Explosive Liberal election review to be suppressed
A contentious review of the Liberal Party’s disastrous 2025 election will be kept under wraps after Opposition Leader Angus Taylor met senior figures in the party on Friday and agreed to scrap the document.
Party elders Nick Minchin and Pru Goward worked for months on the official review of the election they completed last year. The 2022 review has been made public.
But the review has sparked controversy since Peter Dutton expressed serious concerns about its content in December. Dutton and those close to him believe the report makes false claims about a disconnect with party headquarters.
The review included critical reflections on the party’s policy agenda in the run-up to the last election, in which Taylor and MP Jane Hume were heavily involved as shadow treasurer and finance spokesperson respectively.
Taylor attended a meeting of the party’s federal executive branch on Friday, where the majority of officials agreed that the report and its recommendations would never be released. He will face pressure to explain why the party decided to suppress recommendations that shed light on failures and teach lessons.
One of the sources said the party had come to the view that it would be politically damaging to air its dirty laundry ahead of state elections in South Australia and a federal by-election in Sussan Ley’s seat. The source added that the pain wasn’t worth it, given how much the political climate has changed since the election.
Dutton claimed he wasn’t given enough time to respond to some of the observations in the report, and his allies felt it was deeply disrespectful to embroil a former leader’s office by so obviously blaming him for a loss.
Members of the party’s federal executive branch also expressed concern about the quality of the analysis in the review, which they felt was based on hearsay. Someone said it contained typos.
This imprint ran a series of stories about elements seen by a small group of officials who read the report last year. These included findings that the election of Donald Trump was a critical factor in Dutton’s descent to the bottom, that a rift emerged between Dutton and campaign officials, and that Dutton criticized Andrew Hastie’s work ethic in his presentations to the investigation.
Former Liberal cabinet minister Melissa Price, who was recently booted from the shadow bench following the latest leadership change, is one of several MPs calling for the review to be published.
Price told the ABC earlier this month that he wanted the full review to be published after the devastating election loss and hoped it would be published even as he criticized Taylor’s performance as shadow treasurer.
“I think Angus would want to have that kind of fearless and forthright conversation. Let’s face it, we need to have these conversations. We can’t have people hiding in the dark and saying there’s something negative about me,” she said.
“We do an evaluation after every election and things change over the course of the term and we’re still looking back three years and that’s a problem for us. We can’t do that anymore.”
James Massola is the chief political commentator. He was previously national affairs editor and Southeast Asia correspondent. He won the Quill and Kennedy awards and was a Walkley finalist. Connect securely to Signal @jamesmassola.01Connect with: X or email.
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.
