Angus Taylor challenges Sussan Ley, Jane Hume lobbies for deputy role
Updated ,first published
Liberal rival Angus Taylor announced his bid for the party leadership after five MPs resigned from the opposition front bench and Taylor’s supporters called a meeting to formally hold a vote.
Unusually, Taylor did not specifically announce his desire to run for leadership as he left the front bench late Wednesday. Inside a social media video Posting mid-morning on Thursday, Taylor said: “I’m running for leader of the Liberal Party because I believe Australia is worth fighting for.” he said.
“Our country is in trouble. The Labor government has failed and the Liberal Party has lost its way,” Taylor said. “I believe we need strong and decisive leadership that gives Australians the clarity, courage and confidence to provide Australians with a vision for the future.”
“I am committed to serving you, the Australian people, and offering you a strong alternative that will revive the great Australian dream. I am committed to rebuilding our party so that it can be the party Australians expect and deserve. Because we are running out of time.”
MPs Phil Thompson and Jess Collins wrote to chief opposition leader Aaron Violi earlier on Thursday, calling for a party room meeting. Taylor’s supporters want a meeting to be held on Thursday evening, but Ley could call the meeting for Friday.
Ley has the right to schedule the meeting and it will be held on Thursday or Friday. Taylor’s side is confident they have the numbers to win comfortably, but other MPs believe Taylor’s bid, which was delayed for hours on Wednesday, has been confused and has lost support among MPs.
Speaking to reporters at Parliament House in Canberra, Thompson said: “The polls don’t lie. We’ve seen people are pretty upset. The way we act is about change and nine months is enough time to turn this around and that hasn’t happened. That’s why we’re here.”
Thompson, Claire Chandler, Matt O’Sullivan, James Paterson and Jonno Duniam left their portfolios on Thursday morning. Paterson and Duniam face more significant resignations because they are in Ley’s leadership group. MPs resigned as an expression of their support for Taylor, as portfolios could only be held by people who backed the current leader.
Victorian senator Jane Hume began lobbying to become deputy leader of the Liberal Party. One of the options being considered on the Taylor side is to appoint Central MP Tim Wilson as shadow treasurer if Hume becomes MP.
Hume, who supports Taylor, began calling colleagues, including current MP Ted O’Brien, late on Wednesday night after Taylor resigned from the front row. Taylor is not running on an official ticket with Hume, but the pair are linked because the senator will only run if Taylor’s leadership bid is successful.
Hume, one of Victoria’s leading moderate senators, is seen as one of the party’s most energetic and articulate media performers and the kind of Liberal who could appeal to metropolitan voters.
He was not included in Ley’s shadow cabinet after the election because he had made two major campaign mistakes: announcing that the Coalition was abandoning its work-from-home policy and making a statement about “Chinese spies” being weaponized by Labor in the final days before the election.
Hume said the problem facing the Liberal Party was that “no one is listening to us. We are not a credible alternative and something needs to change”.
Speaking on 2GB radio on Thursday morning, Hume gave a glowing assessment of Taylor, saying: “He’s a very deep thinker in our party and a great intellect. He’s got incredible experience across a range of portfolios… He’s very good in city seats, but he comes from a country seat himself and is naturally a country boy… he’s a very humane person.”
Frontrunner Andrew Wallace said the majority of Liberal MPs wanted Ley to stay, and Moderate Andrew Bragg argued Ley deserved more time.
Bragg said on Sky News this morning: “I think Susan has been dealt a pretty tough hand. She’s a tough person and I think she needs to be given more time in that role, because I think most normal people would expect 12 months in a job to be at least a reasonable undertaking.” “It’s not clear to me what the alternative vision is for Australia.”
Also speaking to 2GB radio, Goldstein MP Tim Wilson said: “If the motion to dissolve the leadership is successful, I want to hear from the candidates, because what I want is clarity and vision about where we need to go, because we need to make it clear who we are fighting for.”
When Taylor lost the leadership vote to Ley last year, she was blocked in part by her contentious choice to run as Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s deputy. Since Hume was a former minister, it is not such a controversial suggestion.
However, Hume distanced himself from the Moderate faction through his support for the Right faction leader Taylor, and some key members of the Right do not support him. Some of Ley’s supporters think they could use Hume’s candidacy to dissuade undecided MPs from voting for Taylor.
Wilson, Zoe McKenzie, Dan Tehan and Melissa McIntosh have been suggested as supporting options for Taylor.
Taylor’s delay in speaking to the media on Wednesday night surprised some colleagues. His office also deleted a video he posted on social media Wednesday night explaining his move, raising further questions about the tenacity of his challenge.
Labor quickly broke Taylor’s record as shadow treasurer on Thursday.
Environment Minister Murray Watt said on Nine’s: “The problem for Angus Taylor was that he was Peter Dutton’s right-hand man. He led the charge to scrap taxes on Australians, cut budget deficits, cut home working, lay off tens of thousands of frontline workers and, most importantly, introduce nuclear power to raise energy prices.” Today to show.
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Paul Sakkal is the chief political correspondent. It has previously covered Victorian politics and won the Walkley and Quill awards. Reach him securely on Signal @paulsakkal.14Connect with: X or email.
Nick Newling is the federal politics correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.
