Updated ,first published
Liberal challenger Angus Taylor has announced his bid for the party leadership after five MPs resigned from the opposition frontbench and Taylor’s backers formally called for a meeting to hold a ballot.
Unusually, Taylor did not specifically declare his desire to run as leader when he quit the frontbench late on Wednesday. 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.”
“Our country is in trouble. The Labor government has failed, and the Liberal Party has lost its way,” Taylor said. “I believe we need strong and decisive leadership that gives Australians clarity, courage and confidence in providing a vision for the future.”
“I’m dedicated to serving you, the Australian people, and give you a strong alternative that re-enlivens the great Australian dream. I’m committing myself to the cause of restoring our party so that it can be the party that Australians expect and deserve. Because we’re running out of time”.
MPs Phil Thompson and Jess Collins wrote to chief opposition whip Aaron Violi early on Thursday calling for a party room meeting. Taylor’s backers want a meeting to be held on Thursday evening but Ley might call the meeting for Friday.
Ley has the right to schedule the meeting, and it will be held either Thursday or Friday. Taylor’s camp is confident they have the numbers to win comfortably, but other MPs believe Taylor’s bid, which was delayed by hours on Wednesday, has been muddled and lost him support among MPs.
Speaking to journalists at Parliament House in Canberra, Thompson said: “The polling doesn’t lie. We’ve seen that the people are quite upset. Well, the way that we act is by change, and nine months is enough time to be able to turn that around, and that hasn’t happened. That’s why we’re here.”
Thompson, Claire Chandler, Matt O’Sullivan, James Paterson and Jonno Duniam stepped down from their portfolios on Thursday morning. Paterson and Duniam are more significant resignations because they are in Ley’s leadership group. The MPs resigned as an expression of support for Taylor, as portfolios can only be held by those who express support for the current leader.
Victorian senator Jane Hume has started lobbying to become deputy leader of the Liberal Party. One option under consideration in the Taylor camp is to appoint Moderate MP Tim Wilson as shadow treasurer if Hume becomes deputy.
Hume, who supports Taylor, started phoning colleagues, including current deputy Ted O’Brien, late on Wednesday night after Taylor resigned from the frontbench. Taylor is not running with Hume on a formal ticket, but the pair are linked because the senator will only run if Taylor’s bid for the leadership is successful.
Hume, a prominent moderate senator from Victoria, 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 not named in Ley’s shadow cabinet after the election, having made two significant campaign mistakes: announcing the Coalition’s abandoned work-from-home policy and making a remark about “Chinese spies” that was weaponised by Labor in the final days before the election.
Hume said the problem facing the Liberal Party was that “nobody is listening to us. We are not a credible alternative and something has to change”.
Speaking on 2GB radio on Thursday morning, Hume offered a glowing review of Taylor, saying: “He is a very deep thinker and a great intellect in our party. He’s got incredible experience at a number of portfolios … 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.”
Frontbencher Andrew Wallace said the majority of Liberal MPs want Ley to remain and Moderate Andrew Bragg argued Ley deserved more time.
“I think Sussan has been dealt a pretty difficult hand. She’s a tough person, and I think she ought to be given more time in the role, as I think most normal people would expect 12 months in a job is at least a reasonable attempt,” Bragg said on Sky News this morning. “It’s not clear to me what the alternative vision for Australia is.”
Goldstein MP Tim Wilson, also speaking to 2GB radio, said: “If a motion to spill the leadership is successful, I want to hear out the candidates, because what I want is clarity and vision about where we need to go, because we do need to be revealing clearly who we’re fighting for.”
When Taylor lost a leadership vote to Ley last year, he was hampered in part by his contentious choice to run with Jacinta Nampijinpa Price as his deputy. Hume is not as controversial a proposition because she is a former minister.
However, Hume has alienated her Moderate faction with her support for Taylor, a Right faction leader, and some key members of the Right do not support her. Some of Ley’s supporters think they could use Hume’s candidacy to deter undecided MPs from voting for Taylor.
Wilson, Zoe McKenzie, Dan Tehan, and Melissa McIntosh have all been suggested as deputy options for Taylor.
Taylor’s delay in speaking to the media on Wednesday night puzzled some of his colleagues. Also, his office deleted a video he posted on social media explaining his move on Wednesday night, raising further questions about the decisiveness of his challenge.
Labor was quick to jump on Taylor’s record as shadow treasurer on Thursday.
“The problem for Angus Taylor is that he was Peter Dutton’s right-hand man. He led the charge to lift taxes on Australians, to lift the deficits, to cut working from home, to cut tens of thousands of frontline jobs, and the kicker – to bring in nuclear energy to drive up power prices,” Environment Minister Murray Watt said on Nine’s Today show.
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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.
