Basil Zempilas 10 things: It’s an indisputable fact the Liberal Party of 2025 does not appeal to enough women

1. Apparently in politics, disunity is death. It is if you’re in with a chance, but if you’re not even in the game, disunity is not death, a lack of relevance is. For me, in a word, that is the urgent challenge for the Liberal Party of today: relevance. 2. To drill down, that’s relevance with the voting public, in our case here, the people of WA. And specifically, younger people, women. It is an indisputable fact the Liberal Party of 2025 does not speak to or appeal to enough women or enough people under the age of 50. We don’t need research to tell us that, we’ve just had two elections. Ask any of the heroic volunteers who worked on polling booths over the past two months, they saw it. 3. We have to better reflect and better connect with the community we seek to represent. If 50 per cent of that community is made up of women, then should we be aiming to replicate those numbers in our Parliament. Simple as that. 4. To the great credit of the WA Liberal Party, in the aftermath of the 2021 State election wipe-out, a lot of things did change. The preselection process improved, candidate training and vetting was prioritised and targets for female participation within the party were identified. 5. I acknowledge that in the most recent State election, 44 per cent of Liberal candidates in our most marginal seats were women. And had the ball bounced the other way in South Perth, Kalgoorlie and Pilbara, the result and our female representation in this Parliament would be much different. 6. But facts are facts. In the parliamentary team I lead, we have seven Lower House members of whom two are women and our Upper House team of 10 features two women also. Four out of 17. That’s not enough. 7. Everything should be on the table to help us achieve a 50:50 gender split. Whatever it takes. Not championing equal representation will forever hold us back. I accept quotas have not been the Liberal way, and with our preselection system would be difficult to implement, but it’s at least time for serious contemplation. If you stand still, you die. 8. The right mix of candidates and their appeal will only ever be part of the pathway to relevance. Engagement with community, our messaging and communications and the right policies which better connect with the voting public are all vital ingredients. We have to get all of those components right. How we preference will also be important. 9. And we should never forget the impact of positivity. People want to be uplifted, they want hope, they like to see smiles. Let’s be the happy, optimistic, ambitious party. 10. At a State level, our reset is already on, and I’m certain the Federal team will quickly be moving towards their own. All is not lost. The Liberal Party will rise again. From opportunity comes success.