If there are two things the Liberal party desperately needs right now, it’s more young people and more women.
And by that token, Jeff Kennett’s use of the word “bitch” targeted at a woman attending the Young Liberals Gala was not very mindful, nor was it demure.
Reports on Sunday morning accused the former Premier of Victoria, who was a guest speaker at Saturday night’s event, of uttering the phrase “rude little bitch” after a woman seated in front of him continually interjected throughout his speech.
Kennett denied saying “rude little” but did admit to using the word “bitch”. And not in a hot girl, brat summer kind of way.
“To be fair to her,” Kennett told The Age on Sunday morning, “she wasn’t speaking to me [or] criticising anything I was saying. She was just ignoring me and having her own conversation and [talking loudly] obviously because I heard her throughout most of my speech, and in the end I was just so frustrated.”
“If I could have pushed the word back into my mouth, I probably would have done it. But once you say these things, you’ve got to either accept them or apologise. I know my comment offended a lot of people – not all, but a lot – and so I have been trying to contact her since last night.”
As an experienced professional and a former high-profile politician, you would think Kennett might be able to handle a few people chatting while he is talking, without resorting to using a loaded insult like that.
Instead, Kennett suggested that speaking at the event at 9pm “might be a bit late to address a Young Liberal function”. What, is it past their bedtime? Or perhaps past his?
According to data from the Australian Election Study, there was a downward trend by generation for voters selecting the Coalition as their preferred party in the 2022 election: the younger the voter, the less likely they would vote for the Coalition.
Not only is there a generational gap in voting for the Liberal party, there is also a gender gap. According to the study, 32 per cent of women voted for the Coalition, 36 per cent voted for Labor and 16 per cent voted for the Greens.
Meanwhile, 38 per cent of men voted for the Coalition, 32 per cent voted for Labor and 9 per cent voted for the Greens.
To win over Australia in the next election, the Liberals must win over young people, especially young women. But to do so requires having representation within the party, and that’s looking a bit tricky too.
There is undeniably a “woman problem” in the Liberal Party. Just 28 per cent of Liberal parliamentarians in the House of Representatives and the Senate are women. It’s a far cry from the 50 per cent target that an internal review recommended the party achieve within the next decade.
Prior to the 2022 federal election, analysis by the ANU Global Institute for Women’s Leadership found just 20 per cent of female candidates in the Coalition were contesting winnable seats.
Young women hold the key to the Liberal party’s success in the 2025 federal election. So someone must tell Liberal party men that the way to win us over is not by calling us bitches – unless of course it is in a hot girl, brat summer kind of way, which somehow, I don’t think they would be able to pull off.