Two of the Liberal party’s most senior women, Linda Reynolds and Karen Andrews, will retire at the next election at a time when women are already woefully underrepresented.
So you’d think the party might be pursuing some grand plans to further bolder women’s representation.
But it’s failing to get the message, allowing egos and factional warfare to risk their options at the next election further.
And over the weekend, the party relegated Senator Anne Ruston—the current Shadow Minister for Health—to second place on the South Australian Senate ticket, following a conservative factional fight that saw Alex Antic take the top spot.
The Senate ticket shuffle comes as the lineup for Liberal candidates for preselection in the seats of Chisholm, Dunkley, Aston, and Curtin, are all men.
Antic, conveniently, doesn’t buy into the idea that voters might further punish the Liberal party for its lack of gender diversity. He told The Australian that “the ‘gender card’ is nothing but a grievance narrative, constructed by the activist media and a disgruntled political class.”
“We need the best person for the job regardless of race, gender or sexuality,” he said.
In this case, the “job” involves appearing ahead of another party colleague on the Senate ticket. The colleague Antic ousted, Ruston, is significantly more experienced than he is, given her additional seven years in office and the fact she has previously served as Minister for Families and Social Services in the Morrison government, and currently as a shadow minister in Dutton’s Opposition.
Antic took office in 2019 after winning a Liberal preselection process against sitting senator Lucy Gichuhu. He’s from the party’s conservative faction, has previously opposed decriminalisation of prostitution in South Australia and was one of five Coalition senators to vote with One Nation — and against his own party’s position — on a COVID-19 vaccination status bill. He once accused the ABC of “grooming children” after a Play School segment featured famous drag queen Courtney Act reading a kid’s book. He has been an MC for a Donald Trump Junior speaking tour and made appearances across far-right programs, including Steve Bannon’s podcast.
Antic received some headlines in 2022 for asking then federal health department head Brendan Murphy, “what is the definition of a woman” during Senate estimates. He once raised concerned about cancel culture seeing a ban on magnums — hence the photo above, published on Antic’s Facebook page.
Antic’s said to be hoping to secure the One Nation vote in South Australia, and wants a bolder conservative policy agenda. He likes to reflect back on the days of the 2019 election to show that the “Liberal Party is at its best when it is speaking on behalf quiet Australians” — a strategy that didn’t go so well at the consequence 2022 Federal Election.
The Liberal Party has enough problems trying to get women into the party, so it beggars belief that it would put one of its most senior and prominent women at risk.
It also leaves you questioning why and how the party would let factional warfare put its future election prospects at risk, given that its “problem with women” was seen as a significant factor in its decimation at the 2022 election—largely thanks to several independent women running in blue-ribbon seats.
Currently, the party has a tiny nine women in the lower house and just ten in the Senate—where, across all parties, there is now a slightly higher proportion of women than men.
The weekend’s antics show the Liberal party still fails to see this issue. If it can’t prioritise the election prospects of existing and already highly experienced women, how can it ever hope to bring more women in?
As Labor MP Louise Miller-Frost said on the outcome in South Australia over the weekend, it’s a situation that “would be funny if it wasn’t so insulting to every woman in South Australia.” And to every woman across the country.