Angus Taylor launches long-awaited Liberal leadership challenge against Sussan Ley
Liberal MP Angus Taylor has resigned from frontbench Sussan Ley, paving the way for a long-awaited leadership fight.
“I have tendered my resignation as a Shadow Cabinet member,” he said on Wednesday night.
“I tried to be a constructive member of the leadership team, supporting Sussan Ley’s leadership at a difficult time when we needed to rebuild the party.
“But we can’t beat around the bush. The Liberal Party is in the worst shape. This is a reality we can face and we can’t ignore it.”
“I do not believe Susan Ley is in a position to lead the party as it should be.”
Mr Taylor said the current situation was “unsustainable”.
“That’s why I made the very difficult decision I made tonight,” he said.
It was not immediately clear what exactly Mr. Taylor would do differently as leader. “What we need now is strong leadership, clear direction and a bold focus on our values, and the first two priorities should be to preserve our way of life and restore our standard of living,” he said when asked.
When pressed, he continued: “I think I’ve outlined most of this already, so the focus will be on restoring our standard of living and preserving our way of life.”
NewsWire understands that no other shadow cabinet members have followed suit in resigning as previously reported.
The pressure on Mr Taylor to try to oust his boss has been mounting for weeks as chaos in the coalition soars.
Party sources told NewsWire the leadership candidate must make her move on Wednesday or drop the rumors and stand behind their first female Liberal leader.
It remains to be seen whether Mr Taylor will succeed, but any leaks are also expected to open up the position of deputy leader.
NewsWire understands moderate MP Zoe McKenzie and Senator Jane Hume have been named as possible MPs.
After waiting for hours, Angus Taylor left his office followed by reporters on Wednesday evening.
Accompanied by a single attendant, he knocked twice on Sussan Ley’s office door and entered at 7.11am.
He stopped short of directly announcing that he would challenge Ms Ley as leader, but said in a statement: “Over the coming period, I will consult closely with colleagues about the future of our Party, so that it can once again be the party Australians expect and deserve.”
Ms Ley’s future at the top of the party has been in doubt for months, and the situation was exacerbated when three National senators broke shadow cabinet solidarity by voting against Labour’s Bondi hate speech reforms, leading to the Coalition’s second collapse since she came to power.
The Coalition has since fallen below One Nation in the latest polls; for the first time the conservative bloc was overtaken by a minor party and Ley’s personal popularity plummeted; The latest Newspoll named him the least popular major party leader in 23 years.
Speaking on Wednesday night, Mr Taylor said he was “absolutely committed to restoring confidence in the Liberal Party to ensure Australians regain their confidence in the Liberal Party and to get the Liberal Party back to where it should be”.
Mr Taylor emerged as Ms Ley’s main rival after former frontrunner Andrew Hastie said he would not contest the leadership, leaving Mr Taylor as the sole leader of the party’s Right wing.
When or whether Mr. Taylor would launch this challenge remained up in the air until this week; that weekend it became clear that the window of opportunity had closed following Coalition reform.
The last News Poll published after the reformation of the coalition branded Ms Ley the most unpopular major party leader in more than two decades.
The poll showed the Coalition’s primary vote at a very low 18 per cent, while One Nation’s vote share rose again to 27 per cent.
Ms. Ley’s personal popularity also fell; Only 23 percent of the 1,234 voters surveyed were satisfied with his performance, with a net satisfaction rating of -39.
