Liberal Party leadership spill tomorrow, Angus Taylor to challenge Sussan Ley
Updated ,first published
Angus Taylor is set to undertake the monumental task of reviving the Liberal Party as supporters of Opposition Leader Sussan Ley lose hope and bemoan the rejection of a peace offer that would see Ley withdraw in the coming months to create an orderly transition and prevent a coup.
Momentum swung sharply towards the rival side throughout Thursday as Taylor declared the party’s future was at stake. Eight members of Ley’s shadow ministry, including James McGrath, who voted for Ley over Taylor last year, have resigned and declared they do not trust his leadership.
Nonpartisan MPs were wary of ousting Ley but turned to Taylor this week, saying the current leader had failed in private conversations to show how he would turn around the party’s disastrous polling figures.
James Paterson, the power broker who guided Taylor’s strategy and helped Andrew Hastie drop out of the race, held a solitary press conference in Canberra and laid out a grim assessment of Ley’s leadership while accepting his share of responsibility for the Coalition’s historically poor polling.
“At the last election… almost 5 million Australians voted for us. They trusted us. According to the latest polls, 2.1 million of those people have left the Coalition in the last nine months,” Paterson said, admitting Ley had been dealt a bad hand.
“That’s more than 200,000 votes a month. More than 50,000 votes a week. More than 7,000 votes a day. This can’t go on. If it goes on like this, there will be nothing left of the Liberal Party by the next election.”
Optimistic conservatives hoped they could win by about 10 votes as MPs caught wind and backed the likely winner. Ley’s allies hoped they could trail by as little as two votes, but one of them conceded that even if the remaining handful of undecided voters backed Ley, he would still fall short.
If the first leak motion succeeds by a wide margin at the 9am meeting in Canberra on Friday, Ley’s supporters are unsure whether she will stand against Taylor in the next vote. This could potentially push the Moderates to put forward a candidate like Tim Wilson.
One by one, Labor ministers attacked Taylor during questioning, treating her as an influential opposition leader and attacking the Liberals who tried to oust their first female leader.
Ley’s allies claimed that the anger and public disapproval sparked by the leadership struggle could have been avoided. Two MPs close to Ley, who did not want to speak on the record, said faction ally Alex Hawke and leading Moderates had been telling right-wingers to drop leak plans in recent days and weeks. They pleaded for the Ley to be released by after the budget in May. After that, if his voting rates did not increase, they suggested that he resign voluntarily and hand over the job.
A senior right-winger told this imprint that they believed in the proposal from the moderates but not from Hawke, and that the case for change was so important that the leak had to happen quickly.
Taylor spent Thursday talking with colleagues. He was determined not to make deals to offer MPs promotions in exchange for their votes, as Ley allegedly did last year.
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.”
“I am committed to serving you, the Australian people, and providing you with a strong alternative that will revive the great Australian dream,” he said, concluding by warning that “we are running out of time.”
His supporters have flagged a stronger conservative agenda, contrary to Ley’s call for a shift to the centre.
Former Howard government minister Amanda Vanstone criticized Taylor’s move on social media, saying: “Angus Taylor. Shadow Treasurer 2022 to 25… And he says the Liberals haven’t held the government to account… What explains his failure?”
The MPs who left Ley’s front bench on Thursday, by the time of their announcement, were: Claire Chandler, Matt O’Sullivan, Phil Thompson (who, along with backbencher Jess Collins, formally requested the leak), Jonno Duniam (a significant move as he backed Hastie to become leader), Paterson, Michaelia Cash, James McGrath and Dan Tehan.
The field for the party’s deputy leader position may be crowded. Mid-Victorian Senator Jane Hume is supported by some of Taylor’s supporters. Melissa Price, Zoe McKenzie, Tehan and Wilson are either definite or probable candidates. Incumbent Ted O’Brien may hold out, but Hume is seen as the top challenger.
Wilson has been mentioned as a potential shadow treasurer, currently held by O’Brien.
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 moved to the backbench after the last election due to blunders about working from home and remarks about “Chinese spies” being used as weapons in Labor attack ads.
Speaking on 2GB radio on Thursday morning, Hume gave a glowing assessment of Taylor, saying: “He’s a very deep thinker… He’s very good in the city seats, but he comes from the country seat himself and is naturally a country boy… he’s a very humane person.”
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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.
