Over the weekend, Liberal MP for Flinders, Zoe McKenzie, posted a simple congratulatory message directed at Jodie Belyea, the candidate who won the Dunkley byelection.
Belyea will become the newest Labor MP to join the federal parliament after winning the seat of Dunkley on Saturday over Liberal candidate and local mayor, Nathan Conroy.
“Congratulations Jodie Belyea,” McKenzie wrote on Instagram, alongside a photo of herself with her arm around the shoulders of Belyea.
“You have been a good friend to women across the Mornington Peninsula. Look forward to working with you in looking after paradise!”
It was a seemingly innocuous post that offered solidarity for Belyea, whose seat of Dunkley adjoins the electorate to Flinders. Both seats are located on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria.
For some, McKenzie’s show of support for Belyea was representative of positive politics and a sign of maturity from an MP looking forward to working collaboratively across party lines to deliver outcomes for people in the local area.
However, for many in the Liberal Party, it was an “unforgivable” mistake as a member of a party “at war” with Labor. Several Liberal Party sources told The Australian they were unhappy with McKenzie’s post. One unnamed person said the “anger” among the ranks was palpable.
So why has the solidarity of two women rattled the old guard so much?
For many of us, we breathe a sigh of relief when politicians put aside partisan rhetoric. McKenzie’s congratulatory post was a great example of a major party politician doing this.
McKenzie has not bought into the false narrative that politicians from opposite sides of the political spectrum must be “at war”. Instead, she chose to genuinely recognise Belyea’s work as a “good friend” to women of the Mornington Peninsula and highlight the opportunity they have to work together.
Last year, a report from Plan International showed that girls and young women in Australia feel excluded from the political landscape and are largely distrustful of politicians. The highly partisan nature of our politics no doubt contributes to this feeling.
McKenzie’s show of warmth and goodwill highlights to young women that politics doesn’t have to be a space of negativity.
We need more of it if we want greater numbers of women to put up their hands for a career in politics, especially on McKenzie’s side of politcs. And if it rattles the old guard of male politics in the process, that can only be a good thing.