There Were Liberal Party Members Who ‘Didn’t Want Peter’ to Become PM, Senator Claims

Internal sabotage, weak policies, and ideological rifts blamed for poor show.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton speaks at Mums Supporting Families In Need in Frankston, Melbourne in Australia on April 30, 2025. Dan Peled/Getty Images

After suffering one of its worst electoral defeats, the Liberal Party’s long term internal divisions between the conservative and left-leaning moderate factions are coming to the fore.

While many senior figures publicly cited a lack of economic policy as the primary cause, the conservative-leaning Senator Alex Antic pointed to deeper problems—internal sabotage and ideological division.

“I think there are people inside the party that didn’t want Peter to become the prime minister,” Antic claimed, suggesting an internal faction worked against Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

Speaking to Sky News, Antic recalled similar 2022 efforts to damage his image, accusing party insiders of leaking information to journalists.

“When I asked the question about where this had come from, I was told: Inside your walls.”

Antic was confident, however, that he could withstand any internal dissent.

“I’m number one on the ticket. I was never going to not get elected, but I suspect it damaged Peter.”

In an effort to steer the party’s direction more in line with conservative and traditional values, the senator has in recent years, recruited hundreds of churchgoers to join the party.

The effort appears to have paid off with the senator promoted to the top of the Senate ticket for the Liberal Party in SA. Senators are allocated positions on “tickets” from 1 to 6 with the number one the most likely to get a seat, and number six less likely to.

Liberal Party Senator Alex Antic speaks in Sydney at CPAC Australia on Aug. 19, 2023. Wade Zhong/The Epoch Times

Clashes Between Dutton and Liberal HQ

The senator’s comments come amid media reporting of clashes and miscommunication between the opposition leader’s office and the Liberal Party’s head office in Sydney.

Some suggest an even more nefarious relationship.

“[Liberal Party HQ] delayed. They pulled ad buys. They scoffed at strategy. They buried the message in consultant fog,” wrote former Liberal National Party (LNP) George Christensen on his X account.

“Campaigns had to chase the money from donors. Liberal campaign HQ blamed ‘admin issues.’ No alerts. No emails,” he wrote.

“At the centre of it all? The polling. The Coalition trusted a single source. No cross-checks. No review. No policy testing.”

Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton concedes defeat in Brisbane, Australia, on May 03, 2025. Dan Peled/Getty Images

The New South Wales division of the party has the most storied factional infighting among all the states.

The end result was similar to that of Canada’s centre-right Conservative Party, who were leading in the polls but at the last hurdle started to stumble badly and lost support dramatically.

Christensen’s account appears to have been backed by current Tasmanian Liberal Senator Jonathon Duniam, who on May 6, blamed head office for running a “bad campaign.”

“Many of us on the ground right across the country ... saw some pretty alarming signs, which we fed in but were ignored.

“We had bad pollsters giving us bad numbers, way off the mark, totally out of line with all of the published polling,” he told Sky News.

A Campaign Without Conviction

Echoing the sentiment of many colleagues, Antic acknowledged the campaign itself was deeply flawed.

He compared the party’s offerings to a mobile phone contract.

“You know, for the first 12 months, you'll get something free ... I would hear things like, we’re going to cut fuel excise, and I would think, great, but why only for 12 months?”

Antic was particularly disappointed that the party failed to promote its nuclear energy policy during the campaign.

“We announced what I think was a very good and sensible nuclear policy, and then wouldn’t talk about it.”

Senator Andrew Bragg, from the Liberal’s moderate faction, agreed the Coalition’s downfall was rooted in a lack of substantive policy.

“You can’t blame a campaign when you don’t have enough policies to offer the community,” he said. “We didn’t do enough on the economy or to capture the centre of Australian public support.”

NSW Senator Hollie Hughes also blamed the economic vacuum in the party’s platform.

“I feel that we have zero economic policy to sell. There was no tax policy, there was no economic narrative,” she told ABC Radio, while openly criticising Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor.

Even experts from outside felt the party wasted its time in opposition.

“In the end, the campaign asked to do too much after a wasted three years in which hard policy development was shirked and tough decisions to strengthen an underperforming frontbench were avoided,” Mark Kenny, professor at ANU’s Australian Studies Institute

Ideological Tug-of-War

Antic believes the Liberal Party’s internal crisis is not a recent phenomenon, but the result of a long decline in conviction-led conservatism.

“The problem did not come up in the last four weeks to [the] election,” he said. “We have to look back [at] the last 20 years of conservative politics where we simply have waved and smiled and nodded and pushed things through.”

Antic argued that the party needs to shift decisively to the right, taking inspiration from the transformation of the Republican Party in the United States under Donald Trump.

“The Republican Party is stronger under a stronger conservative leader. And I think the same is true here,” he said.

He invoked Trump’s populist slogan, tying it directly to the Liberal Party’s future. “We have to do is make sure that we make the Liberal Party great again. I said it. There we go. So we can ’make Australia great again.'”

The MAGA (Make America Great Again) message, launched during Trump’s 2016 campaign, has gained traction among some Australians.

Antic wants the Liberal Party to have levels of screening to make sure that “real people join up.”

“Make sure that you are getting proper ‘True Blue, Big L liberals’ who are representing your party.”

Moderate Push Back

But his vision contrasts sharply with that of Senator Bragg, who warned that the party’s drift toward culture war politics and right-wing parties like One Nation could do more harm than good.

Bragg contends that the Liberal Party’s revival depends not on adopting American-style conservatism, but on returning to strong economic credentials and appealing to “centrist” voters.

“I think the salvation here is regrouping on policy—especially economic policy,” Bragg said. “We could have done more to help households with decarbonisation, mortgages, small business investment and deregulation.”

He also criticised the party’s misreading of contemporary Australian life, particularly in its approach to social issues.

His concerns echo an ongoing internal debate—whether the party should veer further right to reclaim votes from minor parties like One Nation and Clive Palmer’s Trumpets of Patriots, or instead re-centre itself to try win back inner-city moderates and younger voters.

This ideological split mirrors tensions seen across centre-right parties in Western democracies.

While many parties still struggle, the Republican Party in the United States has largely abandoned any attempt to appeal to “moderates” or centre-left voters, and has fully embraced the MAGA doctrine.

Whether the Liberal Party follows a similar trajectory or takes a more centrist path will shape its future—and its prospects in the next election.