Opposition leader Peter Dutton wants to win back the six seats the Liberal party lost to independent women at the past two Federal Elections.
He’s planning to ramp up fundraising efforts, bring remaining preselections forward and likely position deputy leader Sussan Ley to support, given she’s already visited six seats held by teals 31 times since 2022, according to today’s report in The Australian.
With a ninth visit to the seat of Curtin in Perth planned next month, Ley has told The Australian these independents including Zali Steggall, Dr Monique Ryan, Kate Cheney, Kylea Tink, Zoe Daniel, Allegra Spender and Sophie Scamps were “betraying” their once conservative electorates.
But given the Liberal party’s “treatment of women” was high on the platform agendas of the Teal candidates who won these once Liberal safe seats, he’s going to need to address some ongoing and emerging issues in his party, as well as some of the reasons why voters in these seats turned away from the Liberals, including the Liberal party’s failure to produce real and meaningful policies on climate change.
It also needs to preselect women to winnable seats, which it hasn’t had much merit of achieving in recent months, even following its own internal review of just what went wrong in 2022.
At the last election, just 20 per cent of female candidates in the Coalition were contesting winnable seats. Currently, just 28 per cent of Liberal parliamentarians in the House of Reps and Senate are women.
From there, the Liberal party would want to stamp out any ideas of women’s reproductive rights being limited or in any way attacked in parliament.
Having seen the experience in the United States, these rights are not something Australian women are going to become complacent about, even as every state and territory has finally decriminalised abortion.
But this week in the Senate, the Coalition was split on a motion on abortion raised by United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet.
Babet moved the urgent motion regarding “the need for the Senate to recognise that at least one baby is born alive every seven days following a failed abortion and left to die, and that Australia’s health care system is enabling these inhumane deaths.”
He asked the Senate to “condemn this practice, noting that babies born alive as a result of a failed abortion deserve care.”
He further asked the Senate how we can “bank on every single day in this place about the importance of human rights while allowing the most vulnerable human beings to be treated like garbage.”
Those voting in favour included Senators Sarah Henderson, Bridget McKenzie, Hollie Hughes and Michaelia Cash. Those who opposed included Jane Hume, Simon Birmingham and Maria Kovacic.
The statements made by Babet are not true, something raised by Liberal moderate Maria Kovacic who urged for more caution over the language used and noted “question as to the accuracy of the information contained in this motion.”
She urged people to “mind the language that we use” because “this is not our playground. The things that we do here matter.”
Kovac’s stance on the issue was passionate and courageous, especially in moving against the opinions of her own party colleagues.
She went on to say that the issues raised in the motion are challenging for most people, but especially for women – and that are deeply personal.
“They are not decisions made either lightly or flippantly and should not be open to judgement by others. In many cases, these decisions are informed on the basis of medical necessity, and we should think very carefully about the appropriateness of elected representatives making healthcare decisions for Australian women.”
Greens senator Larissa Water stood to tell the Senate she was appalled that a debate about women’s choices has emerged again and that Senator Babet’s claims are incorrect.
She went on to say that if Babet is serious about wanting to prevent unwanted pregnancies, he should support the Greens’ call to make contraception free.
“But you just want to control women’s bodies,” she said.
Any hint of Liberal party members supporting any kind of motion or statements seeking control of women’s bodies or their healthcare is not going to bode well for a party desperately trying to improve its standing with women.