Subjects: Women in Parliament, Liberal Party chaos, election.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Another day in Parliament, another episode of the Muppet Show. The Liberal Party caucus room meets today. They don’t need a chair; they need a referee for the ongoing brawls that are occurring within the Coalition. The fact is they have a systemic problem. It’s a structural problem they refuse to acknowledge. But when you have not just Julia Banks withdrawing from the Parliament, but now Ann Sudmalis; when you have an actual reduction in the number of women prepared to put themselves forward as candidates; when you have a Prime Minister who advocates for a woman to be the Liberal Party candidate in Wentworth but who finishes fifth in the ballot and men finish first, second and third; then that just identifies what the structural problem is.
Scott Morrison needs to address this. The Liberal Party needs to address this and that is why the Liberal Party isn’t fit to govern and people are looking on at this and saying if the Prime Minister himself can’t say why he is the Prime Minister and not Malcolm Turnbull, then it is time this Government just went to an election.

ENDS