Coalition leader Sussan Ley pledges 'alternatives Australians can believe in' as shadow cabinet meets

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has promised alternative policies voters can believe in as her shadow cabinet gathers for the first time since the Coalition’s bruising election loss.

Senior Liberals and Nationals met in Canberra on Thursday at Parliament House for their first formal talks after the landslide defeat and subsequent brief split between the coalition parties.

Ms Ley told colleagues the loss was “sobering” but had vowed to help rebuild the party.

“It’s not just about holding the government to account, it’s about offering our alternatives, and offering alternatives to Australians that are something they can believe in,” she said.

“Our job is to present that alternative narrative for Australians so they look at us and know that we’re a party that respects, reflects and will represent modern Australia and we can restore their faith and trust in us.”

Nationals leader David Littleproud said the coalition needed to understand why it had suffered its worst result at an election since the 1940s.

“We’ve got to cop the election result on the chin,” he said.

“The mob will turn, as they turn in this election, they can turn again, and when they turn, they’ll turn big time.

“What we’ve got to be is humble, but we’ve also got to be aggressive in making sure we prosecute that case.”

The Coalition will have just 43 out of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives when parliament returns in late July.

The first meeting of the shadow cabinet came after Ms Ley put forward the case for a new direction for the Liberal Party in an address to the national Press Club on Wednesday.

Ms Ley said she was open to quotas for female candidates to ensure the party remain relevant with voters.

“I’m agnostic on specific methods to make it happen but I am a zealot that it actually does happen,” she said in the speech.

“Our party must pre-select more women in winnable seats so that we see more women in federal parliament.”

Out of the 70 Coalition members in the next parliament, just 24 of them are women.

While nearly half of the Coalition’s Senate representation is female, 13 out of 27, there are just nine female MPs out of 43 in the lower house.

Ms Ley told ABC Radio on Thursday the party had to do better for female representation.

“As the first woman leader of our federal party, let me send the clearest possible message: we do need to do better. We’ve got to recruit better. We’ve got to retain better. We’ve got to support better,” she said.

“People are ready for it. We have to get more women into parliament. It’s as simple as that.”