Deputy leader says lack of women among party’s MPs and membership is an issue as other senior figures push for formal strategy to increase representation

The deputy Liberal leader, Julie Bishop, has supported plebiscites that allow ordinary party members to vote to preselect candidates as a way of putting more women into parliament.



Bishop received the backing of Robyn Nolan, the president of the Liberal party’s federal women’s committee and the president of the Liberal Women’s Council of Western Australia, who also supports plebiscites in her state.

After the cliffhanger federal election result the Liberal party only has been left with 13 female MPs. The National party has three women in the lower house.

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After the election, the defence minister, Marise Payne, said “if there is a strategy” in the Liberal party to include women it was not working. The former Indi MP Sophie Mirabella called for a Liberal equivalent to Labor’s Emily’s List to actively promote women.

Asked why women were not preselected in safe seats such as Mackellar, where Bronwyn Bishop lost preselection to Jason Falinski, Bishop said: “The safest Liberal seat is mine and I’m female.

“Of course I want to see more women in parliament and of course I’d like to see more women in the Liberal party and I think there are a number of issues we can look at such as plebiscites to ensure that we get a broad cross-section of views and women will rise to the top that way ... I think plebiscites are worth looking at.”

Nolan said the issue of women’s representation and plebiscites in individual divisions would be discussed at the next federal women’s committee meeting in two weeks’ time.



“There has been a lot of discussion, we now need some action,” Nolan told Guardian Australia.

Nolan said state Liberal women’s council presidents would meet to talk about getting more women into the “pipeline” to be nurtured and sponsored by senior members, both men and women.



“I have a couple of concerns that preselections are narrow focused,” Nolan said. “Sometimes there are very few people involved so opening up the preselection process in WA through plebiscites is a good thing.”



Nolan said she did not support the quota system and she felt that formal mentoring programs did not work as well as informal “sponsorship” programs.

“I like the idea of sponsors where you have successful women who are sponsored and nurtured by three or four people in the party, men and women.”

Nolan rejected Mirabella’s idea of a Liberal version of Emily’s List, a lobby group within Labor that supports women’s candidacy.

“More needs to be done by senior men and women in the party, including members of parliament, to identify women who want to move forward but it has to be done in an informal way,” Nolan said.



Liberal branches in New South Wales and Western Australia are the only divisions that do not allow plebiscites when preselecting candidates.



While there has been little agitation in WA, the issue of democratisation has been at the heart of the struggles between the conservatives and the moderate factions in New South Wales. While Tony Abbott did not move on plebiscites during his prime ministership, he has campaigned for the move since he lost the leadership.

With Malcolm Turnbull under pressure over the election result, the pressure will increase from the party reform movement to take on plebiscites in his home state – a move recommended by a Liberal panel chaired by John Howard.

In recent days, the NSW premier, Mike Baird, has indicated he would become the first sitting MP in the state to trial plebiscites.

“I am very supportive of the plebiscite,” Baird told his local paper, the Manly Daily. “I strongly believe in giving members more power and giving them the vote on preselection is a natural part of the democratisation of the party.”

The NSW Liberal division has resisted plebiscites, while other state divisions have taken up the reforms. Tim Wilson recently came to parliament after winning his seat in a plebiscite in Goldstein, named after the suffragette Vida Goldstein. He beat Georgina Downer, daughter of Alexander Downer, in the race after Andrew Robb resigned.

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Bishop said the lack of women in the Liberal party was an issue but that “diversity can come in many ways”.

“We had candidates who are gay and they have been elected, who are single mums and they were elected,” she said. “We have candidates from a vast array of backgrounds, life experiences, they are not all just cookie-cutters out of the union movement.”

Bishop said she was “excited” by the number of women preselected and the party was “working on it” but “ you can’t put a quota on the electors’ choice”.



“I campaigned with very talented, skilled women throughout Australia for this campaign but not all of them were elected,” Bishop told Insiders. “Had 30 women been elected we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

“I believe it it is an issue for us but we will continue to ensure that women are not only preselected but elected and promoted and I think the more women who take leadership roles in the Liberal party that will mean more women will be inspired to make politics a career.”

After the election, the Labor party will have 27 female MPs in the lower house and 12-14 in the Senate, depending on the count. Five out of eight ALP Senate tickets were led by women.