Leaked Nationals election review outlines plan to attract ‘more high-calibre women’ into Parliament

A secret review into the National Party’s performance at last year’s Federal Election says it needs to “fundamentally change” its approach to recruiting and pre-selecting female candidates to attract “more high-calibre women”, a phrase controversially coined by Tony Abbott over a decade ago.

The Nightly has exclusively obtained a leaked copy of the previously hidden 33-page Nationals document that concludes nuclear power was one of the party’s few policies voters knew about — and was not popular.

“The party’s chronic underperformance with female voters is a strategic liability that is costing us support and making our seats more vulnerable,” the confidential assessment warned, days after The Nightly revealed the contents of a similar review into the Liberal Party’s disastrous 2025 election result.

“To reverse this trend and build a party that reflects the entirety of regional NSW, we must fundamentally change our approach to the recruitment and preselection of female candidates.”

At the 2025 election the Nationals lost deputy leader Perin Davey, who failed to get re-elected to the Senate in NSW.

Anti-quota

Review author and former Victorian Nationals director Matthew Harris wrote “it is crucial to state from the outset that this review categorically rejects the imposition of formal quotas for female candidates.”

“Such a mechanism is contrary to the Nationals’ core philosophy of selecting candidates based on merit and local endorsement. The submissions to this review were clear: our members believe in choosing the best person for the job, regardless of gender.”

According to the NSW-focused document “the evidence is equally clear that our current process is failing to produce a sufficient number of female candidates in winnable seats.”

“To rely on a system that is demonstrably not working, under the banner of ‘merit,’ is to mistake process for outcome. A true merit-based system should result in the selection of candidates who can win elections and broaden our appeal. On this measure, our current system is falling short.

“The challenge, therefore, is not to abandon the principle of merit, but to build a proactive system that ensures more high-calibre women are identified, encouraged, and supported to contest pre-selection in the first place,” Mr Harris wrote.

In 2013, then Opposition Leader Tony Abbott caused controversy by stating his proposed paid parental leave scheme was intended to encourage “women of calibre” to have families, suggesting it would help high-earning women balance careers with children.

While rejecting the Labor party’s embrace of female quotas, Mr Harris pointed to the Victorian National party’s approach in 2022 of adopting “a deliberate, leadership-driven strategy to recruit and preselect accomplished local women.”

Unhappy marriage

The review also blames a “dysfunctional” combined campaign headquarters of Liberal and Nationals staff, “diluting our brand and ceding strategic control to the Liberal Party”.

“This reduced the Nationals from a ‘partner’ to a ‘subsidiary’,” it says.

According to the assessment, the Nationals were perceived as the ‘party of nuclear’ three times more than we were seen as the ‘party of cost of living relief’.

“In an economic environment where families were struggling, our signature message was a niche, long-term energy policy, not an immediate solution to their primary concern,” the confidential report finds.

Responding to the leaked internal review for the first time, Nationals Leader David Littleproud agreed they could have sold their nuclear policy better but declared he was proud that the rural based party “held on to all its seats, and we nearly won Bendigo”.

“I think, we insulated ourselves, against much of the other problems the Coalition had by a very local campaign, but there are always lessons to be learned, and I don’t think you can be arrogant.”

“While we’re proud of our result, that you wouldn’t look at how we could have done things better, in selling that, and selling that policy,” he told Sky News on Wednesday when asked about The Nightly’s report.