Why Women Won Labor this Election

By Rosemary O’Brien

“Because together, we are turning the corner and together we will make our way forward with no-one held back and no-one left behind” 

A message from the victorious Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the night of the 3rd of May 2025 - one with a very pointed intention. Albanese’s election night speech promoted a Labor government which will “govern for every Australian,” something that the Liberal opposition failed to do - and arguably the most significant contributor to their record-breaking loss of this election. Notably, his accolades of ‘every’ Australian included, "Every woman who wants her contribution to society and the economy to be valued equally."

ABC journalist Annabelle Crabbe makes the observation that, “It’s absolutely beyond question to say that Peter Dutton, personally, and the Liberal Party, generally lost an enormous amount of support from women over the course of the campaign.” This was largely attributed to their quickly withdrawn plan to cut back on working from home, a policy which predominantly affected women - those whom figures suggest utilise flexible hours to increase their hours of work. Redbridge data shows that female support for the Liberals in the 20 key seats they were tracking fell by 18 percentage points over the course of this year. It’s easy to see why when leader Peter Dutton’s response to the working-from-home catastrophe was that if the policy creates a problem for women, “there are plenty of opportunities around job sharing,” 

Historically, the coalition (the Liberal and National parties) have had an issue with female representation in their parties - in the last parliament, four out of five lower house Liberals were men. Peter Dutton’s campaign was also very much male-oriented - his press conferences and media ops were largely characterised by petrol stations, high vis and industrial factories. Further, his nuclear policy went largely over the heads of female voters. Statistically, male voters were less in doubt about nuclear power than women, who had a twofold issue with the plan; it did not present a relief to their cost-of-living pressures and fears that it was unsafe. 

The Liberals also apparently have no desire to meet their female quotas - the party has had a target now for nearly 10 years to have women preselected in 50% of their seats by the year 2025. Peter Dutton, before his loss, had appointed 11 women to his shadow cabinet, although he had far fewer on his backbench. But retiring Liberal senator Linda Reynolds was scathing of her party’s lack of female candidates and points to it as one of the major contributing factors to its demise at the election. She conducted a review into the issue of gender representation in the party, commenting on the 50% target that it has “been the Liberal Party policy for 10 years, but it’s just sat on a shelf”. 

It is now, of course, 2025, and in this election Liberal women were only preselected in 34% of seats, many of them unwinnable. It is true that this government’s House of Representatives will have a record number of women, with the ABC forecasting that women will win at least 63 seats, 46 of which will be held by Labor, 4 by Liberals, 3 by the Nationals, and 7 by Independents (as of 5 May). 31 years ago, Labor politicians Carmen Lawrence, Julia Gillard and Penny Wong fought for and secured a commitment in the 1994 Labor conference where Labor would adopt a quota for pre-selection - 30% women in winnable seats. The result of this is that Labor now fosters a culture where it’s not at all remarkable to be a female in any particular job or leadership position within the political party. 

There’s simply no way that anybody can win a nation-wide election whilst neglecting 50% of that nation. Liberal’s policies and their lack of female representation contributed heavily to their catastrophic downfall, with many women turning to Labor for their vote for the first time ever. Whilst it’s assured that this Labor government will facilitate the voices and concerns of both its female members and those who they represent, the failure of the coalition to do so highlights a continuous and underlying issue with women in parts of Australia’s political parties - something the Liberal’s will want to address before we vote again in 2028. One can only hope that they realise the exclusion and underrepresentation of women is something the Australian public will no longer support - in fact, the message was clear, “Deal with the women’s problem or face oblivion” (NSW Liberal women’s council president, Berenice Walker).