Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and her allies are confidently proclaiming she will remain in the job as her conservative critics remain split and backers of Andrew Hastie hope Angus Taylor pulls out of the leadership race.
Speculation about Ley’s future ratcheted up last week after the Coalition fell apart over a dispute about frontbench discipline. Senior Liberals and Nationals were on Monday pleading with party leaders to find a last-ditch resolution to avoid a permanent schism.
Ley’s leadership is fragile, but her prospects are boosted by a disagreement in the Right over whether Hastie, 43, or Taylor, 59, should challenge, after this masthead revealed on Saturday that Hastie rebuffed a suggestion to run as Taylor’s deputy.
Far from accepting Taylor’s wish, Hastie loyalists are hoping Taylor bows out should he come to accept their judgement that Hastie enjoys much more support in the Right – a claim disputed by Taylor’s camp, especially because Taylor’s supporters think he has more support among non-right wingers in the party.
One of Ley’s allies taunted the MPs pushing behind the scenes for a spill, describing them as a “small group of disgruntled colleagues”.
“They can’t agree on a candidate, they can’t agree on a timeline, they can’t say what they’d do differently to Susan Ley to reform the Coalition with the Nationals. This isn’t a spill; this is a joke,” they said, risking embarrassment should the Right get its act together.
Ley addressed reporters on Australia Day, saying she was “absolutely not” of the belief that her leadership was over.
“I know there’s some frenzy of speculation in the media. I’ve been elected by my party room to lead. I’m doing that – I have the confidence of my team,” she said.
Senator Jane Hume, who was dumped from Ley’s frontbench but may be offered a promotion to fill one of the spots vacated by resigning Nationals, said on Sky News that there had been “no spill call … [and] no demand for action.”
Ley’s deputy, Ted O’Brien, said on the ABC that Ley had displayed “an enormous amount of dignity and strength” after taking on Littleproud, predicting a leadership challenge would not emerge.
Liberal rebels do not want to detract from Thursday’s funeral for former Liberal MP Katie Allen with a fever-pitched debate on Ley’s leadership, so moves might be ramped up next weekend ahead of MPs returning to Canberra on Monday. Any challenger would need more than half of the Liberal party room’s 52 MPs.
Taylor, approached by The Australian at an Australia Day ceremony, repeatedly refused to rule out a challenge, citing his obligations as a shadow minister which require him to publicly support the current leader.
“But I hear today and I hear from colleagues, we have to do better,” he said.
Some Liberal Party MPs whose support would be needed feel that dumping Ley would satisfy the wishes of Nationals leader David Littleproud, in whom Liberals have lost faith.
Former MP Jason Falinski, who lost the NSW seat of Mackeller to teal independent Sophie Scamps in 2022, told Sky that an extended split from the Nationals was “not a danger to the Liberal party”, citing “appalling” behaviour from the junior Coalition partner.
“So yes, I think the longer our parties are separate, the better it is for the Liberal Party, ” Falinski said. “And if the National Party wants to come back, it will have to be after they have to – that they have conceded that they have learnt a lot of lessons from the last decade or so.”
The next step in the Coalition break-up is Littleproud’s appointment of an unofficial “shadow-shadow” cabinet, in which Nationals MPs who served in the real opposition shadow cabinet until last week, and backbench MPs, would be appointed as Nationals spokespeople on for certain policy areas.
That announcement is expected this week, at which point the split would be formalised and Ley would need to fill the positions vacated by Nationals on her official shadow frontbench, which comes with extra money for advisers and salaries – unlike the new jobs for Littleproud’s team, which will be treated like a minor party.
Former leader Michael McCormack said the parties must reconcile before Littleproud created his own frontbench, at which point the split would be set in stone.
“It’s really going to take a long time to unwind after that,” he said, reflecting the sentiment of at least half a dozen Nationals MPs reluctant to ditch their city-based partners.
Regional Liberal MP Dan Tehan, an outside chance to become Liberal leader, issued a dire warning that the opposition would not be successful if the split were not reconciled within the next few weeks.
“Otherwise we are going to be politically irrelevant for months, for months and months; it’s going to get harder and harder to bring ourselves back together, and all we’re doing is handing an absolute gift to Anthony Albanese,” he said.
Ley on Monday said her door remained open to the Nationals.
Tehan and other top members of the Liberal Party are still working with senior Nationals to avoid a split, but it is seen as unlikely that their attempts will succeed.
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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 Twitter or email.