Linda Reynolds calls for female leadership to fix Liberal mess, ‘unsure’ if Andrew Hastie will step up

Linda Reynolds is backing Sussan Ley, ahead of local contender Andrew Hastie, to lead the Liberal party in the wake of a Federal election campaign she called a “catastrophic failure”.

The retiring WA Senator and former Defence Minister said female representation must be boosted in safe seats, after four successive election drubbings in WA.

“As a party, we have lost our way,” she told ABC Mornings.

“People are just not relating to us and our candidates don’t reflect the nature, the broad nature and the diverse nature of our communities either.

“So there’s a lot of things we’ve got to review and reform because you can’t just blame Labor for your losses.

“If you go back and have a look at any of our reviews of recent State and Federal elections here in WA, it is very clear where we’ve been going wrong, but we haven’t, as a party, really accepted that and implemented those reforms.”

Ms Reynolds agreed the Liberals have a “women problem” and said the idea of female quotas should be reconsidered.

She was disappointed that a woman wasn’t pre-selected in Forrest, where former Senator Ben Small survived an independent’s challenge, but the Liberal margin was massively reduced after the retirement of Nola Marino.

“Not because I don’t have great respect for Ben Small,” Ms Reynolds said.

“He will be a fabulous local member, so it’s not about individuals. But when I have a look around at what we’ve done over successive elections, we have sat at about 20 per cent of women elected.

“Quite frequently women get pre-selected into seats that are very difficult to win, so when they do win they’re the first to lose when there’s an electoral swing.

“As a party, we’ve been slow to understand that women bring great benefits to the party, women are fabulous local members.”

A partyroom meeting will be held in coming days to elect a new leader after Peter Dutton was one of a dozen Liberal MP’s ousted at the weekend.

WA Senate Leader Michaelia Cash declared Mr Hastie a “future leader” on Sunday, but warned that undecided seats needed to be settled first.

Ms Reynolds has backed Ms Ley for the leadership.

“I am very favourably disposed towards Sussan Ley, who I think would be a great and a very healing and receptive leader for our party,” Ms Reynolds said.

“I’m not sure Andrew’s definitely putting his hand up, so I’ll have a look to see who does put their hand up. But I would certainly like to see a woman up.”

Mr Hastie has told The West he wants to “drive change” within the party.

“I’m having discussions with colleagues at the moment, I certainly want to have a voice,” he said.

“I certainly want to be able to drive change within the party itself and what that looks like will be up to my colleagues to determine.

“But I want to keep serving. I love this country, the people of Canning and Australia come first.”

The shadow defence minister defied the national trend, increasing his margin in the seat of Canning in Perth’s Peel region.