Rats learn faster than men in the Liberal Party

I begin this column with a long and heavy sigh. Now, I don’t often find myself in common cause with female Liberal politicians, but on this occasion, I would like to invite them to join me. 

Now that we’ve gotten that little act of bipartisan sisterhood out of the way, what am I on about?

When it comes to the Liberal Party’s ongoing “woman problem” — more specifically regarding the party’s men — recent events are an object lesson in what behavioural scientists have long known: rats do, indeed, learn faster. They have, according to studies, a far superior ability to overcome bias and apply what they’ve learned — so-called “information integration”. 

It is baffling. The Liberal Party was wiped out at the past federal election due in no small part to women’s rage. As Jacqueline Maley wrote for The Sydney Morning Herald, “In 2021, a groundswell of female anger over the mistreatment of women in politics saw thousands of women converge on Parliament House. A year and a bit later, Australian women took that same anger and conveyed it in a different way. With practical, feminine efficiency, they folded it up and slotted it neatly into the ballot box.”

A post-election review of the loss conducted by the party’s former federal director Brian Loughnane and current shadow finance minister Jane Hume recommended setting a target for greater female representation, but — despite highlighting the need to boost female representation as central to modernising the party — it did not go as far as recommending binding quotas.

So how’s that going? Over the weekend, Senator Anne Ruston was dumped from South Australia’s top Senate spot in favour of Alex Antic. Also in recent months a series of male candidates have been chosen for preselection in Chisholm, Dunkley, Aston and Curtin — all previously held or contested by a Liberal woman. There are now just nine Liberal women in the lower house and 10 in the Senate.

In response to understandable concern about these recent events, Antic told The Australian that “the ‘gender card’ is nothing but a grievance narrative, constructed by the activist media and a disgruntled political class”.

“We need the best person for the job regardless of race, gender or sexuality,” he said.

Charming. So, so very helpful. That “disgruntled political class” is women, and without them, the Liberal Party will never form government again. 

In the past, I have expressed frustration that all the navel-gazing exercises on the issue of the Liberal Party’s “woman problem” to date (and there have been many) have focused on the optics. Essentially, the need to get more “good Liberal” women — a very telling phrase from a previous think tank review — into seats. As if policy and the words that actually come out of those women’s mouths about issues of grave importance to women (their health, their safety, their economic security) don’t matter. 

The reality is, as I have previously written, after 10 years of Coalition leadership, women were poorer, less healthy and less safe. Yet the focus has been on getting into seats women who — likely in the grips of “benevolent sexism” — use their positions of power to uphold the male-dominated party line with policies that have resulted in terrible outcomes for women.

The Liberal Party has insisted optics, not substance, would be enough. Just having more “good liberal” women would be enough. And now the Liberal Party isn’t even on track to get the optics right.

Let’s consider the shenanigans of the deputy leader of the Liberal Party, Sussan Ley, ahead of the Dunkley by-election. It was a ham-fisted attempt to play “the woman card” — if we agree such a thing even exists — if ever I saw one. 

“If you live in Frankston and you’ve got a problem with Victorian women being assaulted by foreign criminals, vote against Labor,” Ley posted on X. “If you do not want to see Australian women being assaulted by foreign criminals, vote against Labor. Send Labor a message.”

Now I, for one, don’t want to see Australian women assaulted by anyone. But I would remind Ley that throughout the first decade-long National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women, which the Coalition government oversaw, rates of DV remained stable and rates of sexual violence increased. 

Two years ago, at the height of the women’s marches, I wrote that the Coalition government was “playing games with women’s safety”. Two years on, Ley is still playing games. Women aren’t stupid. They know that. And to quote Bette Midler in the iconic chick flick Beaches, their “memories are long”. 

This is their record and their legacy. And until the Liberal Party grapples with its legacy of policy failure regarding women, women will continue to punish them at the ballot box. Like I said, rats learn faster.