The Liberals have failed the gender agenda again

I splurted my morning coffee. Chalmers was funny. Also, so true.

Of course, we're now seeing that play out everywhere. Broken promises. The rich have feelings, too. Labor is so mean. No trust.

Now, I'm not a huge huuuge fan of Labor's performance so far but when it comes to trust and reliability, it's trying to say it does what it says on the tin. As opposed to the last lot, now apparently led by Sussan Ley because Peter Dutton is so toxic. That last lot was led by the least trustworthy prime minister of the last 50 years (soz, I didn't pay attention before that).

I mean, how incredibly on-brand is it that Scott Morrison is abandoning his post midway? He scoots off to Hawaii while Australia burns and now he is discarding his role as the member for Cook mid-parliamentary term. Couldn't hold a hose? Perhaps can't hold a vote, either? That's because we didn't trust him to help us.

My prediction was after politics, he would be off evangelising somewhere and therefore, good luck to him and good luck to his family. And I wanted to warn evangelical pastors throughout the US he would have been quite likely to appoint himself to their congregations without warning.

But no, he was manoeuvring himself into a lobbying job and now he has one with American Global Strategies, an international advisory and consulting firm headed by Trump-era security adviser Robert O'Brien, who described Morrison as one of the most consequential world leaders of the last decade.

Wait. What? Will you tell O'Brien or should I? I guess he will find out as quickly as the Australian electorate found out - three years should see him out.

But the real question here is not that a former prime minister wedged himself into a high-profile, high-profit gig. It's this: how is that the Liberal Party allows discretionary departures, at least for men? My recollection is Julie Bishop and Kelly O'Dwyer announced their departures from politics so it would coincide with a general election. Karen Andrews is leaving at the next election. That's how you do it. That's how you show due regard to the electorate, not by imposing expensive byelections on voters who are sick to death of hapless politicians. No wonder women voters don't trust the Coalition.

"Such poor form and disrespect for the people who elected them and the party which preselected them. With such a sense of entitlement, is it any wonder people have such a low opinion of parliamentarians." Those aren't my words but the words of a devoted longtime Liberal woman.

It is 100 per cent likely the person preselected to replace Scott Morrison as the member for Cook will be a man, Carmelo Pesce, the local mayor.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Nothing wrong unless you are trying to drive your political party even further into irrelevance. The Liberal Party of Australia is a relic of a past we want nothing more to do with. Its members, who must be mostly men although the party is so lacking in transparency we don't really know, are once again on the brink of preselecting a man to a safe Liberal seat. Pesce is a perfectly adequate human being and mayor but politics in this country, particularly conservative political party politics, needs a transformation.

Liberal preselectors! This is not the way to get gender balance in your party. It's not enough to preselect a woman Liberal candidate in a safe Labor seat. No it is not. The time to make change is now.

Now members of the Liberal Party aren't permitted to make public comments about preselections (ridiculous in itself). So talking to me is fine but I can't name them. So let me point out to those taking part in the preselections there is a woman running. Her name is Gwen Cherne. She is a commissioner for Veteran Family Advocacy within the Australian government's Department of Veterans' Affairs. She's an ambassador for the Invictus Games. The only other thing I know about here is she is being supported by Hilma's Network, the group of Liberal women who have the thankless task of trying to fix the Liberal Party's woman problem.

Hilma's Network executive director Charlotte Mortlock says: "We have women in the pipeline who have merit, are impressive and exceptionally capable. There is a big difference between throwing your weight behind women in seats we don't hold, and putting votes behind them for the ones we do.

"In 2023 we didn't move the dial at all on our federal gender representation. We need to amend that. We do that through Senate vacancies and preselecting women in safe Liberal seats."

Which, der.

Because more women in the Liberal Party means more women shaping policy (although, I guess it's possible all women could be locked out of a shadow cabinet spot but let's not catastrophise more than we need to). And once we get more Liberal women shaping proposed policy, even when in opposition, that's a better outcome for women in general. The best outcome for women will be when two or more parties are competing for women's votes.

Once that happens, you build trust by giving women what they need. Right now they all need politicians who understand what is going on. Not enough money to pay for day-to-day necessities. I bet those women are delighted at the shift in tax thinking from the rich to the average but none of that will kick in until July 1. Let's hope Labor has more life jackets to hand out before then.

*Dear politicians. By all means break promises if it means a better outcome for most of us.