4 weeks ago
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February 2, 2026 — 5:00am
Supporters of Angus Taylor pressured Liberal leadership rival Andrew Hastie to park his leadership ambitions, creating friction in the party’s conservative wing and complicating its push to oust Opposition Leader Sussan Ley.
Fresh details of the Liberal Party dispute follow a covert meeting in Melbourne on Thursday, held ahead of the funeral of Liberal MP Katie Allen, where powerbrokers sought to end a debate over which MP should challenge Ley following the breakdown of the partnership with the Nationals.
Hastie pulled out of the race on Friday, a day after the meeting in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs where leading right-wingers Senator James Paterson and former MP Michael Sukkar made the case that Hastie, 43, had years ahead of him and it was Taylor’s time. Others in the meeting, including frontbencher Jonno Duniam, wanted Hastie to contest the leadership.
Taylor, the former shadow treasurer under Peter Dutton, has been talking to Hastie’s supporters to soften the blow since the West Australian bowed out. Ultimately, the group would back any right-wing candidate over Ley in a ballot, even if some of the zeal has been taken out of the conservative push for a spill.
At Canberra airport on Sunday, Duniam, one of the party’s most influential conservatives, was asked if a spill would occur this week. He said: “You’d have to ask someone who wants to put their hand up.”
Asked if Taylor should quit the frontbench if he pushes on with plans for a spill, Duniam said: “That’s a matter for Mr Taylor, and if that’s what he’s going to do, that’s something he can answer.”
Politicians return to Canberra this week amid uncertainty about the leadership of both the Liberals and the Nationals, and the prospect of a long-term Coalition split. Nationals leader David Littleproud is expected to survive a leadership contest in a meeting on Monday, while Ley and her leadership team attempted to steer the conversation to a possible interest rate rise and a new deregulation agenda.
The camp behind Taylor is claiming that a handful of unaligned Liberals who voted for Ley in May have, in the past 48 hours, shown a willingness to switch. Ley defeated Taylor by a 29-25 margin in May, so a few votes could be pivotal. However, Taylor has been telling colleagues he is in no rush to strike and is seeking a more decisive win that might take weeks. A move this week is highly unlikely, but a ballot next week remains in play. The situation is fluid and reliant on other factors, such as the fate of the Coalition agreement.
The firm move to back Taylor surprised Hastie’s camp and left a bitter taste in the mouths of MPs, such as Duniam, and others, including backbenchers who were less enthusiastic about Taylor.
“This wasn’t necessarily an anyone-but-Sussan proposition. People believed in Hastie’s mission and they don’t feel Taylor represents anything different,” one senior source from the right faction said.
Some of Hastie’s backers want him to be appointed shadow treasurer should Taylor be elected leader. The sense of urgency for change is likely to be heightened by a new poll showing the Liberals in a dire position.
A Redbridge Group/Accent Research poll published on Sunday by The Australian Financial Review shows One Nation entrenched as the second most popular party, ahead of the Liberal or National parties. Labor was down 1 point from December to 34 per cent; the combined Liberal and National party vote was 19 per cent, down from 26 per cent; and One Nation was up to 26 from 17.
This masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor from January showed the Coalition at 28 per cent and Pauline Hanson’s party at 18 per cent.
Many Liberals are keen to see Ley outline policies on economic growth and immigration to reverse course and take on One Nation, which is also sapping support from Labor in some polls.
On Sunday evening, Ley and her spokesman for productivity, Andrew Bragg, announced new targets and policies to cut red tape and spur productivity, including a national “red tape tracker” so voters can keep tabs on government interventions, a new target to slash regulations, and using AI to simplify compliance regimes.
The policies reflect the wishes of big business lobby groups desperate to reverse Australia’s sclerotic productivity rate, which Ley said was being held back by Labor’s tendency to shackle the economy.
“Labor’s answer to every problem is another rule, another process, another layer of bureaucracy and that approach is failing,” she said. “Right now, our economy is being smothered by regulation, with businesses spending more time filling out forms than investing, employing and growing.”
The leader’s praetorian guard was out on Sunday, declaring her position was safe. Deputy Liberal leader Ted O’Brien threw down the gauntlet to Taylor, telling the ABC in relation to Taylor that “if you don’t support the leader, you step aside” from the shadow cabinet.
Moderate leader Anne Ruston, meanwhile, told Sky News’ Sunday Agenda: “I don’t expect a challenge to the leadership at all.”
The fate of the Coalition could influence the moves against Ley. She and Littleproud are expected to hold a meeting sometime after the Nationals party room meeting on Monday, at which backbencher Colin Boyce will move an unlikely spill motion against Littleproud.
But Liberal MPs expect the Nationals to demand the reinstatement of the three Nationals frontbenchers who breached shadow cabinet solidarity, a request Ley will find it difficult to accept and which could bake in a Coalition rupture.
Boyce made clear on Sunday morning that he would be “comprehensively defeated” but that he was hoping another MP would use the opportunity provided by his spill motion to put up their hand. However, senior MPs, including Bridget McKenzie, Michael McCormack and Matt Canavan, have all said they would not run for the top job.
“I’m pretty sure he’ll have the confidence of the room tomorrow,” Canavan said of Littleproud on Sunday.
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