Ellie Whiteaker (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a former party official, I have been part of my fair share of election reviews, and so I thought today I'd share some recommendations from one I've read recently. It just happened to come across my desk. The 2025 federal Liberal campaign 'is widely considered to be the worst campaign the party has ever fought'. Their leader was seen as 'lacking connection with women and younger voters'. 'Incoherent' was their campaign. Their policies were 'mistimed and alienating' and 'confused and short term'. Their 'comprehensive nuclear policy'—their energy policy—was 'deeply unpopular with women'. It also said:

Women in all the age and socio-economic demographics predominantly voted for non-Liberal parties.

And yet have the Liberal Party learnt their lesson from the failures of that election? I think we heard in the previous senator's contribution that they have not. Instead of being focused on what matters to Australians, they are too busy running a scare campaign on Australians on fuel in a time of national crisis. Have they learnt their lesson? No. They're still talking about a nuclear energy plan which the Australian people comprehensively rejected at the last election. They still won't set quotas for women in their parliamentary party. They ditched their first ever female leader. They are still the very same old Liberals that we all know.