Liberal leader warned against rewarding too many allies
Angus Taylor’s upcoming primary reshuffle is expected to reward leading conservatives but the opposition leader is warned that a successful shadow ministry must strike the right balance.
The announcement could be made as early as Tuesday, after Mr Taylor ousted the Liberal Party’s first female leader, Sussan Ley, over a leak.
The Hume MP is widely expected to reward his factional allies with his tip-off for senators Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Sarah Henderson and Western Australian MP Andrew Hastie to return to the front line.
The promotions could come at the expense of Ms Ley’s key supporters after Mr Taylor was ousted by 34 votes in a party hall vote on Friday.
Alex Hawke, Andrew Wallace, Scott Buchholz and Anne Ruston are among those at risk of losing their shadow ministries.
But one expert said Mr Taylor should take notes from former Liberal leader John Howard’s “broad church” approach to designing a front bench that would ensure moderate and conservative voices were represented.
“The most important job for Angus Taylor now is to build a front bench that can work together to make policy, because that was Peter Dutton’s biggest failure,” said Jill Sheppard, a political scientist at the Australian National University.
“He will need to balance the front bench by filling it with his own bench.”
Dr Sheppard said one way to achieve this balance would be to promote moderate Tim Wilson to shadow treasurer.
Senator Nampijinpa Price is lobbying for a front-row seat and says, “I’m back, baby” and has no regrets about previous negative remarks made about Indian voters.
“I’m back, baby… I was breathing a little bit, but I’m back. The fever is back,” she said on Karl Stefanovic’s podcast.
The NT senator was booted from Ms Ley’s front bench after claiming the Albanian government was prioritizing immigrants most likely to vote Labor and held up Indian Australians as an example.
He did not apologize for the comments and refused to support Ms Ley’s leadership.
“Don’t force me to apologize for something that doesn’t require an apology,” he said.
Senator Henderson, who was kicked out of Ms Ley’s front row when it was announced in May, has made clear his desire to return.
“Hopefully I can get back to the front team but, as Angus made clear, we are in a very difficult situation,” he said.
The first poll published since Ms Ley’s ouster shows support for the coalition rose by three points to 23 per cent, level with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.
“Angus Taylor has made it quite clear that he knows that the first challenge to the coalition at the moment is coming from the right and that they need to stop that flow of voters,” Dr Sheppard said.
Asked whether the Nationals would renegotiate the deal that brings the coalition back together, Nationals MP Kevin Hogan said his party was comfortable with that.
Ms Ley agreed to reunite the coalition on condition that National Party leaders who broke shadow cabinet solidarity over hate crime laws in January are suspended for six weeks
Mr Hogan told Sky News: “If we come back on March 1 or if we come back tomorrow we’re comfortable with that.”
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