Samantha Donovan: Julia Banks is a former federal Liberal MP who quit the party in 2018 after Malcolm Turnbull was ousted as Prime Minister in a leadership coup. She's been an outspoken critic of the party's treatment of women and told me she doesn't believe the elevation of Sussan Ley to the leadership will change things.
Julia Banks: If the Liberal Party think they're going to fix their issues with Australian women and Australian women voting for them, I think they're kidding themselves, you know, simply by the appointment of a female leader.
Samantha Donovan: Why do you think that won't fix things?
Julia Banks: Well, their problems are deeply endemic and structural in relation to women, both within the party and external to the party. The Liberal Party's problem with women, it's not a women problem, it's the Liberal Party's problem with women, goes back at least 10 years from when I was in that party room. And it stems from when I, at the time I left the party, which was shortly after the leadership coup, when Scott Morrison took over the leadership from Malcolm Turnbull. And since we've had the Morrison-Dutton show, so to speak, the party has increasingly gone to the right wing and their anti-women stance has just become more and more embedded. And Australian voters obviously saw that. I mean, I think if we look at the historical fact that, yes, Sussan Ley is the first Liberal Party leader, but the bigger historical fact is that the Labor Party have got 47 female MPs and the Liberal Party to the Liberal Party, I think it's about six at the moment.
Samantha Donovan: Do you think the Liberal Party needs to introduce quotas as Labor did many years ago?
Julia Banks: It's the only mechanism. But the Liberal Party generally, and it's a more embedded thought now, if they consider quotas to be an anathema to Liberal Party values, quotas are just, I just can't see them doing that. The average Liberal Party member is a 70 year old white male and the average Australian is a 37 year old female. They just can't ignore the statistics anymore.
Samantha Donovan: It was a close vote, 29 votes over 25. Do you think male Liberal MPs are going to get behind Sussan Ley and support her?
Julia Banks: It's only 10 years ago when the Liberal Party, that same Liberal Party room, had the opportunity to elect Julie Bishop as their leader. Most of the women in that party voted for Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton. So I just don't think that party room dynamic and that party room culture is genuinely is supportive of women.
Samantha Donovan: Is it possible, though, that the shocking result, the really bad result for the Liberal Party at this most recent election will send Liberal MPs a firm message that things have to change?
Julia Banks: Well, really, Sam, I think the shocking result also happened in 2022 when they lost those blue ribbon Liberal seats to women that people kept saying, you know, they're the sort of women that should join the Liberal Party. So I think our focus should rather be on how do we enhance the power of the community independence, particularly in those urban seats, those blue ribbon seats by creating a party, community independence party, if you like, particularly so that they can have representation in the Senate.
Samantha Donovan: There's been a tendency in Australian politics, particularly at the state level, for a woman to be installed as leader when a party's fortunes are on the slide and then a man comes in and replaces her. How big a risk do you think that is for Sussan Ley?
Julia Banks: I think it's an enormous risk, Sam. I think not just in political life, but we've seen that in corporate life in terms of the glass cliff. And I think this is possibly one of the most significant glass cliffs in Australian history that we will see.
Samantha Donovan: Julia Banks is a former federal Liberal MP.