The latest extraordinary chapter in the saga involving the NSW division of the Liberal party underscores how much work they have to do before again being considered a viable alternative government.
With the loss of Bradfield, the Liberals have relinquished all federal representation in their former heartland of Sydney’s north shore. The alarm bells should be deafening.
Instead, the party is dealing with the latest crisis following Alan Stockdale’s comments about “assertive women” in the party. Stockdale is a member of the troika installed to run the NSW branch by the federal Liberals after the 2024 council elections farce.
In a Zoom call this week, Stockdale sought to convince Liberal women that the federal takeover should be extended, effectively keeping the division in a state of administration, rather than being run by members.
In his pitch to the NSW Liberal Women’s Council, Stockdale said that Liberal women were “sufficiently assertive” and he suggested the party might need to consider quotas for men.
“Stockdale thought he was making a joke, but we are facing an existential crisis in the Liberal party – it’s about the future of our party,” one NSW Liberal woman told Guardian Australia on Thursday. “It was received with white hot anger by everyone.”
The former federal Liberal leader Peter Dutton and the federal executive appointed Stockdale, a former Victorian MP in his 80s, to run the NSW division along with ex-Victorian senator Richard Alston, also in his 80s, and former NSW MP Peta Seaton.
It came after the NSW division spectacularly failed to nominate 144 candidates for the local government elections last year. That monumental stuff-up led Dutton to argue that with a federal election fast approaching, a takeover was needed until 30 June 2025.
An extension of that timeline has become the latest battleground between the hard Right of the party, personified by former prime minister Tony Abbott, and the moderates who have the numbers in NSW.
The outrage over Stockdale’s comment is palpable.
“There is nothing wrong with being an assertive woman, in fact, I encourage assertive women to join the Liberal party,” the federal Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, said in a statement on Thursday.
“The Liberal party must reflect, respect and represent modern Australia and that means recognising the strength, merit and leadership of the women in our ranks.”
The NSW opposition leader, Mark Speakman, avoided directly criticising Stockdale but said he “wanted more assertive women, not fewer assertive women” in the party.
He said 45% of his frontbench were women MPs and he argued the party needed to reflect the demographics of NSW – a not-so-subtle dig at the ageing and shrinking membership of the Liberals.
The NSW Liberal party membership has dwindled to between 8,000 and 10,000.
The former NSW treasurer Matt Kean, one of the most outspoken moderates in NSW, said the only person supporting the ongoing intervention was Abbott.
“This is a battle for the soul of the Liberal party: whether we become a far-right rump run by octogenarians or whether we become a centrist election-winning party again,” Kean said.
Much now depends on Ley, but the Right of the party has severely damaged its cause – and provided fodder for Labor.
“I must say … the Liberal party have lost their way,” the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, told reporters on Thursday.
“People just shake their heads. There are more women in the Labor caucus … whose first name begins in A, literally, than there are Liberals and National women on the floor of the House of Representatives. That says it all.”
Anne Davies is Guardian Australia’s NSW state correspondent.
