Does this party ever want to be in power again? Doesn't seem like it

Worse than nuclear. Worse than work-from-home. These, at least, were policies devised after deliberation (I think) and collaboration (I hope). That's how it's supposed to happen in modern, successful political parties.

But on Tuesday night, something totally unscripted blew up.

There was yet another virtual meeting, this time with the NSW Liberal Women's Council, to figure out how to save the NSW branch of the Liberal Party, in trouble because it failed to nominate folks for local council elections in 2024. Any folks at all.

Anyhow, it was Peter Dutton's idea to mount a federal takeover in order to review the NSW branch (seriously, he should have looked a little closer to home).

Doing most of the talking was ex-Victorian treasurer Alan Stockdale. He and his co-conspirator former Victorian senator Richard Alston sat themselves in front of a portrait of the Liberal Party's founding father.

Guess they thought Robert Menzies would give them gravitas. The hilariously unkind SMH journalist Alex Smith who broke the story described them as having a combined age of 164.

Anyhow, Stockdale said something along the lines of ... women are now "sufficiently assertive" in the Liberal Party that it is probably time to start giving blokes a leg up.

Hahahahahaha. Also, aargghh.

But these blokes, accompanied by their silent partner, Peta Seaton, want an extension of the term of their review. If I were Sussan Ley, I'd send them back to where they came from. The 18th century.

Now it's clear to even the most casual reader of my columns that my politics in no way align with the Liberal Party.

But I have written many a column supporting women in the Liberal Party because in every instance, women deserve the same opportunities as those offered to men.

And for some unfathomable reason, the Liberal Party doesn't treat women in the same way as it treats men.

Which, in some ways, is good for the rest of us. Unless it starts to accept women as equal participants, it is unlikely it will ever again get much traction in a country where women hold up (more than) half the sky. Among women, this comment by Stockdale further trashes the Liberal brand.

As one woman, a longtime member of the Liberal Party, told me on Wednesday night after news of the "leg up" incident had broken: "It is both aggravating and tiresome at the same time. I want to scream, and also just walk away as so many have before me."

She says: "I'm not the least bit surprised by what's described in the article. These blokes are dinosaurs. And while the offensive comments were by Stockdale, not Alston, they could just have easily been Alston."

Misogynist men in the Liberal Party are apparently interchangeable. And it is baked in. Let me tell you the story of a woman who'd been chief of staff in a Liberal member's office. After the birth of her kid, her former boss suggested she work as an electoral officer, on about one-third of her previous salary. He said, to her face: "But it's a second income."

Jesus fellas. This is not how it works anymore. When women work, they need the money as much as they need the work. It's not disposable. It's indispensable.

Another Liberal woman tells me she offered to help with the review of the Liberal Party after the election loss in 2022. Hilariously, she tells me that when she called to throw herself into the mix for membership of the review, she explained she had insight into why the teals were stealing Liberal seats.

"Let's face it, most of my friends are teal voters and I'm somewhat partial to them myself," she laughs. But the bloke she talked to basically dismissed her.

He said to her: "If you have any feedback, send an email to the Vic state director."

"I couldn't even reply, I was so pissed off at being dismissed and yet again not seriously considered."

Let me take you back to 2021. It was already clear then, a year out from the 2022 federal election, that the Coalition was on the nose with women. Three separate polling organisations revealed a sharp shift of women away from the government: Essential, Resolve Monitor, NewsPoll.

And why? For once, all women could agree. The way that former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, allegedly raped in Parliament House, was treated by those in the then Coalition government was appalling. If this was how the government treated one of its own, how would it treat others?

As former Liberal MP Julia Banks, in her tell-some memoir Power Play: Breaking Through Bias, Barriers and Boys' Clubs, put it, "The painful experience for this woman was compounded by the Morrison government's incompetence, mismanagement and lack of accountability and humanity."

Higgins, miraculously, has survived that mayhem and has now landed a gig with the lovely Hannah Moreno at Third Hemisphere. But not everyone survives. Higgins barely did.

But the Liberals did not survive their rejection by women, not in 2022 and not in 2025. And they won't recover if they don't change.

READ MORE:

Which, sure, I am chill about. Who wants a party which says we can't work from home? Who wants a party which says nuclear power is the way forward? Hey babes, by the time you get back into power, in say, 2040, the renewables war will have been won. Please put your reactors back in your pants.

My advice to you is this. You can't wait for the Stockdales and the Alstons to die. Blokes with plenty of money can afford the kind of healthcare which will keep them alive and kicking for years ahead. But the problem is they are not capable of changing.

In the meantime, the Liberal Party itself may die. Want it to change? Sign yourselves up to Hilma's Network. Its founder, Charlotte Mortlock, launched a petition calling on the party to establish gender quotas. And push for them.

That's what helped the Labor Party change. If the Liberals ever want to be in power again, they need to change too.