Shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie confirms he won't run for Liberal leadership

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie yesterday confirmed he would not be a candidate in the Liberal Party's leadership ballot, leaving the contest up to Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor, Deputy Liberal Leader Sussan Ley and Shadow Immigration Minister Dan Tehan.

Transcript

00:00With the pulling out of Andrew Hastie from this contest, there remains three people probably

00:09most likely to contest the Liberal leadership.

00:13They are the Deputy Leader, Susan Lee, the Shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor, and the Shadow

00:17Immigration Minister, Dan Tehan.

00:19Now, Angus Taylor is probably one of the more high profile people.

00:24Of course, the Shadow Treasurer took a major role in the campaign, but there has been criticism

00:28both privately and publicly about the Coalition's economic policy, and there are people like

00:34Liberal Senator Holly Hughes, who we heard from yesterday, saying that she doesn't believe

00:38that Angus Taylor is up to leading the party.

00:41There are other concerns that the party is leaning too far to the right, that some of

00:46those comments in the campaign that were likened to Donald Trump-style politics are not where

00:52it should be going.

00:53It should be coming back to the centre.

00:55And therefore, Angus Taylor, who is a right part of the party and is being supported by

01:02the Conservative wing, potentially not the person that many of those backbenchers will

01:06feel is the best person to lead.

01:08So it will be interesting to see where that goes.

01:10We heard from the Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, as well this morning, as she was asked what

01:15she thought happened to the Liberal Party on Saturday night.

01:18I think if you look at the metropolitan electorates around the country, overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly,

01:28Australians who live in cities and suburbs looked at the Liberal Party and said, you don't represent

01:33my aspirations.

01:34You don't reflect the things I'm worried about.

01:37You don't reflect where I want to go.

01:43That is the clear message from the election.

01:45Isabel, there's been a lot of concern from female members of the Liberal Party in the

01:49last 24 hours.

01:50What are they saying?

01:51Look, this conversation about women in the Liberal Party came up at the last election.

01:57It is coming up again.

01:59There are several female members of the party who may lose their seats, some of those seats

02:05too close to call.

02:07And there are concerns from both people in the party, people outside the party or adjacent

02:12to it who think that the party needs to have the conversation about gender quotas.

02:17Again, it's come up before and the party's rejected it.

02:20But for example, we've heard this morning from Liberal Senator Maria Kovacic, she's a senator

02:25in New South Wales.

02:27She says it is something that the party needs to have another think about.

02:31We've heard as well from Charlotte Mortlock, who runs the Hilmers Network, and that's a

02:35group that tries to get women into the Liberal Party.

02:38She says that the average Liberal Party member is a male in his 70s.

02:43The average Australian is a 37-year-old female voter.

02:46And she says if the party can't speak to some of those average Australians, she says in her

02:51words, we deserve to keep losing.

02:53And it's not just women.

02:54We've heard also late yesterday from former Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham.

02:59He also said that the party does need to reconsider this issue of quotas.

03:04He says it's an illiberal concept.

03:06But he says that he struggles to think of any alternatives to help the party attract more

03:13women.

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