Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A quarter of the women in the Prime Minister's party room have blown the whistle on the toxic culture of bullying and intimidation in the Liberal Party. Others have spoken out about the lack of women's representation. What is the Prime Minister doing to fix these problems? In 1994, the proportion of Labor women in the federal parliament stood at just 14½ per cent. So we introduced targets, and now 47 per cent of federal Labor parliamentarians are women. In contrast, since 1994, without targets or support, the number of federal Liberal women parliamentarians went from just 13.9 per cent to about 24 per cent.

The Liberal Party has an aspiration, like Labor, to have 50 per cent women candidates by 2025. But all I've seen the Liberal Party do in recent days is fight amongst themselves about whether they should have quotas for women or not. Yesterday John Howard's former chief of staff described Labor women in politics as dregs. Now Andrew Bragg is being hailed a hero for stepping aside from the Wentworth preselection for a safe Senate spot. If the Liberals are serious about increasing women's representation, maybe they could support women candidates in both the House and the Senate. What concrete action will this Prime Minister take to make that happen?