This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Scott Morrison says he can’t see Malcolm Turnbull intervening in a preselection battle that has seen one of the Liberal party’s few female ministers dumped, because politics is “a contestable process”.



Despite the fact senior party figures intervened to ensure Morrison was ultimately preselected successfully for his Sydney-based seat of Cook in 2007, the treasurer told the ABC he could not see why Turnbull would intervene to save Jane Prentice, who was dumped over the weekend.

“I couldn’t see why,” Morrison said on Sunday. “It is a matter for the LNP. That’s how these things work.

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“It is a contestable process. I feel for Jane, she has done a great job, particularly as assistant minister and she has had a great opportunity to serve Australia in the roles she has and she would be appreciative of that.

“We all put ourselves forward every three years and, if you have a genuine rank-and-file party, then they get to make the decisions about who represents them.”

Morrison said he “didn’t recall people getting terribly upset” when the Queensland division preselected Amanda Stoker to replace the outgoing attorney general and new high commissioner in London, George Brandis.

Appearing to end the matter, Morrison said: “She [Prentice] has done a great job and we thank her for her service.”

Guardian Australia reported at the end of March that Prentice would likely face a challenge in her seat as part of a changing of the guard in Queensland underway both in the LNP and Labor.

The assistant minister for social services and disability services has represented the Brisbane seat of Ryan since 2010.

She will lose her spot in parliament at the next federal election after losing a preselection battle against a former staff member. The LNP on Saturday endorsed Brisbane City councillor Julian Simmonds for Ryan.

Voicing concerns among female members of the government, the Queensland National Michelle Landry described the weekend outcome as “appalling” and said women were fast losing heart.

Landry told the ABC: “We’ve hardly got any federal females in Queensland in the government and one has been pushed aside by a young male.

“I’ve had young females in the party ring me up saying, ‘We’re going to resign, we’ve had enough’, and I said, ‘No, don’t. We’ve got to fight this.’”

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Despite their lack of female representation, the Coalition has resisted the notion that quotas should be introduced to ensure more women are preselected to represent the Liberal and National parties in winnable seats.

In March, the minister for women, Kelly O’Dwyer – who has also faced preselection ructions in her own Victorian seat – said the status quo wasn’t good enough, but instead of affirmative action policies she suggested a fighting fund to boost the prospects of women entering parliament.

“I think we need to be pretty frank with the party organisation when we say, you know, the buck stops with you,” O’Dwyer said in March. “You need to highlight the fact that we need to get more women in parliament. We need to look at what barriers there are and we need to eliminate them.”