Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the three weeks since the current Prime Minister told us that it would be a good thing if we had more women in parliament, he's lost the member for Chisholm; he's lost the most senior woman out of his cabinet, and it looks like she may not recontest; and now we've learned today that he's lost the member for Gilmore as well.

I have a lot of sympathy for the member for Gilmore. Over the last couple of years, she seems to have spent more time having to fight factional battles within her own branches than she's been able to spend fighting for the people of her electorate.

We seem to have a bit of a pattern emerging here. We all remember the Prime Minister standing in the courtyard and putting his arm around Mr Turnbull and giving him a big hug. It reminded me of the Prime Minister rushing down to Nowra in May, where he did exactly the same thing to the member for Gilmore. He put his arm around her, gave her a good hug and said it would be a bad thing for the government if Ann Sudmalis were replaced by another candidate, and I happen agree to him. My advice to any putative candidate or Liberal MP is: be very afraid if the Prime Minister comes up to you and gives you a hug.

To the people of Gilmore: if you do want to be represented by a fine woman MP, you've got the option to do that. You can vote for Fiona Phillips. She's a true local, a true fighter. She will spend her time fighting for you, not against the members of your own party.