The federal social services minister, Anne Ruston, has pushed back against growing calls within her own party for the Liberals to adopt a quota system for women, saying politicians should not “dictate” decisions in a democratic party.
But the push for the Liberals to consider quotas to increase the number of women in parliament is gaining traction, with sitting MPs conceding current party processes are failing to boost female representation in parliament.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, on Tuesday flagged the need for the party to consider quotas, saying he wanted more women preselected and did not hold the same “reservations” about the concept as some in his party.
“We tried it the other way and it isn’t getting us the results we would like to see, so I would like to see us do better on that front,” Morrison said.
Labor instituted quotas in 1994 under an affirmative action policy that targeted 35% of winnable electorates being preselected with female candidates by 2002. The ALP has since increased its female representation in parliament to about 48%.
By contrast, about 25% of Liberal MPs across state and federal parliaments are female, with the party falling well short of a 2025 target of equal representation.
The Liberal party-aligned Menzies Research Centre released a report in 2020 that laid bare the party’s lagging progress but rejected the “undemocratic path of quotas employed by parties on the left”, arguing quotas were “unpalatable” to many in the party.
The report found the party had increased its female representation across the country’s parliaments by only 3% in the past five years.
Ruston – who will be the only female federal Liberal from South Australia once Nicolle Flint leaves parliament – said she did not believe in a formal quota system. She said “great change” was being achieved in SA without quotas – with 80% of new candidates for forthcoming state and federal elections being women.
“I believe strongly in equality of opportunity but not in enforcing equality of outcome,” Ruston told Guardian Australia.
“It is also important to remember that, as a democratic party, decisions about preselections are for the grassroots members who put aside their time to show up to branch meetings, not for parliamentarians to dictate.”
The minister for superannuation, Jane Hume, said she too did not believe quotas were the “solution” for achieving cultural change. But she was prepared to discuss the concept.
“I’m open-minded to that conversation. I think it is worth discussing. But there is more to it than that. That’s not the solution,” she told the ABC.
Following Morrison’s remarks on Tuesday, the industry minister, Karen Andrews, and the environment minister, Sussan Ley, publicly supported the push. Ley said a target of 40% could help achieve a “critical mass”.
“Forty per cent is a good target to have when it comes to quotas, simply because there is a rule around the boardroom table that 30% is a voice ... but the percentage isn’t the important thing, it’s getting to the critical mass,” Ley told Channel Nine’s Today show on Wednesday.
The defence industry minister, Melissa Price, told Guardian Australia that the “time has come” for some kind of quota system to attract “qualified, motivated women” to parliament.
“But that can’t be the only solution to encouraging strong representation from talented women,” Price said. “I am glad we are having a conversation about quotas and we certainly need to have that broader conversation – including what a quota system might look like.”
Mary-Lou Jarvis, the president of the New South Wales Liberal Women’s Council and the party’s state vice-president, told Guardian Australia there were shortcomings with the current preselection process that was supposedly merit-based.
“A lot of us have been wary of quotas because of the argument about merit, but the fact of the matter is that merit doesn’t always work both ways,” Jarvis said. “We want to be elected on merit and then we find a man who wasn’t elected on merit, so how does that work?”
She said the possibility of the party finally adopting quotas was a “conversation that we need to have”. “I don’t want to preempt the outcome of that, but we all know that something has got to change.”
The state director of the South Australian Liberal party, Sascha Meldrum, would not weigh into the debate over quotas, but said “much more needs to be done” to boost female representation in parliament. The Queensland, Western Australian and Victorian branches of the party did not respond to a request for comment.
Other sitting government MPs and senators, however, supported the shift towards quotas.
The NSW senator Andrew Bragg said the party needed to be “targeted” in its approach, aiming to boost female numbers in the House of Representatives.
“The question is how do we get more women into parliament, in particular the lower house where representation is too low. We have to look at a quota and how it could be phased in,” Bragg told Guardian Australia.
Jason Falinski, the MP for the seat of Mackellar, said rather than a quota system, the party should adopt the UK model of a candidate list system that had equal gender representation.
“For a party which has an emphasis on democratic decision-making a quota system is difficult … so a candidate list is my very strong preference.”
Fellow moderate MP Trent Zimmerman said the party needed to look at quotas – but the issue was “complex” given the grassroots structure of the party organisation.
“We’re not doing well enough. We have tried everything else in the book to encourage more women to get involved for the Liberal party preselection,” Zimmerman told the ABC on Tuesday.
Dave Sharma, the MP for Wentworth, said the party needed to achieve gender parity for future intakes of new members – something which had been achieved in 2019 – while he stopped short of backing formal quotas. “That means ensuring more women are preselected for safe and winnable lower house seats, and more women are selected for winnable spots on the Senate ticket,” Sharma said.
The health minister, Greg Hunt, said he supported the outcome of equal representation and was “very open as to the means”, stating quotas could form part of the remedy.