The Liberal president said the party was making some progress but ‘nowhere near enough’.

When Liberal party president Nick Greiner made an impassioned plea to the party to improve diversity within its ranks on Friday, it was met by applause. But it also came with a kicker – there is no concrete plan to make it happen.



“We always say we are about merit. Of course we are about merit. But merit means having the better parliamentary team,” he said at a meeting of the federal council.

“It is very hard to have the better parliamentary team, if your team, our team does not reflect the community it represents. This is absolutely about merit.”

Greiner admitted the national executive had met before the opening of the 60th annual federal council and spent time, “perhaps half an hour”, working on how to improve diversity within the party.



“We are making some progress – we are making nowhere near enough progress,” he said.

“I think I can tell you that the federal executive which met immediately before this session spent perhaps half an hour working on how we can do better. There is no easy answer, there is no silver bullet, we acknowledge that. There are initiatives everywhere ... this is not some sort of philosophical bunfight.”

Diversity within the party once again hit the spotlight when one of the only women within the Turnbull ministry, Jane Prentice, was dumped at her pre-selection, exposing the party’s poor record in promoting women. The issue provided Greiner with a segue to another “philosophical bunfight” seizing the federal party.

Lightly smacking party members for talking down Malcolm Turnbull and his allies, perpetuating stories of disunity and disarray, Greiner said the way through the next election was to stand as a united force.

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“Differences are inevitable, and they are desirable in democratic parties,” he said.

“It is not about who is raising differences, be they personal or be they policy. It is about how we resolve it. And frankly, I think in some ways, across the party we have occasionally been a bit lazy and self-indulgent when we give our own internal tiffs, our internal arguments priority over the wellbeing of the party over all.

“I started from being really proud of our prime minister and proud of his government and I think it is an exemplary government and yes it is a difficult political climate and parliamentary climate ... but we really do need, as the leaders of the party to stand up for the quality of the contribution and performance that Malcolm and his colleagues are making to keep Australia going in the direction that all of us would want.

“I hear occasionally people saying ‘oh, it’s a fight for the soul of the party’ I’ve got news for you – I think it is a fight for the soul of the nation. That is far more important. It is important that we fight for the soul of the nation and we put our inevitable differences at a much lower [place].

“There is one thing that every single member here, that every single Liberal around the nation can agree with – and that is that the most important thing not just for us, but every Australian, is to avoid Bill Shorten becoming prime minister.”

Greiner, who represents Turnbull’s more moderate approach to Liberal politics, was re-elected as party president, standing unchallenged.

There was talk Greiner would face a coup if Turnbull did not step in and save conservative-aligned Craig Kelly from a preselection battle he is expected to lose, but moderate party members were quick to play down any challenge to Greiner ahead of the conference.

But not all of the executive was re-elected – conservative-aligned Tina McQueen muscled out Trish Worth, who had previously criticised Tony Abbott. The other established three vice-presidents, Karina Okotel, Allan Pidgeon and Fay Duda, sailed through their votes.

Greiner finished his speech by making one last plea to the party to pull together ahead of the coming federal election.

“But please, in the time ahead, let’s take the argument up to our opponents,” he said.

“We have everything to be proud of both in the performance of the government and in the values, philosophies and principles that our party espouses.”

The national council meeting continues on Saturday.