The Liberals are calling upon their ageing membership base to provide ideas on how to modernise and take the party forward after back-to-back election disasters.
In a discussion paper sent to party faithful, respondents were urged to engage in a “reality check,” acknowledging that by the next election, almost one in five voters will have been born after the year 2000.
“Realistically, they will have no historical memory of September 11, the Howard government [or] a world without smartphones,” the paper said.
In the wake of the 2025 election loss, the Liberals established a commission to embark on a soul-searching mission on how to win back voters.
In a paper emailed on Wednesday, the commission argued the party’s base must think outside its usual playbook to bounce back from the second-lowest primary vote in its history last election.
It sets out the key demographics where the party has lost support, including a significant decline in support among professional women, people with Chinese ancestry, and from suburban electorates with high multicultural populations.
The Liberal Party is currently polling behind One Nation in most published surveys, prompting calls for the party to take up the fight against its right-wing opponent.
But it has also lost ground among urban voters, losing seats to Teal independents and Labor at the past two elections.
Making the party ‘fit for purpose’
Queensland senator James McGrath, the chair of the commission, said the party was in the “political fight of our lives”.
“We hold few seats in urban areas, core demographics continue to turn away from us without looking back, our membership is ageing, and campaign resources are stretched,” he wrote.
But he said the party’s strength lies in its machinery, stating that its organisational capability and national presence make it “the only viable centre-right vehicle with genuine scale and durability”.
James McGrath is overseeing the Liberal Party commission that is reviewing possible paths forward. (AAP: Alan Porritt)
“We must consider how to make the Liberal Party a fit-for-purpose political machine in the 21st century,” Senator McGrath wrote.
With only 33 per cent of Liberal federal parliamentarians women, it said additional measures are required to ensure serious progress is made.
Multiple election reviews have identified the party’s lack of female representation as an electoral problem.
Previous attempts to install gender quotas to increase the number of female candidates in winnable seats have failed, despite support from senior members such as former prime minister Scott Morrison.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has agreed the party urgently needs more women but has previously stated that gender quotas “subvert democracy”.
The idea of quotas is now being revived, alongside five others for consideration to ensure candidates reflect the community.
It includes a quota model where the party intervenes in a preselection process to appoint female candidates, a minimum requirement for women standing in preselection contests or bonus weighting for females preselected to increase chances.
It is also considering reinforcing state targets for female representation, open primaries allowing anyone in the seat to vote in selecting a candidate, and creating an “A-list” of the top-100 conservative candidates, a strategy used by David Cameron in the United Kingdom.
The paper states that the changes will not come “without complication or resistance” but the party needed to do things differently if it wanted a different outcome.
Multicultural and younger voters
The commission has acknowledged among its biggest challenges are young and diverse voters.
It said that young Australians believe the Liberal Party is less credible on issues of significance, using home ownership and climate action as examples.
The paper stated these perceptions have now become “structural” and the party can no longer rely on Australians ageing into voting for them.
It predicted that traditional structures like time-intensive meetings make engaging with the party less accessible.
It suggested accommodating different levels of engagement with new memberships, adding a community membership aimed at social connection and a digital tier for time-poor professionals or young people.
The memberships would have a cheaper annual fee, with the community membership roughly $40 to $60, while the digital tier could be as low as $10.
The party has also launched a survey, focused on boosting members and civic engagement, which gauges ways to recruit new members and appetite for the six options to address the gender imbalance.
The paper said the 2025 election result suggests that “negative perceptions of the party within multicultural communities are deep-rooted”.
It noted that its “on the ground” presence was “inferior” to its opponents but recognised such perceptions could not be simply shifted through increased outreach or candidates from diverse backgrounds.
A survey that focuses on boosting members and civic engagement has been launched, gauging sentiments on the six listed options as well as the best ways to reach new and younger audiences.
