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Angus Taylor is poised to take on the enormous task of reviving the Liberal Party, as backers of Opposition Leader Sussan Ley lose hope and lament the rejection of a peace offering that would have seen Ley stand down in coming months to create an orderly transition and avoid a coup.
As Taylor declared the party’s future was at stake, momentum swung hard towards the challenger over the course of Thursday. Eight members of Ley’s shadow ministry, including James McGrath, who voted for Ley over Taylor last year, quit and declared no confidence in her leadership.
Unaligned MPs had been wary of toppling Ley but have this week swung towards Taylor, saying the current leader had failed to demonstrate in private conversations how she would turn around the party’s terrible polling numbers.
The powerbroker who has guided Taylor’s strategy and helped force Andrew Hastie out of the race, James Paterson, held a solo press conference in Canberra and laid out a brutal assessment of Ley’s leadership while acknowledging his own share of blame for the Coalition’s historically poor polling.
“At the last election … almost 5 million Australians voted for us. They put their trust in us. Over the last nine months, according to the most recent opinion polls, 2.1 million of those people have since deserted the Coalition,” Paterson said, admitting Ley had been dealt a bad hand.
“That’s more than 200,000 votes a month. It’s more than 50,000 votes a week. It’s more than 7,000 votes a day. This cannot go on. If it goes on, there’ll be nothing left of the Liberal Party by the next election.”
Optimistic conservatives hoped they could win by a margin of about 10 votes as MPs sniff the wind and back the likely winner. Ley’s allies hoped they could be behind by as few as two votes, but one conceded that even if the remaining handful of swing voters backed Ley, she would still fall short.
If an initial spill motion is to succeed by a big margin in Friday’s 9am meeting in Canberra, Ley’s supporters are not certain if she will stand against Taylor in the subsequent vote. This would potentially push the Moderates to put up a candidate such as Tim Wilson.
Labor ministers went one-by-one savaging Taylor in question time, treating him as the effective opposition leader and attacking the Liberals for trying to depose their first female leader.
Ley’s allies claimed the bitterness and public disapproval caused by the leadership challenge could have been avoided. Two MPs close to Ley, not willing to speak on the record, said factional ally Alex Hawke and leading Moderates had in recent days and weeks told right-wingers to ditch plans for a spill. They pleaded to give Ley until after the budget in May. After that, if her polling numbers failed to rise, they suggested she would voluntarily quit and hand over the job.
One senior right-winger told this masthead they believed the offer from the Moderates but not from Hawke, and that the case for change was so significant that the spill had to occur quickly.
Taylor spent Thursday talking to colleagues. He was determined not to do deals with MPs to offer them promotions in return for their vote, as Ley was alleged to have done last year.
In a social media video posted mid-morning on Thursday, Taylor said: “I’m running to be the leader of the Liberal Party because I believe that Australia is worth fighting for”.
“I’m dedicated to serving you, the Australian people, and give you a strong alternative that re-enlivens the great Australian dream,” he said, signing off by warning, “we’re running out of time.”
His supporters flagged a more muscular conservative agenda in contrast to Ley’s stated appeal to shift to the centre.
Former Howard government minister Amanda Vanstone criticised Taylor’s move on social media, saying: “Angus Taylor. Shadow Treasurer 2022 to 25 … And he says libs haven’t held government to account … What’s his explanation for his failure?”
The MPs who quit Ley’s frontbench on Thursday, in order of the time of their announcements, were: Claire Chandler, Matt O’Sullivan, Phil Thompson (who formally called for the spill along with backbencher Jess Collins), Jonno Duniam (a significant move because he had supported Hastie to become leader), Paterson, Michaelia Cash, James McGrath and Dan Tehan.
The field for the party’s deputy leader position could be crowded. Victorian Moderate senator Jane Hume is being backed by a number of Taylor’s supporters. Melissa Price, Zoe McKenzie, Tehan and Wilson are all either certain or possible contenders. Incumbent Ted O’Brien may hold on, but Hume is seen as a top rival.
Wilson is being talked about as a potential shadow treasurer – a role currently held by O’Brien.
A prominent Moderate senator from Victoria, Hume is one of the party’s most energetic and articulate media performers and is viewed as the type of Liberal who can appeal to metropolitan voters. She was shifted to the backbench after the last election due to errors on working from home and a remark about “Chinese spies” that was weaponised in Labor attack ads.
Speaking on 2GB radio on Thursday morning, Hume offered a glowing review of Taylor, saying: “He is a very deep thinker … 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 human human.”
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Paul Sakkal is chief political correspondent. He previously covered Victorian politics and has won Walkley and Quill awards. Reach him securely on Signal @paulsakkal.14Connect via X or email.
Nick Newling is a federal politics reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.From our partners
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