MLC Aileen MacDonald calls for 'job interviews' to preselect more Liberal women candidates

The Guyra-based MLC told the Leader she'd hit the ground running in her first weeks in office. She's so new to the job she has yet to even have media training.

Nonetheless, the former member of the party's state executive had some big ideas about parliament, which she said would be less adversarial and more effective if it were more balanced in gender terms.

She backs the party's adoption of a 40 per cent gender target, but doesn't believe in a quota system.

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But the party needs to figure out a plan to hit the target, she said, something it has struggled with in the past.

"I think it's up to all of us to do something about it," she said.

"It's not just women for women. It's how do we make parliament more representative of the people of NSW.

"It's incumbent of every member of the party to think about that and how that should be reflected.

"Maybe it's changing preselections."

She said the party should consider adopting a UK-style process, which would involve a job interview for candidates.

Australian parties currently typically conduct probity checks of candidates, to check issues like eligibility and criminal record, but leave selecting the final winner to party members.

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Part of the solution is about "being asked to put your name forward" to undermine some women's lack of confidence in their own qualification, she said.

In 2010, the National party dipped its toes into the waters of a US-style primary system, opening its preselection process to the community at large to select Tamworth MP Kevin Anderson in 2010.

She said the Liberal party should go in exactly the opposite direction.

"I probably would go the UK model," she said

"I guess because you then have a job description.

"How do you apply or the job if you don't know what the measure is?"

Mrs MacDonald won preselection after a vote of party members in early August, to replace Catherine Cusack.

She was involved in various voluntary and business roles in the Guyra community for 30 years.

Husband Scot MacDonald served in the upper house from 2011 to 2019.

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