Brisbane lawyer Amanda Stoker has been chosen to replace the retiring George Brandis as a Liberal senator for Queensland.

Stoker, a 35-year-old barrister, will fill the casual vacancy created by the resignation of Brandis, who has been appointed as Australia’s high commissioner to the UK.

Stoker was chosen by Liberal National party members on Saturday from a field of 12 candidates, with suggestions in the lead-up to the vote the party was facing internal pressure for a woman to take the position.

The LNP currently has five federal senators, all of them men: George Brandis, Ian Macdonald, Barry O’Sullivan, James McGrath, and Matthew Canavan.



But the LNP said Stoker was chosen based on her skills and abilities, not her gender, and that the party didn’t need quotas to fill positions.

The LNP president, Gary Spence, said Stoker had been chosen after a rigorous selection process.



“We chose the best person for the job on merit,” he said in a statement. “The LNP doesn’t need quotas to choose our representatives. We will continue to promote opportunities for women and recruit the best people we can from all walks of life, but at preselection the best person for the position will be chosen.”

Stoker has served as an associate to both Justice Ian Callinan AC QC in the high court, and Justice Philip McMurdo in the supreme court, and also as a commonwealth prosecutor.

“I’m ready to fight to improve the international competitiveness of Australian students’ school performance, and to ensure there are high-quality education opportunities available in regional Queensland,” Stoker said.

She and her husband, Adam, have three young children.

Kelly O’Dwyer, the minister for women, last week called for the Liberal party to do more to help women become candidates at the federal level.

She used her address to the National Press Club, two days before International Women’s Day, to draw attention to problems with the Liberal party’s preselection process.

“I think we need to be pretty frank with the party organisation when we say, you know, the buck stops with you,” she said. “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.”

At the 2016 election, the number of female candidates elected for the federal Coalition comprised just 19.8%, while Labor (44%) and the Greens (50%) had much greater female representation.

Spence said: “It is now up to the [Queensland] government to confirm Amanda Stoker for the casual vacancy so that Amanda can commence her service in the next sitting of the Senate.

“We would expect that to happen in the next sitting week, beginning on Tuesday March 20th.”