The Liberal Party will not “navel gaze” on the federal election loss but instead focus on providing a credible alternative to the Labor government, a former minister says.
While in opposition, former employment minister Stuart Robert said the party will focus its attention on people in its heartland.
“We need to appeal to all Australians. Our natural constituency … is aspirational Australia, the suburban Australians, the forgotten Australians,” he told Sky News on Wednesday.
“The key thing is to learn and to understand why (we lost) and we’ve started that quickly. We’re not going to navel gaze about these things endlessly.”
But new Labor ministers will be provided with as much of a handover as possible to ensure they are brought up to speed, Mr Robert said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appointed a record number of women to his frontbench.
The cabinet now consists of 23 members, 10 of whom are women.
But a joint task for all sides of politics will be to ensure representation and each new parliament must continue to build on the gender and cultural diversity of the one before it, Mr Robert said.
“The previous record (of) seven women in cabinet was in the Morrison government, so each successive government builds and builds and that’s a good thing,” he said.
“Our parliament should be reflective and representative of the Australian people.”
Opposition leader Peter Dutton is working on his shadow ministry line up to be unveiled in coming days.
Former foreign minister Marise Payne, who has been a NSW senator since 1997, is not expected to put her hand up for a position.
