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The Liberals who proposed and then scrapped Hwy. 413 before the Progressive Conservatives revived the controversial GTA freeway are promising to kill it once and for all if elected next year.

Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca said Monday he would cancel this sprawl-spreading highway and use the $8 billion in savings to build and renovate schools across Ontario.

Let me be clear, the 413 will not make your life better. Doug Ford wants to build it to make his billionaire friends happy, he told reporters.

Del Duca was a transportation minister in the government of former Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne, who kiboshed the Vaughan-Brampton-Caledon-Milton highway in 2018, years after her Grit predecessor, Dalton McGuinty, first proposed it.

Ontario Liberals stopped this reckless project once before and we will do it again, the Liberal leader said, insisting only wealthy developers who bankroll the Tories want it built.

It is inconceivable to me that Doug Ford wants to spend billions paving over farmland, destroying wetlands and undermining the Greenbelt all for a highway that will only save some commuters mere seconds.

Fords Conservatives revived the GTA West Transportation Corridor, as Hwy. 413 is formally known, even as they are promising to expand the 800,000-hectare Greenbelt around the Greater Toronto Area.

But local councils in municipalities that would be affected by the highway have been voting against it, including in Vaughan and Mississauga.

Ealier this month, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said theres no doubt in my mind that Hwy. 413 is the wrong thing to do.

This is all about Doug Ford giving more opportunity for his developer friends to pave Greenbelt lands, to develop farmland for housing and other kind of development, said Horwath, noting it is completely backwards to promote urban sprawl.

There is no reason for that highway to be built and there are many, many reasons for it not to be built.

Green Leader Mike Schreiner also opposes the highway.

Mindful of growing opposition to its construction and aware that a federal environmental assessment could derail it as early as May, the Tories appear to be inching away from it.

Government house leader Paul Calandra stressed three weeks ago that Hwy. 413 is not a done deal.

Theres still a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done here: some consultations that have to happen with our partners in the area, an environmental assessment, Calandra said March 1.

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Once we accomplish all these consultations, if it makes sense for the highway to proceed, it will; if it doesnt, we wont, the minister said.

Robert Benzie is the Stars Queens Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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Liberals would kill Hwy. 413 'once and for all' and invest the $8B in school repair and construction, Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca says -...

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In a 2015 speech to the NSW Liberal Party State Council, then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull declared we are not run by factions. It was a claim that had the party faithful rolling in the aisles.

While Labor organises along strict Left-Right lines (with some smaller sub-factions, often allied with a specific union) the Liberal Party is far more byzantine. Nevertheless, factions or ideological groupings play an important role in organising the modern parliamentary party.

To report this story, The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age conducted more than 50 interviews with 39 MPs in the 91-member federal parliamentary Liberal Party.

What emerged was agreement on two key points.

There are three broad groupings within the party a Moderate or Modern Liberals wing, with Finance Minister Simon Birmingham as its leader; a Morrison Club/Centre-Right grouping led by the Prime Minister; and a National Right group led by Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.

The second key point is that MPs (except for the unaligned few) are drawn to one of these three groups by overlapping interests that span their state of origin and the region theyre from, allegiance to a powerful individual, faith, ideology, philosophical interests and their year of election.

The NSW and South Australian divisions of the party are the most similar to Labor in that they have a factional structure (Moderate, National Right and in the case of NSW, Centre Right). In Victoria factional allegiances are largely based on personalities and the party has been riven by divisions for at least a decade since the faction led by former federal treasurer Peter Costello and powerbroker Michael Kroger fell apart. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg close to Kroger and National Right powerbroker Michael Sukkar leads the Victorian ambition faction after he thrashed his friend, Health Minister Greg Hunt, in the contest for the deputy Liberal leadership in 2018, while the Costello group has largely faded away.

The running joke among party moderates is that in Queensland, WA and Tasmania there are no moderates like Canberras version of the Tasmanian Tiger or the Grampians Puma, there are people who swear they exist, but they rarely break cover in public.

So how do Liberal MPs align when it comes to factions? How can they be in more than one group? Who is in the ambition faction? Who is in the Prayer Group? And who are the Monkey Pod Lunch Conservatives?

To understand how the Liberal Party works, a good starting point is former Howard government minister David Kemps 1973 essay A Leader and a Philosophy. Liberal factions tend to be very different to Labors factions, Kemp says, they arent organised in the same way and they tend to cut across each other on different issues, its not as clear-cut and there is much more fluidity.

The groupings in the Liberal Party tend to be around personalities and issues but you get people with similar views in different groups.

This observation is crucial. In the 1980s and 90s there were the dries, who emphasised free-market economics and conservative social policy, and the wets, who favoured more progressive social policy and bigger government, but those groups are no more.

These days the Moderate faction is the leading advocate of free-market economics whereas the National Right is more concerned with social issues: religious freedoms, gender identity, national security and, until recently, opposing same-sex marriage.

Climate change is still a lightning rod: the Moderates favour stronger action to mitigate it, the National Right counts some sceptics among its number and the Centre Right takes a pragmatic, middle-of-the-pack approach (as it does on many other issues).

Personalities in the Liberal constellation of alliances and leaders accrue personal loyalty over time especially from those they bring into parliament, such as the 15 new MPs who won their seats in 2019.

While the partys factional lines are on clearest display during leadership spills, the groups are always present, working behind the scenes. And while the party does not rely on factions to organise and manage policy debates to the extent that Labor does, the groupings play a key role in managing competing interests.

Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Ben Morton with Prime Minister Scott Morrison in May 2019.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Scott Morrison is the titular head of the Morrison Club/Centre Right group. Outside NSW, where the Centre Right is an organised faction, this grouping is the least formally structured of the three main groups. It doesnt meet on a regular basis and is really several overlapping groups with shared interests and Morrison as its figurehead.

The groups unifying philosophy is pragmatism - that means an adherence to free-market economics (but with enough flexibility to splash billions to prop up the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic) and relatively conservative social values.

As one member of the group puts it, we realise you dont win elections by yelling at people about abortion. We are dry economically and socially conservative but not in an in your face way.

Morrisons club primarily consists of MPs who entered parliament when he did, in 2007: Alex Hawke, the factional organiser of the Centre Right in NSW, Queenslander Stuart Robert and West Australian Steve Irons. This core group is also defined by their shared faith (all are members of the Prayer Group more on that below) and their lets get things done approach.

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Ben Morton, another West Australian and, like Morrison, a former state division director, is one of the PMs closest and most able lieutenants but if Morrison were not in the parliament, Mortons philosophical home would be the National Right.

In NSW, Morrison and Hawke have five other rusted-on supporters in Hollie Hughes, Melissa McIntosh, Lucy Wicks, Julian Leeser and Jim Molan. Environment Minister Sussan Ley, also from NSW, is part of the Morrison Club but historically has been a moderate and so isnt considered a core member of the Centre Right.

About half of Treasurer Josh Frydenbergs Victorian group, including Hunt, Trade Minister Dan Tehan and a handful of others, belong to the Morrison Club. A large cohort of Queenslanders, many of them first-termers, people of faith or both, and some MPs from other states are also members of the Morrison Club. In all, about half of the Prayer Group belongs to the Centre Right while the other half is in the National Right.

Both Moderates and National Right members argue that some MPs self-nominate as members of the Centre Right because its the Morrison Club personal loyalty to the PM matters, particularly for the class of 2019.

MPs who have historically been moderates but are in the Morrison Club include Hunt, Ley, Hughes, Anne Ruston, Jason Wood, Julian Leeser, Sarah Henderson and Rowan Ramsey.

On the day that Morrison leaves parliament, its likely the Centre Right will begin to lose members back to the other two factions unless Frydenberg, the clear heir apparent to the Liberal leadership, can hold the club together. Its important to remember that back in 2014 there was a (Joe) Hockey Club but political trajectories can reverse in an instant.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who is part of the Morrison Club, and Finance Minister Simon Birmingham, a Moderate. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Simon Birmingham, Marise Payne and Paul Fletcher are the three most influential Moderates in the federal Liberal Party. All three are cut from similar cloth and are quieter personalities than their factional predecessors Christopher Pyne, Julie Bishop and George Brandis.

The Moderates dont have a weekly meeting when parliament sits. Instead, they meet to discuss specific policies or legislation on a more ad hoc basis.

A grouping within the larger is dubbed the New Guard Moderates or Modern Liberals. Elected in 2016 or 2019, they typically represent inner-city lower house seats or are in the Senate.

This group are more economically dry than their elder colleagues, progressive on social issues and, if anything, willing to advocate for more ambitious climate change policy. As one member puts it: We are Menzies Liberals, the live and let live people. And we are the old dries and wets at the same time.

The New Guard have landed the chairmanships of some of parliaments most important committees, including mental health (Fiona Martin), taxation (Jason Falinski), economics (Tim Wilson), Fintech (Andrew Bragg) and treaties (Dave Sharma).

Nearly three years on from the spill, the PM has broad support across the party from all three factions.

As chief political correspondent David Crowe wrote in Venom, his book about the fall of Turnbull and the rise of Morrison, Morrison beat Dutton and Julie Bishop in the 2018 leadership contest because his core group of about 15 supporters was able to weld together an alliance that also included the Moderates, securing him his 45-40 victory in the party room.

Nearly three years on from the spill, the PM a natural conservative, not an ideological conservative, as one of his allies puts it has broad support from all three factions.

But that doesnt mean the Moderates are always happy with the PMs policy approach. Some feel he takes the Moderates support for granted; and they believe that, in a post-Morrison era, a lot of people in the Centre Right, in particular, will move back to us.

Peter Dutton is possibly the least well-understood conservative in Parliament.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The National Right (sometimes called the Hard Right) is the most organised faction in the Liberal Party and is undergoing a changing of the guard. For years its figureheads were Tony Abbott, Eric Abetz and Kevin Andrews. Abbott has, of course, left the building, Andrews has lost preselection and Abetz is facing a challenge from his former staffer, Jonathon Duniam, for the top spot on the Tasmanian Senate ticket.

Peter Dutton, the notional leader of the faction, is perhaps the least well-understood conservative in the parliament. He is best described as a national security conservative rather than a religious conservative, and is arguably more socially progressive than the Prime Minister.

Michaelia Cash has begun to fill that vacuum, as has rising star MP Andrew Hastie, but Mathias Cormann casts a long shadow in the west.

The exit of Mathias Cormann, Duttons close friend, has left a big gap in the National Right and in WA in particular. Senator Michaelia Cash has begun to fill that vacuum, as has MP Andrew Hastie, but the former senator casts a long shadow in the west. Angus Taylor is an important figure, insofar as hes a member of the cabinet, but doesnt tend to wield influence in factional brawls over preselections.

Victorias Michael Sukkar and the ACTs Zed Seselja have risen through the ranks and are now involved in everything from organising the annual National Right dinner to influencing internal policy debates (incidentally, the Moderates have a similar annual meal known as the Black Hand dinner, while the Centre Right doesnt have a comparable event but some attend the National Right meal).

Sukkar also wields significant influence over preselection in his home state. Hastie, as well as Queenslander Amanda Stoker and South Australian Tony Pasin, are also increasingly influential.

The National Right is more likely to speak with one voice on social policy rather than economic policy. As a member of the faction puts it, the group believes in government that is as big as it has to be and the acceptance that the future of the Liberal Party is in the outer suburbs and the regions.

We believe in defending the value of institutions that have stood the test of time.

Philosophically, the National Right and the Morrison Club have a lot in common - its a question of degrees of emphasis on specific policies - and many members could be at home in either group.

The fact that many MPs belong to more than one group underscores the partys less formal factional alignments and how interests overlap.

Key sub-groups include the Prayer Group, the Monkey Pod Lunch Conservatives, Frydenbergs Victorian group, the Rural and Regional Liberals, the Veterans group and the Morrison-Hawke Centre Right in NSW.

The Prayer Group has, at its core, the Prime Minister and some of his key allies including Irons and Robert. While some of its members are Pentecostal Christians like the PM, its not an exclusive club there are also Catholic members and Julian Leeser, who is Jewish.The group also includes members of the National Right such as Andrew Hastie, Amanda Stoker and Jonathon Duniam underscoring the confluence of interests among the National Right and the Centre Right.

Convened by Peter Dutton, the group shares a philosophical outlook, discusses policy and shares takeaway lunch on a Tuesday.

The Monkey Pod Lunch group first revealed back in 2015, and named after the tropical hardwood tree table in a meeting room in the ministerial wing of Parliament House is a group of like-minded National Right conservatives. Convened by Dutton, the group discusses policy and shares takeaway lunch on a Tuesday.

The Rural and Regional grouping of Liberals, convened by South Australian Rowan Ramsey and with at least 19 members, exists to advance regional Liberal interests in contra-distinction to the 21 Nationals MPs. Though they wouldnt be considered a faction, this Liberal group is designed to ensure the party maintains a strong presence in the bush.

Other groupings include Frydenbergs Victorian ambition faction, which takes in members of the Centre Right and the National Right. This group has 10 members, meets semi-regularly when in Canberra, and works to ensure its preferred Victorian candidates are preselected, but at a national level is split in two.

Theres also a Veterans group with eight members that includes Stuart Robert, Andrew Hastie, Phillip Thompson, Gavin Pearce, Jim Molan, Vince Connelly, Andrew McLachlan and David Fawcett but not Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, a former brigadier in the Army Reserve.

Celia Hammond (here being congratulated after her maiden speech in 2019 by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Prime Minister Scott Morrison) has ties to all three main groupings.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Then there are the independents. House Speaker Tony Smith and Senate president Scott Ryan (both Victorians) were, back in the day, dyed-in-the- wool members of the Costello faction in Victoria but that faction no longer exists. Tim Wilson, Jane Hume and Katie Allen are (broadly speaking) members of the Moderates but would be more likely to describe themselves as Classical, or even Menzies, Liberals.

WA Senator Dean Smith now tells colleagues he is a faction of one.

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WA senator Dean Smith is by disposition an arch-conservative (and monarchist) but he was also a leading proponent of same-sex marriage and now tells colleagues he is a faction of one. Fellow West Australian Celia Hammond straddles all three groups she was backed by the National Rights Cormann to take Julie Bishops seat, is a member of the Prayer Group and holds progressive views on climate change.

Fairfax MP Ted OBrien is not factionally aligned but is one of the key organisers of a Team Queensland group of MPs (which could be considered another grouping). Fellow Queenslander Andrew Laming is considered so mercurial as to be an independent.

The independents have plenty in common with each of the three groups but they also underscore just how fluid Liberal Party allegiances can be.

Read also: Whos who in Labors Left and Right factions?

An earlier version of this article said that Senator James Paterson is a member of the New Guard Moderates sub-faction. This is not correct, he is in the National Right. The article has also been updated to reflect the fact that Senator Andrew Bragg is chair of the Fintech committee.

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Whos who in the Liberals left, right and centre factions? - Sydney Morning Herald

The 13 ridings that deprived the Liberals of winning a majority government in the last federal election are still too close to call and will be key battlegrounds in determining the outcome of the next election, say pollsters.

What stands out from the list is that the Liberals are still short of a majority, said Nik Nanos, chief data scientist for Nanos Research, in an interview with The Hill Times. And the ridings that were toss-ups in the last federal election for the Liberals, which they barely lost, most of them remain very, very tight races.

The 13 closest losses for the Liberals include seven in Ontario, three in Quebec and one each in Manitoba, British Columbia and Nova Scotia. Of these, the Conservatives won nine; the Bloc won three and the NDP one seat.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his security detail, pictured March 12, 2021, leaving the West Block for a media availability at the Sir John A. Macdonald building in Ottawa. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

If the Liberals had won 22,590 more votes in these 13 ridings depending on the margins in each, they could have won a majority. In the 338-member House, the winning party needs at least 170 seats to form a majority government.

In 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus (Papineau, Que.) Liberals lost the popular vote to then Andrew Scheers (Regina-QuAppelle, Sask.) Conservatives, but still won more seats than their chief rivals.

Of the 18.1-million votes cast, according to Elections Canada, the Conservatives won 6,239,227 votes, but ended up with only 121 seats, while the Liberals won 6,018,728 votes and still carried 157 seats. The NDP won 2,903,722 votes garnering 39 seats; the Green Party won 1,189,607 votes that translated into three seats. The Bloc Qubcois, which fields candidates only in Quebec, won 1,387,030 votes and carried 32 seats.

If they [Liberals] had another, 22,000 to 23,000 votes in the right ridings in the right place [in the 13 ridings], they could have converted [their minority] into a majority in the House of Commons, even if they had lost the popular support federally on a national basis, said Mr. Nanos.

The lowest margin by which the Liberal lost one of the 13 ridings was 1.5 per cent or by 898 votes in the riding of Shefford, Que., while the highest margin was 5.2 per cent, or 2,417 votes inCharleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley, Man.

Pollster Nik Nanos of Nanos Research says that almost all 13 ridings that the Liberals lost in 2019 with closest margins are still too close to call. The Hill Times file photograph

Mr. Nanos said according to his Nanos Time Map Modelling, based on historic data and the latest polling data to make monthly projections on individual ridings, almost all ridings in the list of 13 are still too close to call.

Mr. Nanos said the ridings decided by small margins in an election mean the national campaigns were not good enough to push the candidate over the winning line. Also, he said, this means that local riding factors, including the get-out-the-vote efforts, canvassing, the quality of the candidates, and organizations fell short.

So if youre a party that wins the election, and, in a particular place, you lost by like two per cent or less, the first thing you look at is the local situation, said Mr. Nanos. Did the party have a strong candidate? Whats the state of organization at the local level to mobilize voters to get out and vote? So, a lot of times, theyre their local factors for the ridings that are on the margins.

In the next election, Mr. Nanos said the 13 ridings will be critical and a good starting point both for the winners and runners-up. The ridings could make the difference in deciding a minority or the majority government, he said.

Youre looking at these ridings as the ones that you want at the top of your priority list, as part of your strategy to win a majority mandate, because it requires the least amount of effort, said Mr. Nanos. And these ridings will also be the priorities for the candidates that won the ridings.

Based on his polling, Mr. Nanos said that there are 64 ridings 21 ridings that are within two per cent margin wins and 43 within two to seven per cent margin winsat this time that are too close to call.

Earl Washburn, a senior analyst with Ekos Research, said a characteristic that stands out in the list is that almost all 13 ridings are suburban. Going forward, he said, suburban ridings will be even more important than before in the outcome of any election because a significant number of millennials are moving to the suburbs for affordability reasons, as due to the global pandemic, they dont have to commute to work anymore.This means the residents of suburbs will be more progressive than before and he expects this trend to continue.

Itll be a continuation of the trends that weve seen in the last decade, suburbs will become more Liberal-leaning as we go along, said Mr. Washburn.Thats really what your story is going to be when the federal election comes around: which party is going to be able to win over those kinds of seats.

Mr. Washburn confirmed that his own polling confirms Mr. Nanos projections that almost all 13 ridings are still too close to call and nothing much has changed. One key factor, among others, that could tip the balance in favour of one party or the other, especially in smaller city suburban ridings, is the quality of the candidates, he said.

Suburban ridings are less candidate-based, they vote more on the party, said Mr. Washburn. But in some of these other ridings, like Trois-Rivires, or West Nova, Kenora, even Niagara Falls, theyre ridings that vote more on the candidate versus the party.

Pollster Greg Lyle of Innovative Research says that considering the setbacks Liberals had in 2019, hes not surprised the Liberals lost the 13 ridings with close margins. Photograph courtesy of Greg Lyle

Greg Lyle, president of Innovative Research, said that the list does not include any downtown ridings in any of the major urban centres and consists of suburban, rural and smaller cities. He said this shows that there are as many swing ridings inside the 905-region, well-known for swing ridings and having a major influence on election results, as there are outside of the 905. Considering the fact that the Liberals suffered a number of setbacks right before and during the last election campaign, he said, its not surprising that the Liberals lost these 13 ridings with close margins that could have pushed them into the majority territory.

That was not a great election for the Liberals, said Mr. Lyle. I mean, they came out of the SNC-Lavalin controversy and walked intothe blackface controversy. A lot of things did go wrong. So its not hard to see why they fell short.

For the next election, he said, both of the main parties will be targeting these 13 ridings as the incumbents would like to keep those ridings in their column while the Liberals would try to win them thinking they came very close to winning in the last election.

Former Liberal MP John Aldag represented the riding of Cloverdale-Langley City, B.C., from 2015 to 2019, but lost to Conservative Tamara Jansen by a margin of 2.5 per cent of the votes in 2019. Mr. Aldag said there were a number of factors that contributed to his loss, including the political controversies, negative campaign tactics by opposition parties, and bad weather on election day. He said he was recently nominated to run for the Liberals in the next election and will be redoubling his efforts to win the riding back.

Mr. Aldag said that the current projection for the riding, which is too close to call, does not worry him as polling numbers go up and down depending on the day. He pointed out that the Liberal Partys numbers went down in the last few weeks because of the interruption in the vaccine rollout but now that the rollout is returning back on track, the numbers are improving, he said.

Polls change from time to time, and Ive been watching it, said Mr. Aldag.

When we go into a campaign, whenever that is, [constituents] will be looking at the record of myself and the record of the person who defeated me and just letting voters choose who they would want to be the representative in Ottawa.

Former Liberal MP and cabinet minister Bob Nault who lost his riding in 2019 says he will not run in the next election. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

Former Liberal MP Bob Nault, who represented the riding of Kenora, Ont., for six terms and lost the riding to Conservative MP Eric Melillo by a margin of four per cent in 2019, said hes not planning on running in the next election. As of last week, the Liberals had not nominated a candidate in the riding, which is the largest in landmass in the province but the smallest in population, and is home to 42 First Nations. The Liberals lost this riding byonly 1,110 votes and Mr. Nault said that one key factor that led to losing in 2019 was that it was a three-way race in which the division of the progressive vote led to the Conservatives winning this riding. Mr. Melillo won 34 per cent of the votes, the Liberals 30 per cent, the NDP 28.5, and the Greens 5.5 per cent. Mr. Nault said that if theres one thing that he could have done more in the last election was to put in more resources into his GOTV efforts, which is always a major challenge in a rural riding like Kenora where some regions are not accessible by road.

I door-knocked as much as I possibly could in the communities that you can door-knock, said Mr. Nault. But now, remember, the only way somebody can get to 24 communities out of those 42 First Nations, is you have to fly. Theres no road, right. Its a little bit more complicated.

The 13 Ridings That Denied Liberals A Majority in the 2019 Federal Election

Riding Name MP Name Vote Margin Percentage Margin

Shefford, Que. Bloc MP Andranne Larouche 898 1.5%

Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill, Ont. Conservative MP Leona Alleslev 1,060 2%

Kenora, Ont. Conservative MP Eric Melillo 1,110 4%

West Nova, N.S. Conservative MP Chris dEntremont 1,365 2.9%

Cloverdale-Langley City, B.C. Conservative MP Tamara Jansen 1,94 2.5%

Trois-Rivires, Que. Bloc MP Louise Charbonneau 1,466 2.4%

Flamborough-Glanbrook, Ont. Conservative MP David Sweet 1,652 2.6%

Windsor West, Ont. NDP MP Brian Masse 1,922 3.7%

Niagara Falls, Ont. Conservative MP Tony Baldinelli 2,061 3%

*Hastings-Lennox and Addington, Ont. Ind. MP Derek Sloan 2,247 4.3%

Northumberland-Peterborough South, Ont. Conservative MP Philip Lawrence 2,408 3.5%

Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley, Man. Conservative MP Marty Morantz 2,417 5.2%

Longueuil-Saint Hurbert, Que. Bloc MP Denis Trudel 2,590 4.3%

*Derek Sloan was elected as a Conservative MP in the 2019 election but now is sitting as an Independent MP.

Data compiled by The Hill Times deputy digital editor Samantha Wright Allen

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The 13 ridings that denied Liberals majority in 2019 still too close to call, say pollsters - The Hill Times

For Canberra Liberals Leader Elizabeth Lee, the last few weeks have been "emotionally charged".

Late last year, she decided to go public with claims she'd been sexually harrassed by former High Court Judge Dyson Heydon in 2013.

Mr Heydon has emphatically denied any allegation of sexual harrassment.

Over the past few weeks, she's been reflecting on her decision to speak out, while watching on as women have made allegations of sexual assault, sexism and misogyny at Australia's federal Parliament.

They included Brittany Higgins, a former Liberal staffer who claims she was raped by a colleague in a ministerial office.

When the March 4 Justice protest was held on the lawn of that same building, Ms Lee joined their ranks.

ABC News: Tom Maddocks

Ms Lee said those recent events had reinforced her belief in the importance of women in leadership positions telling their stories.

It was a conviction that was also galvanisedin the aftermath of her accusation against Justice Heydon, when she received an outpouring of support.

"A lot of women who I know and who I don't know, reached out to me and said 'thank you for sharing because a similar experience happened to me and made me realise I'm not alone'," she said.

"As somebody especially from a multicultural background, there is so much stigma attached to coming out and revealing that you've had an experience."

Ms Lee said she wantedto set an example forwomen from diverse backgrounds "to let them know that it's not their fault".

She said too often, people who had experienced sexual harassment or abuse blamed themselves for what had occurred.

"A lot of the time that's where it goes a self-blame game," she said.

From the start, she was aware of the significance of her appointment to the top job.

"There was a lot of interest when I was elected leader of my party. The first woman leader for my party for about 20 years, but also of the female leadership team with my deputy Giulia Jones," she said.

"I think that was really welcomed by the community."

She said she was encouraged by the fact that women were strongly represented in the ACT Legislative Assembly.

"I think it helps enormously, because the public has spoken very loudly that they want to see women in leadership roles," she said.

ABC News: Dylan Anderson

Ms Lee contends there isa big difference between the culture on Capital Hill and what happensup the road at the ACT Legislative Assembly, but she warns no workplace is immune.

"What we've been hearing is just horrific," she said.

"The other thing that we've realised from these instances that have come up is that we can't be complacent in any workplace.

"It's about making sure that our leaders, across the country, across all political parties, know that this is not limited and it's not unique to politics and that we do need to look at this very seriously across the board."

Ms Lee would notbe drawn on whether she thinks there needs to be an inquiry into the allegationagainst Attorney-General Christian Porter, but said she hassince spoken to Prime Minister Scott Morrison about issues for women in parliament.

"He himself actually raised his concerns about what was happening as well," she said.

"So I am under no delusions about the importance of what is happening, the gravity of the situation and that is why politicians from all parties have been very concerned and have expressed that concern."

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Canberra Liberals leader Elizabeth Lee on the importance of speaking out about injustice as a woman in leadership - ABC News

Illustration: John ShakespeareCredit:The Sydney Morning Herald

I was abused by a family member, groomed from the age of eight. Its affected my whole life and the decisions I have made. Its a common story you hear from anybody in that situation and its a good example of why we need to have a national conversation about these things. It is such a prevalent issue.

The speed with which Janine Hendrys spontaneous tweet how many women would you need to form a circle surrounding Parliament House? turned into a 100,000-person national rally is a pretty good clue. It took only two weeks. It was not a celebrity-led event; it had no organisational backing, no money.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity now for real change, says Archer. Youve got your head in the sand if you cant see the momentum behind this push for justice, for change, for people to have their voices heard.

But its the policy of the government to put its head in the sand. The leadership is trying to move on to its preferred topics, its preferred political battlegrounds of the economy, the vaccination program, national security.

Scott Morrison judged at the outset that the demand for justice for women was just a passing enthusiasm. That was a month ago. He was wrong. Hes hated every moment of the campaign, the news, the noise. Two of his cabinet ministers are on leave, the government has lost ground in the polls, its lost control of the political agenda.

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The government has bungled badly and just wants the whole women problem to disappear, as if 52 per cent of the electorate is some special-interest clique that can be relegated with a couple of standard crisis-management techniques and talking points dictated by political backroom apparatchiks with all the life experience of an introverted monk in a cloistered order.

Morrison declined the invitation to join the rally. Instead, he offered to meet three or four delegates in his office. The organisers declined: Given that so many have come to the steps of Parliament to make their voices heard, the question is, why cant the Prime Minister take the last few steps through the front door and hear them directly?

In the event, at least 15 Coalition MPs and senators were prepared to venture outside their high-security hideout to meet their fellow citizens. Should Morrison have taken those last few steps? Bridget Archer says its hard for her to know whether it would have been helpful.

I think what would be good now is to follow up, she says. We have to keep the momentum or it will be lost.

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Another Liberal backbencher, Russell Broadbent, has written to Morrison proposing a national summit of womens groups to discuss the subject.

Archer supports this idea. I dont think the Prime Minister or the Opposition Leader is to be expected to magically fix it all. But we cant point to the record amount we are investing in health or in domestic violence, even though its true, because its not enough. It doesnt matter how much youre tipping in if the bucket has a hole in it. Weve done that with sexual violence and its got worse.

Something is not working. The missing piece is cultural change, and that is a structural issue. We cant presume to know it all. You have to listen. Something along the lines of a national summit would be a really good start, and then build on that.

It would need to be bipartisan if it was to work. Archer says she is consulting womens groups about such an idea. In the next couple of days I will certainly be putting my views to the Prime Minister.

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Shell be up against the conventional political playbook for such inconveniences. And she knows it. She summarises accurately the political play to date: The Labor Party has been saying for a few weeks that the Liberals have a problem with women. Now the Liberal party has been saying you, Labor, dont have the moral high ground, which has been one of the reasons that the Prime Ministers office has been cheerleading the Liberals Nicolle Flint as she repeatedly accuses Labor of tacitly endorsing a sexist hate campaign against her at the 2019 election.

This week is the closing of the political loop on that yes, both sides are guilty of mistreating women, Archer says. We are missing the point. The whole country has a problem of culture, of increased levels of violence and disrespect against women.

Chanel Contoss petition, with thousands of testimonials of current and former schoolgirls detailing sexual assault, is one indicator.

Another is the NSW Police Commissioner, Mick Fullers expression of frustration this week with the annual 15,000 reports of sexual assault: Men continue to get away with it less than 2 per cent of the reports lead to guilty verdicts in court. His proposal for an app as a way of registering sexual consent may be impractical, but it was a genuine effort to find new ways to deal with an intractable problem.

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Closing the loop on the political play the two major parties inflicting damage on each other is not the end of the story and it isnt even the beginning, says Archer.

The other element of the standard playbook is the look busy trick. The government is busy with urgent priorities just now. Archers response: The Australian people rightly expect their government to walk and chew gum at the same time. Yes, there is a vaccine rollout, and there is an economic recovery plan. You know what? This is an equally important issue of national significance. What are you saying if you say other things are more important? Thats the problem. Thats exactly the problem.

The politics is the process of strangling the humanity. The political week started with the rally demanding attention for the women of Australia; it ended with a parade of politicians talking about themselves and each other. We have to turn our gaze away from ourselves and back onto the people of Australia, Archer urges.

If the national interest isnt compelling enough, theres also a political incentive. The Coalition once enjoyed an enormous lead over Labor in its share of womens votes. In 1967 the Coalition had an advantage of 9 per cent over Labor, as the ANUs Australian Electoral Study shows.

Thats been declining consistently and went to nothing towards the end of the Howard period, says the ANUs Ian McAllister. Women were exactly divided between the main parties in their support for a while.

The long-term trend of women to be less conservative and more progressive is witnessed across much of the Western world, for three reasons, McAllister explains: a growing proportion of women went into higher education; likewise they went into the work force; and women, once more religious then men, lost that tendency.

Under Julia Gillard, Labor won a surge of women voters, its advantage 7 per cent for a while. Most of that has gone, but Labor still held a 2 per cent edge over the government among women at the 2019 election.

Former prime minister Julia Gillard welcomed another woman to Labors ranks when Senator Marielle Smith delivered her first parliamentary speech in September 2019.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

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All of which suggests that factors such as leadership and the handling of gender issues in Parliament may well have an influence on voting preference, McAllister concludes.

In other words, if its not too late, the powerful current demanding justice for women today isnt necessarily just a danger to be dodged; it can be intelligently approached and humanely handled, a political asset to be salvaged.

The women and the men of Australia are telling us that the time is now and they are looking for leadership, says Bridget Archer.

Spoken like a true leader.

Peter Hartcher is political editor and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Originally posted here:
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