3 months ago
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It wasn’t until 4.30pm on Thursday that senior Liberals were confident Mark Speakman would resign.
It had been a tumultuous 24 hours.
Soon after Speakman delivered a speech at the annual NSW Press Gallery drinks on Wednesday night, three senior powerbrokers – moderates Chris Rath and James Wallace, and centre-right Scott Farlow – filed into the opposition leader’s office to deliver a frank assessment of the political dynamics facing him.
Mark Speakman resigned as Liberal Party leader on Thursday evening.Credit: Janie Barrett
Liberal frontbencher Alister Henskens had been courting MPs – driving across Sydney to promise promotions, trying to peel off votes. He told MPs he was one vote away from having the numbers, two sources said.
While no one explicitly told the Cronulla MP that he should resign, the meeting was intended to be an unsubtle suggestion that his time was up, senior sources privy to the discussion said. In retrospect, senior MPs believe the conversation should have been blunter.
In any case, most MPs left Macquarie Street that evening believing that Speakman would resign the next morning.
“It was everything up to tapping him on the shoulder,” one MP said.
But then all hell broke loose.
Taking umbrage at newspaper articles suggesting he was done after news of Wednesday’s meeting leaked, Speakman launched into a series of radio and TV interviews declaring: “Reports of my death are grossly exaggerated, and I’m here to fight.”
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“It was a bad start to the morning,” one Liberal MP said. “I don’t know why he did that.
“Who was in his ear? It could have been [his chief of staff] Cheryl [Gwilliam], or it could have been [former Liberal minister and friend] Rob Stokes.”
The Cambridge-educated silk then lined up interviews with almost every media outlet, including the Herald, for Thursday afternoon. Several MPs who tried to speak to Speakman, either over the phone or in person, were unsuccessful.
“It was almost farcical,” one MP said. “MPs who turned up at his door were turned away. Cheryl locked all the doors to the [opposition leader’s] office.”
A second delegation comprising senior moderate Mark Coure, conservative Damien Tudehope and Farlow again tried to talk Speakman down about 1pm. Speakman turned them away, but this second effort appeared to soften his resolve. He indicated he would be willing to talk to them privately.
The hastily arranged media interviews were cancelled just as abruptly due to “unforeseen reasons”.
From about 2.30pm, frontbenchers Coure, Tudehope and Natalie Ward each spoke privately to Speakman. They discussed the party’s direction and the need for change, Liberal sources unauthorised to speak publicly confirmed. About the same time, the member for Vaucluse, Kellie Sloane, messaged Speakman to ask if they could talk.
Speakman’s final conversation before meeting Sloane was with Rob Stokes.
During their meeting, Sloane confirmed that she wished to be the party’s leader.
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