Another day, another Liberal Party review warning that its failure to attract women and young people represents an existential threat to the party.
This one, much like the last half dozen, says the party has alienated professional women (it holds just two of the 50 seats with the highest proportion of them, down from 23 in 2019) and must win them back, mentioning quotas but stopping short of recommending them. The report acknowledges the old-age problem of the Liberal membership cohort, which sits at an average age of 68 in Victoria, adding that the average Australian is a “38-year-old woman who was either born overseas or has at least one parent who was”.
What luck, then, that the Liberal Party has just elected a new president, a 38-year-old woman who was born overse—
Excuse me, I’m being handed a note.
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Sorry, what I meant to say was: What luck, then, that the Liberal Party has just elected a new president, a 38-year-old man who was born overseas!
Ah no, that’s still not right. How about: The Liberal Party has just elected a new president, a 68-year-old man who was born overseas.
At least they got one bit right? Though I’m not sure England counts, when previous reviews suggested the party also has a problem with “ethnically diverse” voters, who now seem to have been forgotten entirely.
It’s difficult to imagine a worse choice for Liberal Party president than Tony Abbott, if the party is serious about winning back those demographics. The former PM, who was elected unopposed on Friday, was arguably the one who sent the party’s women problem into overdrive, what with the winking and the sexist gaffes and the retrograde views on gender roles. His self-appointment as “minister for women” is remembered with derision, while women still purchase tea towels with Julia Gillard’s “misogyny speech” printed on it, which — for all its internal hypocrisy — nailed Abbott’s smirking demeanour and the offence women felt whenever he opened his mouth.
Since being defeated in Warringah by Zali Steggall in 2019 (a loss predating 2022’s “teal wave”, but powered by the same anger over climate and social conservatism), Abbott has somehow only become more toxic to women, getting involved in far-right think tanks like the Danube Institute, where he has pushed for Western women to have more babies. As Steggall pointed out in March, the women she speaks to want equality, climate action and political integrity. Now Abbott’s appointment has shown the Liberals have “learned nothing”, she added last week, while chatter circled about a potential alliance of independent MPs who might once have belonged to the Liberal Party.
For younger generations, meanwhile, Abbott is a relic, a dinosaur best remembered for regularly embarrassing himself. Abbott is the oldest Lib those under 30 can properly recall, having led the party from 2009 to 2015 — which for almost all those voting for the first time in 2028 was before they started primary school. As outgoing party director Andrew Hirst noted in his speech to the federal council, less than 10% of the Liberal Party’s membership is now aged between 16 and 30. It’s hard to imagine Abbott will make inroads here, especially given the role climate change plays for many of these voters. Young people have also generally been less likely than older Australians to consider immigration “too high”, something Abbott is making key to his pitch.
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Abbott may be, admittedly, the best pick to win back some of the older white guys the Coalition is losing to One Nation (though why vote for the establishment imitation when you have the original?). But even if the Liberals can stem the One Nation bleed, they’ll never return to government without the women and young people referred to in the latest review, with the latter only growing in vote share, as Labor has clearly recognised.
As former Liberal MP Fiona Martin, who quit the party over its treatment of women, told the ABC, Abbott’s appointment is only going to make this turnaround harder, calling his election “the nail in the coffin” for moderates in the Liberal Party — that is, if the dumping of Sussan Ley as leader wasn’t already.
There’s little discounted online memberships ($10!) will do if the party can’t even begin to connect with the people it’s trying to attract, although it does make it a more financially appealing joke present.
President Abbott is, in many ways, the perfect representation of the dwindling Liberal base: a 68-year-old white man who is in thrall to whatever Sky News tells him, and already flirting with the idea of One Nation. Sure, the Liberal Party may now hold onto a few more of the Abbotts of the world. But it would be better off putting them all out to pasture, so that it can make room for the women, young people, and yes, diverse communities, it will need to survive in modern-day Australia, if it is ever to be elected to high office again.