King, Catherine, MP

Ms CATHERINE KING (Ballarat) (12:09): I am very pleased to second the motion moved by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. You couldn't have a better example than the example we had over the weekend of the problem this once-great Liberal Party has with women. I thought it was a joke. We saw over the weekend the member for Hughes saying that he was going to the crossbench; he was threatening to do so if his preselection was threatened. Then you had the Prime Minister—the Prime Minister who tells us that it is all about merit in this great Liberal Party—saying that he was prepared to intervene. If this is a Liberal Party of merit, you would have thought, when you had the member for Ryan's pre-selection threatened—someone who has been in this place for a long period of time, and a woman of merit—that the Prime Minister would have said, 'Actually, we want to keep the member for Ryan. We want to step in and intervene here. We know that we want to keep the member for Ryan.' But, no, the Prime Minister did nothing. Ms Rowland: The member for Gilmore. Ms CATHERINE KING: 'The member for Gilmore,' I hear members say. The member for Gilmore has been here contributing for some time. Mr Shorten: A gift! Ms CATHERINE KING: A gift to the nation, as my leader reminds us. Again, the Prime Minister says, 'I don't have a lot of women in our show. This is about merit. She's been there for a while. She's won the seat in trying circumstances. You know, let's support another woman.' No. Ms Rowland: Lucy Gichuhi. Ms CATHERINE KING: Again, Lucy Gichuhi—I'm getting lots. There is well and truly a list here. Lucy Gichuhi is making a contribution over in the Senate. Does the Prime Minister intervene? No. The Prime Minister does not intervene on a single one of these preselections. When any of the women on their side come under pressure for preselection, does the Prime Minister intervene? No. Suddenly, there is a need for an intervention for the member for Hughes. 'Why?' you would have to ask? The guy is a bloke, for a start. The guy is a right-wing bloke, second. Clearly, they don't have enough of them. The Prime Minister makes the decision that the one person in this place in the Liberal Party whose preselection is challenged and who deserves his protection is the member for Hughes. The member for Hughes does not believe in the science of climate change. He likes to appear often and regularly on Sky News. I must admit I'm surprised he has time to do anything else, given that he's on Sky News all the time. The member is one of the most right-wing reactionaries in this place, and that is saying something, given some of the people that they've got and some of the people over in the Senate. This is the person that this Prime Minister believes has to be protected in preselection. If you are a woman on the other side of the chamber in the Liberal Party—one of the very few that you have to have—you would have to say, 'What do I have to do to be recognised by this Prime Minister as someone who is making a substantial contribution to the Liberal Party? What do I actually have to do?' You've then got their behaviour to the member for Curtin, who now is on the backbench. She was a foreign minister of some standing, one of the people who has obviously been in substantial positions within this government. What did they do to the member for Curtin? What do they do for the member for Chisholm when she raises that you have a problem within your political party about the way in which you are treating women—not just the way in which you're recruiting them but the way in which you're abandoning them when their preselections are challenged? What is it that you are doing to actually promote and change this culture? The signal that has been sent loudly and clearly today to every woman in the Liberal Party, to every woman who supports the Liberal Party, to every woman who is here in this parliament today is that, if you are on the Liberal Party side, this Prime Minister will not be on your side—not today, not ever. This is what we've seen over the course of the weekend. The only person who is set to have the challenge to their preselection overturned by this Prime Minister is the member for Hughes. You're got to ask: what on earth has happened to this Liberal Party under this Prime Minister? He has got no capacity to actually stand up to the right wing of his party, whether it be on policy or whether it be on the promotion of women here in this parliament.