What conservative women want. By Flat White.
The Liberal Party is being told that the only way it can cling onto power (or win it back) is if the party panders to the demands of women. …
[That narrative] was started by a relentless Labor marketing campaign. The media quite liked throwing pink click-bait around and so it persisted, but there was never any detail behind the fiction.
Liberal leaders allowed the untrue accusation to sit unchallenged through several election cycles until it was ‘assumed’ as fact. Which is what happens to those who refuse to fight the culture wars. …
Really? Why don’t you ask them? So he did:
Last week, I sent out a question to subscribers of the nightly Flat White email asking conservative women: What do you want?
The first and almost universal reply from women was that they had never been asked. …
Liberal leaders are getting their information about the demands of female voters from the ABC and hard-left feminist social media accounts. …
A 39-year-old woman, centre-right, and a Christian expressed her disillusionment with all levels of the Liberal Party. Her disappointment is largely to do with their policies, in particular ‘their apparent lukewarmness and lack of a backbone on controversial issues’. …
Her conclusion was that the party should promote less spending, or at least spend money on things that make a difference to society; have a healthy promotion of national spirit; more focus on national security; education instead of indoctrination with a focus on teaching children the importance of democracy; championing free speech; making sure the ‘broad church’ doesn’t erode the party; and defending the freedom of religion. This conservative woman has lost faith in the education system to the point that she has looked into homeschooling.
Our next reply was from a young professional in her twenties expecting her first child later in the year. She has a degree in a STEM subject and has been working in economics. Her wishes for the party may surprise policy experts. The first thing that she wants is to see childcare subsidies stopped (or limited to those in critical need) as ‘there is no reason why everyone else should pay because you decided to have a child’ also, ‘there is no reason why parents who choose to stay at home and raise their own children should be forced to pay for other people’s kids to go to childcare’. She worries that parents should be encouraged to raise their children after noticing many seem to talk to their kids as if they were strangers. …
Her other concerns may resonate; stem the flow of immigration (‘the contradiction of preaching about climate change and Aboriginal land while cramming more people in’); give Australians a chance to afford a home; preserve what’s left of Australia’s culture; encourage assimilation; stop indulging in divisive ideology; and finally, no female quotas (‘I don’t care whether someone is male, female, or X – I care about how suited they are to the job’). …
Another woman added, ‘I expect political parties to be brave in condemning any and all Woke trash.’ Of particular concern is the Liberal Party’s apparent disinterest in protecting children from ‘gender-affirming’ indoctrination that confuses vulnerable kids. She also wishes the Liberals to stand up and put an end to divisive race politics and calls for a Royal Commission to track down the billions of dollars invested in Indigenous projects to make sure it is being used responsibly. …
There is a general anger when it comes to the lack of questioning done by the Liberals toward all these left-wing causes. It seems there are no members prepared to fight their Labor counterparts leaving voters feeling as if they have no voice at all. …
‘I want a Liberal Party to display conservative values, not to crumble under Woke aggression and every stupid Woke idea. I want a Liberal Party that values hard work and individual achievement.’
And for those Liberal MPs who are reading, wondering what women want: ‘I want a Liberal Party that is willing to say that a woman is a woman and a man is a man.’
Another reader insisted that the Liberal Party drop ‘purely tokenistic’ quotas that insult hard-working women and instead encourage young women to become interested in civic duties and make the process compatible with their parental responsibilities. ‘Get back to your liberal conservative values and stand up for them! Show a bit of bloody courage and maybe you’ll attract other courageous people!’ …
A common demand was for politicians to ‘speak in plain English’ when it comes to their policy ideas. …
And while conservative women disagreed about whether climate change was happening (and to what extent) — it is essentially irrelevant because they came to the same conclusion: nuclear energy and old-school, genuine environmentalism that focuses on recycling and cleaning up pollution. No one who responded to my request wanted the Liberals to chase wind turbines, solar panels, or batteries because they were all smart enough to know that they’d be lying in landfill. …
Women don’t ‘vote for women’ – they vote for strength, intelligence, and strong moral principles. Yes, women have traditionally had a different role to men in society, but being primary caregivers, women are more keenly attuned to desire security and safety when it comes to political leaders. This weak, copycat class of international bureaucrats that scurry around in terror whenever a newspaper blows by are hardly desirable to women.
In other words, stand up and fight for your principles — instead of being tricked into going along with your opponent’s woke nonsense.
Might work for the Liberal Party. Hasn’t been tried for over a decade now.
