The Liberals risk moving into permanent opposition unless they can fix their issue with women, experts warn as the party looks to rebuild its leadership team.
A heavy election defeat has reduced the coalition to around 40 lower house seats with a number of electorates still too close to call.
The ABC forecasts women will win at least 63 seats, with 46 to be held by Labor and four by the Liberals.
Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian has taken the lead over independent Nicolette Boele in the Sydney seat of Bradfield, and Amelia Hamer’s fight to wrest Kooyong from independent MP Monique Ryan has gone down to the wire.
The gender disparity between the major parties is cause for alarm within the coalition, with party sources criticising the lack of women’s policies taken to the election.
The party had a structural problem with women that would intensify if it did not stop the trend, University of Sydney political scientist Peter Chen said.
“Without quotas they’re not going to get anywhere near gender parity,” he told AAP.
“There are a lot of structural disincentives in the system that discourage women from engaging in public life and targets do not work.
“They’re moving themselves into a permanent opposition.”
Retiring senator Linda Reynolds is among senior Liberals urging the party to learn from previous reviews.
A postmortem of the 2022 election defeat found the party was failing to adequately represent the values and priorities of women.
It also identified a lack of confidence that women within the party would be encouraged to hold or run for leadership positions.
Dr Chen said the main test for whether the party could get on top of the issue would be the leadership contest and how many women were selected for the shadow ministry.
Sussan Ley, Angus Taylor and Dan Tehan have emerged as the main contenders to replace Peter Dutton as Liberal leader.
“They have invested so much ideological heft into running (anti-diversity) narratives, how can they then turn around to do that within their own organisation,” he said.
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