.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Much like the Democrats and the Republicans have in the States,
and they have in certain areas of Britain, whereby a
candidate selection wouldn't be a matter for members of the
party but could be thrown open to the broader community.
His model, and he's open to refining it. Under his idea,
the party would put up a sort of list of
(02:12):
a roster of candidates, and then the citizen who would
gather in a school hall or somewhere and people would
get to vote on who should be the candidate.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
People who are not party members but who wanted to
participate in choosing their Liberal candidate could also play play
a role and select their candidate. What this would mean
is that people are not being selected behind closed doors anymore.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
So it would broaden the demographics of those making the
candidates selection, and the hope would be, of course, that
that would make the candidates more palatable to the broader electric.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
And what if people inside the party said to you
about whether primaries could work.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Look, they've raised very real concerns, logistical as much as anything.
Primaries are an expensive thing to run, for a start,
so there would be cost involved. The other thing is
they worry about people turning up to vote in a
primary who actually don't have the best interests of the
Liberal Party at art, and therefore might stack the case
for the candidate they perceive to be the weakest. There's
(03:15):
also the question about, you know, as we've seen in America,
you know, big money coming in behind one or another
candidate on behalf of vested interests. So there's some real
logistical issues to be resolved. And then of course there's
also ideological ones, you know, which is it dilutes the
say of the rank and file who pay their membership
(03:35):
and turn up to meetings, Well, why is their voting
power suddenly diluted? You would have to think that a
lot of them would resent that, as would a number
of incumbent candidates, I would.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Think, so, how does it currently work.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well, it varies a bit by state, but essentially, you know,
there are two means of selection. It's either done by
the rank and file of the branch, the grassroots membership,
or by the party organization, or by some combination of
those two. You know, in either case it's a small
group of people making the call as to who the
candidate would be. The problem here is, of course, that
(04:07):
the Liberal Party is not a unitary thing. It's a
federated structure, meaning each state jurisdiction is sovereign and it
has its own constitution. So in order to make a change,
whether for quotas or for the primaries, you would have
to persuade each of these states and territories to change,
you know, And as one senior moderate from New South
Wales put it to me, that might be less difficult
(04:28):
in his state, for example, which is, you know, as
he described it, more mainstream than some of the others.
Even then it's unlikely, you know, a fifty percent quota
would get up, but maybe something smaller would in his view.
But you know, he pointed to the example of South Australia,
which he put it has been overrun by religious conservatives.
So you can see that this federated structure makes it
(04:50):
very logistically difficult to make change. You know, you can't
just say from the top down where this is how
it's going to work. And I suspect that this is
why Susan Lee has walked a bit carefully on this,
you know, called herself agnostic on the matter of quotas.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Now, I'm agnostic on specific methods to make it happen,
but I am a zealot that it actually does happen.
Current approaches have clearly not worked, so I'm open to
any approach that will.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
I suspect that she would really like to change the
system such that we do have quotas, But she, as
many others, realize that there's really not a great deal
of chance getting it up.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
As the first woman leader of our federal party, let
me send the clearest possible message. We need to do better,
recruit better, retain better, and support better.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
After the break a corolla full of women, Mike tell
me about the Liberal Party membership as it is now.
Who makes its ranks.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Well, mostly old white guys. That's not my description. That
comes from a source who actually said, male, pale and stale,
he said, and he went under his site some stats.
According to him, the average branch member in New South
Wales is now more than seventy years old I think
he said seventy two, but getting up there anyway, well
beyond normal retirement age and male. Someone from the Victorian
(06:23):
branch told me it's broadly the same demographic there and
there's no reason to assume that it would be different
in any other states. So yeah, essentially old white guys
making the calls. And of course the voters that the
party needs to attract obviously are about half that age
and female. So there's a problem here, you know. The
problem is that the branch rank and file is inclined
(06:44):
to select candidates attitudinally similar to them, and Australia has
moved on. Ten years ago there was a report commissioned
by the National Executive at the party which recommended a
target of fifty percent women candidates by twenty twenty five,
which of course now is well. In the twenty twenty
five election for the House of Representatives, twenty nine Liberals
(07:05):
were elected. Only six of them were women, so that's
about twenty percent. As Annabel Krab from the ABC rote
in a piece assuming that the new leader Susan Lee
gets a com car to go to Parliament House, the
rest of the female representation could fit in a to
out a corolla and drive themselves there.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
That's such a good line.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
It's a great line, isn't it And so evocative of
the problem.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
And so when it comes to the demographics and to
quotas which Labor introduced decades ago, and they're proving to
be successful, measuring by how many women are in the
party at the moment. When it comes to liberals, who
inside the party is stopping them from just getting on
with introducing quotas.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well, it's basically the conservatives.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Well a guy don't believe in quotas.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
I don't think I believe in quotas for anything.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
I just think you have to make judgments about individuals.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
We do need to get more capable women into the
post how about quotas.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Look, I'm very much opposed to quotas.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Still the most recent example of course Angus Taylor, the
most senior of the New South Wales right wing members, and.
Speaker 6 (08:15):
I'm never a believer in subverting democratic processes with quotas.
There's other ways I've found through the course of my
professional career through mentoring in particular attraction and recruitment processes,
retention processes as well.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Essentially said that it would subvert party democracy, which is
a pretty big call frankly, you know, as though quotas
and competent representation are somehow mutually exclusive. You know, various
reviews over the years have sought to spell out a
path forward by bringing more women into the party, and
the right always resists. Not only the right, though, I
(08:53):
would suggest there's a big incumbency factor here, you know,
if you're a male seat warmer sitting in the Parliament,
possibly contribut bitting possibly not the thought that women might
get a bit of a leg up, just on the
basis that their women would be anathema to you and
you would see it as a threat to your cozy existence.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Is there hope, Mike, that the various reviews could spell
out a path forward or revive the idea of quotas
in a way that makes it easier for Susan Lee
to push ahead with them despite such significant opposition.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I would like to offer hope. I mean, it's been
raised so many times and has never gone anywhere. You know,
there's at least two, arguably three of reviews going on
at the moment, and they will probably show some useful
things for the party. Like you know, it was a
mistake to target Anglo tradees in the outer suburbs when
what they should have been targeting was highly educated female
(09:44):
professional people in the metro areas. But as to how
they're going to do that, and as to how they're
going to get the candidates, particularly the female candidates they
need to do it, I don't hold out a lot
of hope. Frankly.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Beyond representation, what have we seen from the Liberals when
it comes to attempts to develop policies that appealed to
a broader base.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Well, this is an interesting thing too. I mean, if
we look at the last election, for example, it used
to be the case that the Liberals enjoyed a big
advantage over labor when it came to economic management. Well,
if you look at the published polls from the last election,
wasn't the case anymore. In the case of the cost
of living, you know, the economic issue that was most
resonant for most voters, it was pretty much a dead heat.
(10:25):
But you know, in terms of what the voters preferred.
So you know, if that's a dead heat, you've got
to start looking at other policy areas. So what did
we have We had We had a very flaky policy
on nuclear We had a policy on climate change, which
is important to younger voters, which was woefully inadequate. They
were behind on education, on health, on childcare, on all
(10:49):
those issues that concern younger voters and women. So you know,
it's not just a matter of candidate selection, it's a
matter of policy selection. It's a matter of campaigning in
the areas where they need to pick up the votes.
And so far they seem to be, you know, doing
it wrong on all of those things.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
And if the Liberal Party fails to modernize, fails to
iron out all these deep fundamental problems they have within themselves,
what happens if they perish? What happens to Australian democracy.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Well, it would obviously be a bad thing for democracy,
I would argue. I mean, for democracy to function, you
need a government and you need a viable opposition to
test you know what the government is advancing in the parliament.
So it would be it would be a bad thing.
But I doubt that there would be a vacuum frankly,
I mean we've seen this on the conservative side of politics.
I mean, the Liberal Party itself grew out of the
(11:38):
failure of the previous Conservative United Australia Party. So particularly
on the conservative side of politics, this happens periodically. You know,
they arise, they do well, they die and they are
replaced by something better.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
At the moment, we have suggestions out there, for example,
that the Teel candidates who've knocked off a bunch of
Liberals in their most you know, blue ribbon seats, that
they could form an alternative party that would present a
vision of what liberalism is to be, which is economically dry,
socially progressive.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
As the great philosopher Eddie Vedder once said, its evolution, baby.
Thanks for match this. Also in the news, the Trump
(12:40):
administration's review of the Orcust Defense Pact, which was expected
to be published over the weekend, is incomplete. The American
review is being led by Senior peddicant On official Albert Colby,
who has made Commons skeptical of the defense arrangement in
the past. But despite that, Australia's Acting Defense Minister Patrick
Conroy says he is confident that the US will continue
to support the deal, which includes Australia receiving three to
(13:03):
FIVET Virginia class nuclear powered submarines and Brina Minster. Anthony
Albanezi will meet with President Jijing King this week as
part of his six day visit to China. China is
Australia's largest trading partner and trade is expected to dominate
the agenda. The visit comes in the wake of the
government's decision to step up screening of Chinese investment and
(13:26):
critical minerals. Tomorrow and seven AM we'll have a full
report on how China took over the global critical mineral
supply chain and what that means for Australia's future. Daniel
James is the seven AM see that
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!